The ruling in Bell v Tavistock, on 1st December 2020 was that children under 16 were unlikely to be able to consent to taking puberty blockers and cross sex hormones and that these cases should be brought before the court for a decision. In response The Good Law Project launched it’s ‘Trans Defence Fund’ to […]
This post began as a talk I gave for White Paper Conferences in February 2021 looking at the complex issues, both legal and practical, around deprivation of liberty orders for children of all ages. I will continue to update it. The importance of freedom of movement. Your freedom to come and go as you wish […]
This is the text of a talk I gave at a Stowe Family Law Webinar on 24th February 2021. I discussed the often stark polarising views about parental alienation and how parents can attempt to navigate the court system. I stress that I am NOT talking about cases were one parent has been found to […]
This is the text of a talk given to Bath Resolution on November 3rd 2020. It is time to take stock about where we are now with ‘parental alienation’. Sadly, in so many areas of life and law, our ‘public debate’ appears to descend into pushing and shoving between two distinctly opposed groups. I have […]
Imogen (No. 6) [2020] FamCA 761; (10 September 2020) This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. This is a case from the Family Court in Australia – so of interest to those of us in England and Wales as our jurisdictions share a common history. It is a case that makes much of Gillick competence […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. The case of R v P (Children: Similar Fact Evidence) [2020] EWCA Civ 1088 is of interest to family lawyers for its technical examination of when ‘similar fact’ evidence should be allowed in family cases. But it is also of wider interest for how it illustrates what I […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore I am writing this post because I am concerned that there is a strong view in certain circles that ‘parental alienation’ either does not exist or is very rare and used as a deliberate strategy by violent men to deny contact with children to the mothers they oppress. […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore EDIT 26th March 2021 The appeal failed. The Court of Appeal commenting at para 89 that the Judge had conducted the ultimate balancing test with meticulous care and demonstrated no error of law. Newman deserves credit for her tenacity and is no doubt very disappointed with this result […]
St Johns Chambers Family Forum May 14th 2020Case law and guidance on remote hearings See also this post for further links to commentary, case law and guidance Sarah Phillimore Introduction Our ways of working, overnight changed dramatically. No one has ever faced this situation before. As the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory reported on May 6th […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. The Nuffield consultation is open until April 28th 2020, so please comment. At the time of writing – April 17th – the UK is in its 3rd week of ‘lockdown’ in response to the global pandemic and efforts to reduce the spread of COVID 19. Courts have been […]