A mother has won a High Court appeal against a judge’s decision which would have allowed her child to stay overnight with the father, who had raped and abused the mother.
Lawyers for the mother told a hearing earlier this month that the decision to continue overnight contact between the primary-school-aged girl and the child’s father puts the child at potential physical risk because of the father’s violent and coercive behaviour.
Lawyer Charlotte Proudman, representing the mother, said a judge had concluded the child’s father, who is a serving member of the armed forces, had begun a sexual relationship with the mother.
The mum was 15 years old and he was 24. He asubsequently raped, abused and sexually assaulted her, the judge also found.
Ms Proudman alleged the father has continued to be coercive and controlling after the 2021 findings, which he denies.
The court in London was told that the father believes the mother is deliberately ‘undermining his involvement in the life of their child’, who was called the pseudonym Amy in Thursday’s judgment.
In March, a family court judge ordered a further fact-finding hearing to take place later this year, to examine the father’s alleged continued abuse.
The judge also allowed the child to continue to stay with her father for two nights every other week.
Carl Geary, representing the father, said the mother had agreed to the overnight contact at a previous hearing and therefore the decision should stand.
Ms Proudman said her client was vulnerable and without legal support at the time and described her as a ‘rape victim ordered to promote contact with her rapist’.
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In a judgment on Thursday, Mr Justice Peel granted the mother’s appeal and reduced the father’s contact with the child to alternate Tuesdays after school and Saturdays.
He said: ‘Domestic abuse is a vile, indefensible scourge in our society. The findings made by the court against the father in 2021 … are very grave indeed.
‘The mother’s allegations of continuing abusive behaviour since then are cause for concern, and have to be seen in the light of the 2021 findings.’
Learn more about rape in the UK
- According to Rape Crisis, 6.5million women in England and Wales have been raped or sexually assaulted, but 5 in 6 women don’t report rape
- The number of sexual offences in England and Wales reached a record high of 193,566 in in the year ending March 2022
- UCL research found that rape offences have the highest not guilty plea rate of any offence (85%) and this has been the case consistently for 15 years
- ONS data reveals almost half of all rapes are perpetrated by a woman’s partner or ex-partner, and End Violence Against Women have said that the victim knows the perpetrator in 85% of cases
- The ONS also found that more than 1 in 5 victims were unconscious or asleep when they were raped
He continued: ‘This was, it seems to me, a finely balanced decision. In the end, I conclude that his order maintaining overnight contact tipped to the wrong side of the balancing scales.’
The High Court judge said that the previous judge had given the case ‘anxious consideration’ but was ultimately wrong and should have allowed more limited contact on an interim basis.
‘In my judgment, the gravity of the allegations, and potential impact on Amy, was such that it was unsafe to continue with overnight contact,’ he said.
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