Family
courts failing children
By Frances Gibb, Legal Editor
The Times - 30th December 2003
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-946819,00.html
THE
head of Britain's family lawyers has accused the Government of leaving
children to be brought up by one parent because of its failure to revamp
a "creaking and underfunded" divorce courts system. David
Burrows, chairman of the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA), says
that the system for determining contact with children and custody is
failing, leaving access rows between divorced or separated parents unresolved.
The attack from the leader of the 5,000-strong association is contained
in the January issue of the SFLA's news-letter. It comes at a time of
increasing pressure from fathers who say that their rights of access
to children are denied and that courts allow mothers to breach contact
orders with impunity. Mr Burrows says ministers were "apparently
deaf" to recommendations that came after an inquiry into the system
chaired by Mr Justice Nicholas Wall, almost two years ago. "Family
courts are failing the children and their parents which they are set
up to serve," he says. "Proceedings start in an ill-co-ordinated
way: there is no consistent procedure around the country. There is no
clear view about the extent to which mature children should be involved
in proceedings or at court." Mediation services are patchy, he
says, while court welfare officers are under- resourced, of limited
availability and slow in producing reports. "For lack of resources
they often add to the delays in children proceedings, thus deepening
the frustration of a parent whose contact is limited and adding further
to the degradation of the welfare of children concerned." The Department
for Constitutional Affairs said that it had taken Mr Justice Wall's
recommendations seriously and hoped to produce a set of proposals for
change in the new year.
