Origen y Evolución de la Cooperación Internacional

While only three women identified that specialist risk assessments had been ordered to assist the court in making decisions about the suitability of contact, more were aware that men had been referred to a domestic violence perpetrator programme (DVPP).

Women’s perspectives on DVPPs were complex. Risk assessments were reported to be more accurate and cognisant of strategies used by abusive men to terrorise women and children while disguising their behaviour from others.

The best report so far I’ve had is a DVPP risk assessment. It really understood the issues and the impact on the children

(Jessie)

[The] DVPP seemed to be pretty on the ball. The report that they made was pretty accurate... They said that myself and my daughter were in physical and mental danger if he was allowed access

(Mel)

However, women were less confident about programme impacts. Some were disappointed that their ex-partners were allowed back on programmes after breaching conditions of attendance, perceiving that multiple chances were given even when men did not appear committed to behavioural change.

They disappointed me later on... I was told that he only got one chance on the courses, and if you get kicked off then that’s it, you don’t get on another one. And he did get kicked off the course because he abused the girl he was with and I was

specifically told that any violence once he’d started on this course, that’s your lot, you’re off, game over. So when I found out he’d been kicked off the course I thought that’s it, the case is over because without completing the course and then having another report done at the end of it, he couldn’t see her. So as far as I was concerned that was it. But we go back to court the next time, and they are going to have him back on another course... that really upset me... he stopped going after a few weeks, he left that one, just walked away. So no second report was ever done, as there was nothing to report on

(Mel)

That cases could not be resolved until men had completed lengthy programmes was also a source of frustration.

He is on the domestic violence course. He got suspended so that is why [the case] is taking longer. They have taken him back on

the course

(Zoe)

If he’d completed the course that he’s not even started, then they’ll speak to my son [about whether she wants to see him]. Because he hasn’t even done that, they’ve no need to speak to him or me anymore... I feel like I’m just waiting for him to do the

course, when he wants to do it

A key finding from women’s experiences of expert reports is the lack of knowledge of domestic violence, with only specialist organisations displaying appropriate awareness of how to assess risk and harm.

Summary

Women’s journeys through private law proceedings reveal that many were uninformed about the purpose of different hearings, and all too frequently their accounts of violence were disbelieved or deemed not relevant to child contact. Proceedings were ongoing over many years, meaning that women and children’s everyday routines were subject to intervention and variation by different court orders. Some practices that have been progressively entrenched in private law proceedings, such as mediation, compounded perpetrators’ ability to continue manipulation and intimidation. This perhaps reflects in no small part that domestic violence is mostly understood by courts only as physical abuse, with the coercive and controlling dimensions rarely recognised. Absence of special facilities in family court proceedings had serious implications for women’s safety and well-being and acted as a barrier to their equal participation in proceedings.

At the same time, a number of promising practices also emerged. For example, where women did feel believed by legal representatives, judges and agencies such as CAFCASS and Social Services, they were more confident that impacts of violence on children would be factored into contact decisions. Risk assessments conducted by specialist domestic violence perpetrator programmes consistently identified harms and risks more accurately, reinforcing that this should be standard practice (Newman, 2010). Finding of fact hearings offered a vital opportunity to present evidence of violence before the court. Judicial continuity,

recommended by the Family Justice Review (MoJ, DfE & WAG, 2011) and endorsed by the Government response (MoJ & DfE, 2012), supports the capacity of judges to take violence into account, increases speed and efficiency and, most of all, enhances case management and thus the experience and outcomes for victim-survivors and their children.

Overall, however, findings here support previous research that decisions about child contact are routinely separated from men’s violence (Eriksson & Hester, 2001; Kaye et al, 2003; Harrison, 2008; Thiara & Gill, 2012), and therefore formally establishing whether the violence had occurred was often

unimportant. Solicitors, barristers and victim-survivors had all witnessed this trend in play in the courtroom. The next section presents findings on orders made in relation to contact, both interim and final, drawing together themes from this section to their culmination in judicial decision-making.

There should be no automatic assumption that contact to a previously or currently violent partner is in the child’s interest; if anything, the assumption should be in the opposite direction

(Sturge & Glaser, 2000: 623)

The proceedings are still ongoing after five years of my child saying they don’t want to see him. There is no outcome yet. I am still afraid there will be contact

(Hasina)

This section concludes the journey through legal proceedings, presenting data on the contact orders made by the court and women, children’s and legal professionals’ perspectives on them.