This article originally appeared in T&S Issue 35, Summer 1997.
In the last twelve months at least one woman — Dawn Austin — has been imprisoned for refusing to hand her children over for contact with their violent father. Countless other women have been threatened with prison if they refuse to comply with orders made by the court. Sandra McNeill outlines the issues, interviews Dawn Austin and reports on feminist campaigns to challenge the presumption of father right.
The law does not say a child should have contact with both parents. What the law says, is that decisions on residency and contact should be taken in the best interests of the child. However for some reason this is being interpreted by Court Welfare Officers and by Judges to mean that the child must have contact with the father no matter how unsuitable he is to care for the child, and no matter that he has abused the mother and even the child, in the past.
Marianne Hester and Lorraine Radford’s research on child contact in the context of domestic violence is revealing. They followed 53 women in England and 24 in Denmark through the process. Most women wanted the children to see their fathers and tried hard to maintain the contact. However, contact arrangements broke down because of the men’s continuing violence and abuse. All of the post-separation violence was linked in some way to child contact. In only 7 out of the 53 English cases and 2 out of 24 in Denmark was contact eventually set up in a way that there was no further abuse of the mother or children — at the time of final interview.
In both countries there was an assumption that contact with the father was in the child’s interest — however in Denmark there was a greater emphasis on listening to the children and so they were more likely to recommend no contact or supervised contact.
In neither country was concern shown for protecting the woman from further violence. The professionals all assumed that the violence was in the past. Women’s Aid refuges exist because men are so dangerous after women leave. Why do the courts assume the man will now cease to be violent? In neither country was there awareness of the impact on children of witnessing their fathers assault their mothers, though this has been well documented. Finally, the professionals did not ask the children about their experiences of violence on contact visits. In this study these included
- threats to kill the children
- sexual abuse
- physical abuse — punching slapping kicking
- child snatching and keeping the children against their will
- failure to treat a sick child (he died)
- pumping children for information on their mother’s whereabouts or activities
- using children to convey threatening or abusive messages to the mother
- involving the children in plans to kill the mother
- neglect and inability to care for the children resulting from alcohol or drug abuse.
Hester and Radford conclude:
In circumstances of domestic violence, contact should not be presumed to be in the best interests of the child. The starting point should be a presumption of no contact, with the possibility of contact only if this can be arranged safely for both mother and child.
Women’s Aid Federation, England (WAFE) and Rights of Women (ROW) have started campaigning to bring about this change in law. This is needed. But as usual more than law needs to change. There needs to be a change in the assumption that contact with the father — any kind of father — is good for the child. At the moment Judges and some Court Welfare professionals are more concerned with coercing mothers and punishing them when they refuse contact, as the story of Dawn Austin illustrates.
Dawn Austin’s Story
Dawn Austin was the first woman in UK to be jailed for refusing to agree contact for her child with a violent ex-partner. While she was in jail she found out Social Services had organised contact with the father. So her staying in jail was not protecting her daughter. She then agreed to contact — as it was happening anyway, and because she feared if she stayed in jail his mother would apply for a residency order.
Dawn Austin and Lee Norton got together when she was 22 and he 20. Dawn had a son, Kane, from an earlier relationship. Within 6 months Lee had turned violent. Troy was born in January 1992 but Lee took no interest in her — for 2 years. ‘She was just a noise to him’. Dawn threw him out and promised her children ‘he will never hurt us again’. But some months later Lee demanded contact with Troy. Dawn defied court order after court order: ‘I didn’t want that thug anywhere near my daughter’. In October 1996 Judge William Poulton sentenced Dawn to six weeks in Holloway declaring, ‘It would be far less damaging for Troy to see her mother go to prison than to grow up without a father’.
Judge Poulton like other judges in the UK seems to have been indoctrinated with the idea that contact with your father — no matter what or who he is — is good for you. The court was told that Lee is: violent, diagnosed as schizophrenic and has received treatment for this, a drug user (amphetamines and heroin) and alcoholic. He had tried to cut Dawn’s throat. He had tried to throw Dawn and Troy off a balcony — when Dawn finally threw him out (the police were called and saved them). He has made numerous threats to kill Dawn and kill Troy saying, ‘If I cannot have her, you can’t either’. Most worrying to Dawn is his history of suicide attempts — she fears one day he will kill Troy and himself.
For all these sensible reasons Dawn refused to comply with court orders to give him contact. Lee meanwhile was harassing her and watching her flat. She applied for an injunction but the judge would not grant it as she was ‘disobeying the court’. The judge recognised the danger to her by imposing such an order the moment she complied. (He asked Lee to give an undertaking to stay away from Dawn making clear if he broke it he would go to jail.)
The contact Dawn agreed to finally was ‘supervised contact’.
I thought this would mean that the worker would be in the room all the time with Lee and Troy, but they left her and Lee alone. The worker said to Troy, ‘If you need me just call’. So supervised contact seems to mean someone else is in the building. Occasionally a volunteer would walk through the room. I complained that contact was not being properly supervised. They explained to me that, due to lack of resources, this supervised contact could only last for a short period. The aim of supervised contact was to get the child used to the father as a step towards unsupervised contact. I was not told that when I agreed to it.
Dawn was prepared to go to prison rather than agree to contact which she thought was dangerous. She was sentenced for contempt of court. Whilst she was in prison the judge ordered contact to take place. Since staying in prison wasn’t protecting Troy, Dawn decided to purge her contempt. Contact now takes place at Lee’s mother’s. It is five hours every other Saturday. Lee and his girlfriend (also a heroin user) applied for residency but the judge just laughed at them. So he knows they are not suitable. In stepped Lee’s mother. She had also applied for contact. So the courts see this as the solution.
She has four grandchildren and she sees them all on contact orders on the Saturday as all his brothers are as bad as him. The courts used the fact that she was successfully supervising contact for her other grandchildren as being a reason why she could supervise contact between Lee and Troy. But if he were really determined to take Troy away and harm her, she would not be able to stop him. He has no interest in Troy. He never has had. It is just to keep tracks into my life.
I asked how Troy was coping. She is OK so far. She has said she would prefer not to go:
‘I am going as I don’t want my Mummy to go back to the naughty Mummies’ home’. Troy is so scared of him. She remembers him hitting me. She remembers him trying to throw us off the balcony. She should be heard.
The judge refused to appoint a guardian ad litem [person appointed by a court to represent the interests of the child] to represent Troy as he considered her too young. He made it clear he did not want to hear about the child objecting to contact. He said, ‘Whether she is crying or screaming or whatever she has to go and stay for the whole of the contact’.
No one seems to be concerned with the effects of all this on [my son] Kane. I think he has suffered the most. He used to call Lee, Dad, in the past. Not that he wants anything to do with him now. He supported his sister when I was in prison and he is a big support to me.
And how is Dawn now? She is afraid for Troy. And still afraid of Lee herself. She has been encouraged by the letters of support she has had but upset by some sections of the press. Some portrayed her as a total victim — which she is not — she is a fighter to protect her child. Then Families Need Fathers organised a demo against her and gave interviews saying, ‘She is not a martyr. She is irresponsible’, and making racist remarks.
I am not against all contact. If he had been a caring responsible person I would have allowed him contact. But he is not. He is a monster.
And the future? If Lee breaches any order Dawn will be straight back to court. More generally she says:
Judges should be more up to it. The (current ones) have never had a hard day in their lives. They do not understand. The children should be heard. They say the child’s interest is paramount but it is not.
One of the positive things to come out of Dawn’s case is a support group for mothers contesting contact, based at Canterbury Women’s Resource Centre.
Women’s Support Group
Canterbury Women’s Resource centre runs various women’s groups and drop ins. They have been a great support to Dawn generally, since she got the courage to come out the house and make friends (Lee had kept her in, apart from shopping, for six years). When Dawn was disobeying the courts a Women’s Support Group formed, initially just for her case but now supporting other women and beginning to campaign.
Many of the women in the group have also experienced domestic violence and some have had custody battles. Yvonne Wood is one. She split up with her violent boyfriend before her baby was born. Though he came to see the baby initially it did not work out. He came round on one occasion unexpectedly and tried to grab the baby… the police came and told him to leave.
About four years later when he heard Yvonne had got engaged to the man who is now her husband, he started a battle for custody and access (as contact was called). ‘What he wanted was control. He is a total control freak’.
Yvonne finally won after three and a half years, although she went as far as being threatened with prison. What helped her win was a number of things such as her child being older and having a guardian ad litem — and the fact that his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend were prepared to testify against her ex regarding incidents of ‘borderline child sexual abuse’.
I want to be clear that I and the group, are not against contact. Only when the man has been violent. The father of my older child is supportive and I organise contact with him.
The aim of the group is to change the law regarding custody cases and domestic violence.
We want domestic violence to be taken into account, as it is not in a child’s best interest to have contact when there is a history of domestic violence, especially where the child has witnessed the violence. In New Zealand if there has been violence there is no contact with the perpetrator. That is what it should be here.
As an interim measure they want some changes in practice.
Currently all these cases are held behind closed doors. You should be allowed a Mackenzie friend [supporter with some legal knowledge] in with you. At present once you are in with the judge they treat you like shit. Stand up. Sit Down. You have no dignity. And solicitors.. they don’t want to rock the boat.
Solicitors always tell you, you must obey the law. But we are fighting to protect our children. The solicitors always seem to start from the idea that we have to go along with it. That some contact is going to be ordered so all we can do is minimise it. What they don’t seem to understand is that when you agree to any contact the other side just see that as a foot in the door. Once you agree to say, two hours, then soon they are back wanting overnight. And it goes on from there.
The group is supporting other women fighting cases — encouraging them to do so — where the man has been violent and the women fear for themselves or their children.
They are also writing to MPs: ‘They say they are sympathetic but can’t get involved in the judicial process’ and compiling a dossier of cases to send to the Lord Chancellor. ‘The judges make the orders but who is responsible if it goes wrong?’ They are keen to work with other groups doing similar work and/or who share their aims (see box at end for address).
WAFE Action
WAFE have produced a briefing entitled ‘Contact Orders and Domestic Violence’. They argue for a change in the law — similar to that in New Zealand — where contact is not allowed to take place unless and until it has been shown to be safe for ‘all parties including the parents’.
Refuges have been reporting more and more cases where child contact orders have been granted to men who have been violent to the mother and sometimes the child. Not surprisingly, they report that abuse and threats took place during or after subsequent contact visits. Thangham Debbonaire, the national children’s worker says:
Women feel pressured or threatened into agreeing to contact arrangements which they feel are unsafe for themselves and for their children, with no recourse to change the situation even when it becomes dangerous for her or her family. Women tell us that they are told that their own safety is not relevant to the case.
The Children Act requires the courts to consider ‘any harm’ the child ‘has suffered or is at risk of suffering’ when deciding cases. WAFE point to the research which has shown the effects on children of witnessing violence against their mother and the links between the abuse of children and the abuse of women. They intend to highlight this. In addition they point to the fact that ‘Many of the men in these cases were not capable of meeting even the basic needs of children, having never taken responsibility for them before’.
WAFE highlight another problem. Men are using the Children Act ‘as a form of detective service to trace women who are often in fear for their lives’. In many cases the men do not bother to keep up arrangements for contact with the children, once they have used the contact orders to find where the woman is living.
WAFE are engaged in carrying out training for Court Welfare on this issue, and in some parts of the country there has been some improvement but whether or not a violent man is granted contact, should not depend on where he happens to apply for the contact order. So WAFE are concerned to work with the Probation Service (under which Court Welfare comes) to develop policy. They argue, so far without success, that there should be compulsory training for the judiciary on issues around domestic violence. WAFE continue to lobby Parliament and all political parties on this issue, and the Lord Chancellor has just agreed to send copies of the briefing to judges in the Family Division, and other relevant parties.
I asked WAFE what readers of Trouble & Strife could do. They ask all readers to write to their (new) MPs and raise this issue. You can also write to the Secretary of State for Health, who is responsible for the Children Act. Send copies of your replies to Thangham and the Women’s support Group (addresses below).
The Best Interests Campaign
Rights of Women (ROW) is co-ordinating a campaign to change the law and practice of the Children Act — to promote the safety and well being of women and children in relation to contact. Lucy Anderson said: ‘In particular we want to establish a clear presumption against contact between children and violent fathers’.
Campaigning action being considered includes lobbying for amendments to the Children Act, promoting test cases and pressing for judicial training. ROW have also conducted a survey of solicitors and will shortly be publishing their results.
The campaign is provisionally called ‘The Best Interests Campaign’.
If you have a story to contribute, need a sympathetic solicitor in your area or want to help the ROW campaign, the contact address is below.
Leeds Case
Recently in Leeds a father refused to hand over his daughter to his mother in law after a contact visit. The mother came. He dragged her into the house and held her at knife point. The police arrived. They witnessed him threatening to kill her and threatening her with the knife all in front of the child. Before he was disarmed he also threatened a police officer with the knife.
The police and Crown Prosecution Service took this incident very seriously and referred him to the Crown Court charged with two counts of threats to kill and one of false imprisonment. There His Honour Judge Charlesworth said he did not think a trial was appropriate because it was a domestic incident. He asked if there were any formal contact arrangements. (No). He suggested they go to the Family Court for this.
He said: ‘A trial is not in anyone’s interests. It is in the interest of the child that her parents stop warring’.
References
Marianne Hester and Lorraine Radford Domestic Violence and Child Contact Arrangements in England and Denmark (Policy Press, 1996)