A High Court judge has overturned a family court’s decision allowing a father overnight contact with his child, ruling the original order was a mistake given the serious domestic abuse findings made against him, as reported by The Law Society Gazette.
In the case of V v V & Anor, the child’s mother successfully appealed a child arrangement order that had permitted overnight stays with the father, despite a 2021 ruling that found he had subjected her to rape and coercive control. That earlier decision also led to the mother being granted a non-molestation order and an occupation order.
Presiding over the appeal, Mr Justice Peel described domestic abuse as “a vile, indefensible scourge in our society,” and noted the gravity of the previous findings against the father. While those findings were made during Family Law Act proceedings rather than under the Children Act, Justice Peel emphasised their significance when determining the risks posed to the child.
The mother had alleged that the abusive behaviour continued after 2021, and although the father also levelled serious accusations against the mother, these too required proper investigation. The judge stressed that such claims, if substantiated, could have significant implications for the child’s welfare.
The original child arrangement order had been made by an experienced recorder who had also handled the earlier Family Law Act hearing. While Justice Peel acknowledged the recorder’s familiarity with the case and the complexity of the issues involved, he ultimately found that the decision to allow overnight stays “tipped to the wrong side of the balancing scales.”
Justice Peel concluded that the recorder, despite giving the case “anxious consideration,” should have erred on the side of caution and restricted contact further during the interim period. The High Court therefore discharged the overnight contact order and replaced it with unsupervised daytime visits, pending further inquiry into the allegations from both parents.
The ruling reinforces the importance of safeguarding in child contact decisions, particularly where serious allegations of domestic abuse are involved.
