Domestic Abuse and Family Courts: A Broken System Putting Children at Risk

Deanna Newell
Aug 10
3 min read

Every year, tens of thousands of families walk into family courtrooms hoping for protection, justice, or simply to be heard. Around 30,000 of those cases involve allegations of domestic abuse.

But here is the truth: Most of those victims will never even get a fact-finding hearing.

The very mechanism designed to determine whether abuse occurred — the fact-finding hearing — is used in only a small fraction of cases.

The result?

Abuse is ignored. Victims are silenced. And children are placed in harm’s way.

A Culture That Doesn’t Believe Victims

The family court system in England and Wales has a deep, dangerous flaw at its core: it clings to the belief that a relationship with both parents is always in a child’s best interests — even when there are clear signs of risk.

Victims — overwhelmingly women — are routinely disbelieved, discredited, or accused of being “difficult.”

Allegations of coercive control are brushed aside. Emotional abuse is minimised. And the pressure to agree to unsafe contact arrangements is relentless.

This isn’t about fairness.

It’s about institutional blindness.

Supervised Contact Doesn’t Heal Trauma

Even when courts acknowledge that abuse might have taken place, the default response is supervised contact.

But that doesn’t undo the damage.

For children who have lived in fear, witnessed violence, or been emotionally manipulated, supervised visits don’t feel safe — they feel like punishment.

They don’t offer protection.

They reinforce the abuser’s presence.

They retraumatise children who need space, healing, and safety.

When Survivors Ask for Fact-Finding — And Are Denied

In case after case, survivors raise serious safeguarding concerns: coercive control, emotional abuse, trauma, and threats to a child’s wellbeing. Yet they are frequently shut down, particularly by Cafcass.

Meanwhile, abusers weaponise the concept of “parental alienation” — using it as a legal strategy to discredit victims and reframe abuse as “conflict.”

Instead of identifying patterns of harm, Cafcass often:-

Labels the case as “high conflict”
Pushes for “amicable co-parenting”
Dismisses abuse as “historical” or irrelevant

This creates a dangerous false narrative — as if both parents are just failing to get along, rather than acknowledging the reality:

One is a victim. The other is a perpetrator.

The consequences?

No fact-finding takes place
The abuse is never formally acknowledged
Unsafe contact is pushed forward — often against the child’s wishes

This is not safeguarding.

It’s complicity.

When the System Enables Abuse

The most dangerous abusers don’t stop when the relationship ends — they just change tactics. Family court becomes their new weapon:-

Dragging the victim back to court again and again
Withholding child maintenance as punishment
Making repeated, manipulative applications
Using contact as a tool of control

And the Family Court lets it happen.

Without fact-finding, the system operates in the dark.

And too often, it refuses to turn on the light.

This Is Not Justice

We’re told that the family courts act in the “best interests of the child.”

But when the system downplays abuse, silences victims, and enforces contact at all costs — that phrase becomes meaningless.

What does “best interests” mean when a child is traumatised, frightened, or ignored?

Victims are told to “move on.”

Children are told to “rebuild relationships.”

Abusers are given the benefit of the doubt — again and again.

What Needs to Change

This broken culture will not fix itself. We need:

Mandatory, early fact-finding hearings in every case involving abuse allegations
Specialist training for judges, Cafcass, and professionals on coercive control and trauma
A total rethink of the assumption that contact is always best
Accountability when children and survivors are put at risk

Until that happens, family courts will keep failing the very people they are meant to protect — and enabling abusers to continue, with legal backing.

This isn’t justice. It’s state-sanctioned harm.

Deanna Newell Family Law

Advocacy for truth-tellers, survivors, and the children who deserve better