A, Re [2025] EWFC 101 (B) (26 March 2025)

This judgment was handed down on 26 March 2025 and released to The National Archives on 16 April 2024 at 4pm upon the application of the parties.

Her Honour Judge Nott

Introduction

1. This judgment is given at the conclusion of a three-day fact-finding hearing in private law proceedings concerning child arrangements relating to A, a girl now aged four. A currently resides with her Mother, the Respondent in proceedings, in a confidential location, and currently has letterbox contact with her Father via her Mother's solicitors. A was subject to an interim supervision order imposed at an urgent hearing on 20 June 2024 following the Father's application to the court for a child arrangements (lives with) order dated 17 June 2024. At that hearing A was joined as a party and is represented in these proceedings through her NYAS Caseworker,. The interim supervision order was discharged on 8 August 2024 and A lives with her Mother pursuant to an interim child arrangements order made on 11 November 2024.

2. A's Mother has had previous local authority involvement relating to her older children who are no longer in her care. Historic concerns surrounded the Mother being the victim of a domestically abusive relationship with the father of her older children and her substance misuse. When it became known to the local authority that the Mother was pregnant with A, PLO began due to concerns that the Mother again was in a domestically abusive relationship, this time with A's Father. The local authority had concerns about the high level of violence that they considered the Mother was subjected to at the hands of the Father and also about the Mother's tendency to minimise the same and her lack of transparency about the nature of her relationship with him. Care proceedings commenced on an urgent basis on 24 February 2021, when A was two days old. The agreed final Threshold document has been disclosed by the relevant local authority for this hearing.

3. The Mother and A moved into a mother and baby foster placement where they remained for a year. During this time and under the umbrella of care proceedings the Mother underwent a Parenting Assessment, a Psychological Assessment and a Domestic Violence Vulnerability Assessment. The conclusion of all three assessments was that the Mother has the ability to care for A so long as she remains abstinent from drugs, from violent relationships and engages honestly with professionals. The domestic violence worker reported in May 2021 that the Mother needed intervention to improve her self-esteem and to understand domestic abuse, and that she further required long-term therapeutic input to address her history of victimisation.

4. The Father chose not to be involved in the care proceedings and so did not undergo any form of assessment.

5. The Mother underwent a ten-week bespoke treatment programme which concluded in September 2021 with which she engaged fully and well. It was noted at the conclusion of that programme that she had achieved physical separation from the Father but would need 'on-going support to maintain her resolve to remain independent from him and develop her understanding of her attachment difficulties via on-going confidential therapy'. At that time the Mother maintained that she did not have the contact details of the Father and said that was determined to keep away from him. She now accepts that this was not true.

6. The Mother consistently tested negative for drugs and self-referred to a drug support programme.

7. The Mother then moved into her own accommodation with A on 16 March 2022, and care proceedings concluded on 21 April 2022 with a 12 month final supervision order.

8. Despite telling the local authority that she was no longer with the Father, the Mother in fact resumed a relationship with him. Both now say that it was an on and off relationship until it finally ended on 3 October 2023. It ended as a result of a violent incident between the Mother and the Father in respect of which the Father awaits criminal trial later this year. The police referred the incident to Children's Services and a section 47 investigation was commenced; this resulted in A being placed on a Child Protection Plan on 25 October 2023 because of concerns that the Mother might resume her relationship with the Father and thereby expose A to the risk of emotional and physical harm.

9. The local authority children's services filed a section 37 risk assessment report in these proceedings on 5 August 2024. It concluded that A had both stability and permanency in her Mother's care and is happy, settled and there are no concerns about her development. It recommended that the Mother continue to be supported under a Child Protection Plan with a plan to drop down to a Child In Need plan in due course; it did not recommend the Father having any contact beyond letterbox contact via a contact centre.

10. Although the local authority has held concerns about the Mother's transparency surrounding her relationship with the Father through the currency of the supervision order, there are no current public law orders or proceedings in respect of A, and this court is only concerned with the Father's application that A should live with him.

11. The Mother opposes the Father's application that A should live with him, and raises a number of allegations of domestic abuse, which the Father denies, and he makes a counter allegation that the Mother has hit him with a hammer. Given the seriousness of the allegations, PD 12J is engaged and so a fact find hearing was directed. Accordingly I have heard evidence over the last three days going to a composite Schedule of Allegations which I now determine.

Representation and Issues

12. The Mother is represented by Ms Javed of counsel. She seeks findings against the Father set out in the composite Schedule of Allegations. By far the most serious allegations are those of serious physical violence itemised at Allegation 1a. through to 1j. Although coercive and controlling behaviour is alleged with examples at allegation 2, in my judgement given the nature of the physical violence alleged, this allegation should be considered compendiously with allegation 1. The Mother says, broadly speaking, that she was in a relationship with the Father from 2017 to October 2023, which relationship was on and off and was punctuated with explosions of violence from the Father, first in Ireland, and then in England after she was persuaded by the Father to relocate here with him in 2019 so that he could avoid trial for inflicting very serious stab wounds to her in 2018 which left her requiring a blood transfusion, multiple stitches to her leg and plastic surgery to her face.

13. The Father is represented by Mr Sultan of counsel. He denies the Mother's allegations. He says that she is a proven liar, is mentally unwell and has a previous history of drug use and child neglect which has led to her older three children being looked after by social services in Ireland. He says that he has never been violent to the Mother, and avers that in fact, on the occasion of 2/3 October 2023 which led to his arrest and ensuing criminal charges, it was the Mother who attacked him with a hammer, injuring his foot. He denies the very serious assaults alleged in Ireland in 2018, stating that he only met the Mother in May 2019. He attributes her injuries and her visible scars to a previous relationship.

14. The Guardian, represented by Mr Horrocks, takes a neutral stance.

15. I have been greatly assisted by the written and oral submissions of counsel in this hearing. When the court has the benefit, as I have, of highly competent advocacy on each side, the issues as they relate to the evidence are illuminated as the hearing progresses, and the task of determining those issues becomes more straightforward. While the legal framework has been relatively uncontroversial, one matter aside, what was clear from the oral submissions in closing that I heard yesterday afternoon, is that at the end of this fact-finding exercise the parties remain as polarised as at the beginning; the issues are therefore stark. I am grateful for the assistance of the advocates on the evidence; ultimately the assessment of the respective reliability of the witnesses and the proper inferences to be drawn from the evidence as a whole are for me to determine.

The Hearing

Participation

16. Since the Mother asserts that she, and by extension A, are victims of the Father's domestic abuse, s.63 Domestic Abuse Act 2021 is engaged, requiring the court pursuant to Family Procedure Rule 3A.2A to assume that the quality of her evidence and her ability to participate in proceedings are diminished by reason of vulnerability. The court has therefore considered the necessity of participation directions as described in Practice Direction 3AA.

17. Pursuant to Part 3AA, participation directions have been made at this attended hearing to enable each party to participate fully and to give their best evidence. The Mother attended the first day of the hearing remotely, and when she attended to give evidence on the second day she did so from behind a screen and was afforded a separate waiting area. All parties have joined this third and final day of the hearing remotely.

Purpose

18. Where the Mother alleges domestic abuse in the guise of serious physical violence coupled with longstanding coercive control, and where the Father denies perpetrating such abuse but says the Mother attacked him with a hammer on one occasion, Practice Direction 12J is engaged. By para 16 PD12J, the purpose of this hearing is to establish:

(i) Whether the Father has perpetrated multiple and serious incidents of domestic abuse on the Mother;

(ii) Whether the Father has exercised and continues to exercise coercive control over the Mother;

(iii) Whether the Mother has perpetrated an incident of domestic abuse on the Father;

in order to inform the need and extent of any consequent necessary risk assessment and to make informed decisions about A's welfare when determining her Child Arrangements. I only need to make findings to the extent that they further these purposes.

19. For reasons that will become clear, having heard and considered the evidence in this case I have decided that I only need to make findings in respect of the serious episodes of physical violence that each party alleges, and whether or not the Father has exercised coercive control over the Mother over the course of their relationship and beyond. I will not therefore make findings in relation to allegations 3, 4 and 5 on the composite Schedule. Furthermore, allegations 6 and 7 are really subsumed within allegation 2, and I will deal with those as part and parcel of an alleged pattern of coercive control. There is a separate issue of non-fatal strangulation as part of a coercive pattern of behaviour designed to frighten and to control, to which I will return in due course.

Legal Framework

20. The party that seeks the findings set out in the Schedule of Allegations bears the burden of establishing those matters on the balance of probabilities. The court must be careful not to reverse the burden of proof: it is not for the party defending an allegation to establish that is not made out. However, through careful forensic analysis the court ought to be able to make straightforward findings drawn from the evidence, without recourse to the burden of proof as per Cobb J in R v BB (Domestic Abuse Fact-Finding) 2022 EWHC 108 (Fam).

21. The approach to fact-finding in private law family proceedings between parents should be the same as the approach in care proceedings. However, as Baroness Hale cautioned in Re W (Children) 2010 UKSC 12, there are specific risks to which the court must be alive. Allegations of abuse are not being made by a neutral and expert local authority which has nothing to gain by making them, but by a parent who is seeking to gain an advantage in the battle against the other parent. This does not mean that they are false but it does increase the risk of misinterpretation, exaggeration or downright fabrication.' These private law proceedings followed earlier public law proceedings, and the local authority has remained involved through Child Protection. The court therefore has the benefit of a wealth of local authority material and in-depth assessments.

22. Findings of fact must be firmly rooted in the evidence and not based on suspicion or speculation. I must consider all of the available evidence considering each piece of evidence in the context of the other evidence, and must avoid compartmentalising.

23. Consideration must be given to the weight that can properly be attached to hearsay evidence, particularly given that there is no opportunity to test such evidence by cross-examination.

24. If after consideration of all of the evidence an event or pattern of behaviour is shown to more likely than not have happened, then it happened, if it is not shown to have crossed that threshold then it didn't happen and must be disregarded - the so-called binary consequence.

25. The evidence of parents is of the utmost importance and I must make a clear assessment of their credibility and reliability. As to credibility, it is common for witnesses to lie in the course of investigation and hearing. They may do so for a variety of reasons - shame, misplaced loyalty, antipathy toward another party, fear, confusion and distress being examples. In public law pre-proceedings and proceedings it is not uncommon for a party to lie about the fact and extent of domestic abuse from a partner and/or about the fact of an on-going relationship with that partner out of fear that they will lose their child or children should the truth be known. Further, even if I determine that a witness has lied about one matter in evidence, it does not follow that he or she has necessarily lied about everything.

26. There is a different but related question of witness fallibility, which is a matter of reliability rather than credibility. I should bear in mind that recall of events by a witness is a process of fallible reconstruction which may be affected by external influences and supervening events, moulded by the process of litigation and the drafting of lawyers, with past beliefs being reconstructed to make them more consistent with present beliefs and motivated by a desire to give a good impression.

27. It does not follow that just because a witness has given an inconsistent account it means that his or her evidence is untrue or unreliable. Memory is affected in different ways. Some people do remember things more clearly over time, others have difficulty in recalling events accurately. For some, the passage of time may play tricks on or distort memories. Although they disagree about the cause, both parties agree that the Mother has exhibited signs of trauma; the Mother presents as vulnerable through her alleged experience of explosive violence within personal relationships; the Father says she has a history of mental illness and drug use. Whatever the cause, trauma has a well-established and increasingly well-understood effect on memory. The repetition of stressful incidents has the potential to impair memory such that an individual subject to such repeated incidents may struggle both to take in and later to recall or particularise the details. I must make careful assessment of this factor when drawing inferences from the evidence and reaching my conclusions about the facts.

28. The demeanour of a witness as they give evidence is of limited value. People react in different ways when coming to court and manage stress very differently. The presence or absence of emotion when giving evidence is not a reliable indication of whether the witness is telling the truth and being accurate or not.

29. This is a case where the central allegation is domestic abuse through a pattern of coercive control comprising emotional, psychological and physical abuse. As described in PD 12J at paragraph 3, the definitions of domestic abuse in family proceedings are as set out in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.

30. "Coercive behaviour" means an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten the victim.

31. "Controlling behaviour" means an act or pattern of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour.

32. The over-arching allegation in this case is of coercive and controlling behaviour throughout the period of the relationship, escalating from late 2018. Therefore the court must follow the guidance of the Court of Appeal in H-N and Others (Children) (Domestic Abuse: Fact-finding Hearings) [2021] EWCA Civ 448. While I must determine specific allegations, my primary focus is on patterns of behaviour and whether the evidence taken as a whole supports a finding of overarching coercive and/or controlling behaviour, even if specific alleged incidents of abuse are not established.

33. If I find as a fact that an allegation of an instance of violence has been proved, then I may consider whether that finding establishes a propensity at violence. If I am not sure that it does, then the finding cannot have any bearing on the rest of my considerations. However if I am satisfied that the finding does establish a tendency at domestic violence, then that is something that may support other specific allegations of domestic violence. However the fact that a party may have a tendency to perpetrate domestic violence generally cannot and does not of itself establish specific incidents of the same.

34. It is common experience that victims of domestic abuse may try and hide what is going on, even from those closest to them. It is common experience that abusive relationships may last for a long time and that victims of abuse may struggle to remove themselves from such a situation. It is the experience of the courts that people who are in an abusive relationship may struggle to extricate themselves from it for a whole range of reasons including fear, shame, lack of resources, family responsibilities, cultural or societal concerns and/or their own conflicting emotions towards their abuser. Further, their capacity to react to events may be compromised or blunted by their past experience or their mental or physical health. I bear all this in mind when assessing the evidence against the issues in this case.

The Evidence

35. This fact-finding hearing commenced before me on 24 March 2025. Ahead of the hearing I had the benefit of being able to read and consider three bundles of evidence - the 'Main Bundle' comprising 439 pages, a 'Local Authority Disclosure Bundle' comprising 596 pages, and the Police Disclosure Bundle comprising 230 pages of material, as well as additional photographic evidence I permitted the Mother to adduce on the first day of evidence to meet the father's assertion that they had not met before May 2019. Timing can be informative; the Disclosure Bundles from a relevant local authority and from the Met Police were not available until two days before this hearing and therefore the parents made their witness statements without knowing what they would evidence.

36. During the course of this determination, I will not refer to every document in the bundles, nor every piece of evidence I have read, heard and considered over the course of the last couple of days, but I have taken it all into account when reaching my conclusions on the issues I need to determine. And where those issues concern patterns of behaviour rather than isolated incidents, as I have already stated I will not determine every disputed issue, simply those necessary for the court to make informed decisions about A's welfare.

Assessment of the Parties and Analysis

37. I had the benefit of witnessing both the Mother and the Father being cross-examined by skilful and well-prepared advocates over several hours. The questioning on both sides was appropriately robust and covered all the necessary points without straying overly into peripheral issues. The robustness of the respective challenges allowed me to make informed assessment of the witnesses and their evidence in the context of the evidence as a whole.

38. The Mother was straightforward and generally frank in her answers. As Mr Horrocks put it in his closing submissions, her history bespeaks significant vulnerability which is reflected in her historic lack of transparency about her relationship with the Father. She had a troubled time in Ireland which resulted in her children from a previous marriage being taken into care, which has itself led her to mistrust and not always be open and honest with professionals. She wasn't always completely honest in her evidence to me. Specifically, she wasn't being truthful about an altercation she had had with her own mother in A's presence back in Ireland in November 2021 during the currency of the supervision order. That was clear to me when I compared her evidence with the contemporaneous documentation from the local authority, and in particular the consequent DV ACT Addendum Vulnerability Report dated 21 February 2022. Nonetheless, in my judgment her lack of candour about that incident is rooted in her mistrust of authority - which in this case includes me - and her fears that A may be removed from her care if she slips up given her history, rather than deriving from malice or a general disregard for the truth. While I consider her evidence carefully, knowing that she is able to dissemble when she thinks that this is necessary to protect her and A from local authority and family court interference, on balance I found the Mother to be otherwise forthright and straightforward. She didn't exaggerate: for example she has a number of scars on her face and it would have been easy to attribute them all to the Father had she wanted. Yet in her evidence she explained that one of the three scars on her forehead was from "fighting as a teenager", a second she had had prior to meeting the Father albeit it had been reopened and worsened during an attack by him in a pub, and that two scars to her lower face similarly had nothing to do with the Father. She was also clear that the Father had never hurt or abused A and reiterated that in cross-examination. She did not appear in the least vindictive, although it is clear she feels hurt, abused and attacked by the Father in these proceedings.

39. Further, in her evidence to me the Mother often said things that were against her self-interest: for example she accepted without cavil recent convictions for assaulting a police officer and for racially aggravated abusive behaviour, committed when drunk; she also said that she had sent messages to various pubs where the Father plays gigs telling them not to platform him due to his violence in part to warn them, but also in part because she and her friend "found it funny". I watched her very carefully when she gave her evidence and was satisfied that by and large on the important issues that I have to determine she was doing her best to tell me the truth. I am fortified in this assessment by the fact that she did not have either the police disclosure or the local authority disclosure until Friday last week, and nonetheless that disclosure supported her evidence.

40. The disclosure shows that the Mother has been consistent in what she has said about the Father's domestic violence over the years. For example, while we have a paucity of official records from Ireland, the parties moved here in August/September 2019, and the earliest English police records show that the Mother told police about the Father's historic violence to her on 5 December 2019 - within three months of her arrival here. Police had been called by a neighbour who reported that the Mother had been 'beaten up' by the Father. Although the Mother told police that the Father had punched her, she was intoxicated and generally unwilling to provide a statement against the Father. She did however cooperate with DASH assessment during which she spoke of historic domestic abuse in Ireland: 'She stated that he attacked her with a knife; she needed 20 stitches to her leg and some to her face after this. She stated that this was reported to police in Ireland but she withdrew the allegation... She also stated that he is very controlling and jealous, tells her what to do and wants to know where she is all the time'. Clearly the Mother wasn't saying this to get the Father into trouble since she was unwilling to support Father's arrest or any investigation into the contemporary assault. She was saying it because it was true.

41. The DV ACT Vulnerability Assessment dated 14 May 2021 is similarly illuminating. This was an assessment prior to these private law proceedings which was directed during the public law proceedings. The Mother had no reason to lie about or exaggerate the Father's violence to her; on the contrary, she knew that the local authority was so concerned about the allegations of domestic abuse - initially made by a third party - that it had instigated care proceedings on a Threshold document that centred on A's exposure to domestic violence. If the Mother had reason to lie, then it would have been in the other direction - i.e. to minimise the Father's behaviour and not to exaggerate it.

42. In May 2021, the DV ACT Vulnerability Assessment author noted: 'the Mother described a severe assault which took place in 2018. She was aware that the Father was out drinking and sent him a text message telling him that his food was ready and asking when he would be home. She said that she did not remember much about the assault but was aware that he had a knife. She lost consciousness during the assault and was taken to hospital with severe blood loss, having been stabbed in the leg and neck. She gave a statement to police, he was arrested and bailed and she was placed in a refuge. However, she withdrew her police statement and reconciled with him... She identified his high risk behaviour, such as repeated punches and kicks to the head, as being the most significant and dangerous form of abuse. Although this is undoubtedly high risk violence, it is my view that the stabbing was the most significant and potentially lethal. She seemed unsure about this, saying that due to her losing consciousness she has no memory of the incident. When pressed, she stated that he had sworn to her that he did not do it and suggested that a stranger must have broken in and stabbed her. It was clear that she still entertained some doubts about this which is a measure of the extent of his influence over her'. The circumstances of the Mother's disclosures back in 2021, as well as the way in which they were expressed, lend credibility to the Mother's evidence in these proceedings.

43. The Father gave his evidence confidently. He was firm in his denials of ever having hurt the Mother and equally firm in his assertions that she had attacked him, and that she is unstable and volatile, with a history and a current presentation of mental ill-health, drug use and child neglect. He told me lie after lie, and did so superficially plausibly. I can see why the Mother described him to one safeguarding professional as a man who could convince you that white is red.

44. What was particularly revealing was his response to being confronted with evidence that disproved his central submission - that he could not have been responsible for any violence toward the Mother in Ireland in 2018 because they had only met in May 2019, and further, that she already had all her facial scars, faded and white, by the time that they met. He had made those averments in his written evidence and maintained them in his oral evidence, notwithstanding photographic and documentary evidence that wholly undermined them.

45. First, the Mother had produced some evidence from her Facebook account, namely timestamped photographs. Those photographs clearly show the parties together in 2017 and throughout 2018. What's more they also show that a stab wound to the Mother's left forehead - that she has consistently said the Father inflicted on her when he also stabbed her in the leg - was not present in any of the photographs to September 2018, but was visible as a healing wound in a photograph taken in November 2018. That photograph was clearly taken when the Mother said it was, and as shown by the date stamp, since her two children are visible in it. They are now aged 13 and 10 respectively. In November 2018 they would have been aged around 4 and 7 - consistent with their appearance in the photograph.

46. Rather than accept the truth of the photographs, the Father insisted that they were all taken in 2020 in England and said that the Mother must have photoshopped the dates onto the screenshots. That proposition was put to the Mother in cross-examination and she was challenged to produce one of the images in the witness box directly from her Facebook account; she did and showed me. Like the exhibit, the image on her account was date-stamped 2018. She wasn't asked to prove any more of the photos.

47. Nor did the Father have an answer to why some of the photographs of him and the Mother showed her with no visible scar above her left eyebrow, given his evidence that she had it when they met. Instead he deflected and attacked the Mother, saying that he had no convictions for violence and had no children taken into care, unlike the Mother.

48. The Father then had to deal with the inconvenience of the police disclosure giving the lie to his assertion that he had never been arrested, interviewed or charged in Ireland in respect of that violent assault on the Mother. A Met police record dated 8 December 2019 states, 'I have been sent information from Interpol stating that: 'With reference to your request below, we wish to inform you that based on the details provided, we may have a positive result. This female appears to be in an abusive relationship with [FATHER], dob 18/01/1990. This male is currently wanted in this jurisdiction in relation to a warrant issued by the High Court on the 14/11/2019. He is the suspect in a number of assaults in which she is the injured party. These assaults appear to be of a very violent nature, including stabbing her with a fork and a butter knife.' I have forwarded this information onto the OIC. I have also requested that the PNC entry be updated with the alias name, DOB and that he is shown w/m on a warrant from Ireland.'

49. First cross-examined on this, Father tried to parry by observing he had only received this disclosure last week. That may be so, but it is no answer to the point. Through his own counsel he had tried to rely on the discrepancy in the date of birth and suggest that police were mistaking him for another person of the same name as him, with a similar but different birth date who was also associated with a person with the mother's name. Therefore rather than accepting the obvious when confronted with independent evidence validating the Mother's position, itself consistently expressed for over five years, the Father chose to try to brazen it out under oath.

50. Unsurprisingly, I prefer the Mother's evidence for its detail, for its consistency and for it having been evidenced photographically by her and independently through Interpol.

51. So why did the Father lie? In my judgement it can only be to avoid having to account for, and to take responsibility for, the very serious injuries he inflicted on the Mother sometime between September and November 2018. Having lied about having inflicted those injuries, he then had to lie about his reasons for coming to England and for persuading the Mother to join him. The Mother's evidence was clear and consistent with Interpol's confirmation of an outstanding warrant from the Irish High Court. Her evidence is that even though the Father had persuaded her to retract her witness statement he was concerned that she might be called as a 'hostile witness' against him and so decided that they should both leave Ireland before the trial. That account has a ring of truth to it, and is consistent with how the criminal courts now operate in domestic abuse cases. It also matches the timeline - the Father came to England in August 2019, the Mother followed him in September; I infer that the Father's criminal trial was set for November 2019 as that was when the warrant was issued upon his failure to attend.

52. Does the fact that the Father lied about when he met the Mother in Ireland and about his reasons for coming to England - and stubbornly maintained those lies even when they were exposed - undermine his credibility generally? In this instance it does. The Father has told such fundamental lies, not for any innocent reason, but in order to avoid a finding that he stabbed the Mother and caused her really serious harm. He maintained his position so brazenly in the face of its disproof for the same reason; that refusal to acknowledge the truth in such circumstances is itself revealing.

53. The Father told other very obvious lies: the idea that he was unaware that the Mother had three older children, and still less that they were in foster care in Ireland, until the Mother gave birth to A is risible. Similarly, the idea that he visited the Mother weekly and in total around fifty times at the home of the mother and baby foster carer is untenable and wholly at odds with the evidence as to the need for that placement; its primary purpose was protective, to allow the Mother time to show that she could successfully parent A away from the Father who the local authority believed was a significant risk of harm. The Father meeting the Mother outside of that placement and beating her just two months in, caused a local authority review and formed part of the DV ACT Vulnerability Assessment the following month. It was further addressed as part of the Parenting Assessment dated 8 June 2021. Again it is curious that the Father believed that he might persuade the court of these patent untruths; this is a man used to getting away with both violence and dishonesty unchallenged and with impunity.

54. Just as he lied about how and when the relationship started, the Father also lied about its end. His account in evidence of having been hit by the Mother in the foot by a hammer is inconsistent with the police disclosure, with the contemporaneous medical notes, and with what he himself told police when interviewed under caution. In that police interview he was shown the photographs of the facial and bodily injuries he caused the Mother. He tried to deny that in evidence and gave different versions about those injuries - first the Mother had no injuries, then when reminded of the photos he was shown in interview he said that she may have received minor injuries from him having to defend himself, then he said that she may have received injuries at the hands of another unknown after she left the house and before the police arrived. The Mother's account is to be preferred for its consistency, its correspondence with the evidence of injury and also for the fact that she knew that the very act of speaking to the police and thereby inviting the renewed attention of the local authority put her care of A at risk, since that care was monitored under the Child Protection Plan and dependent upon her maintaining her separation from the Father.

55. Since I have found both that the Father stabbed the Mother in Ireland in 2018 as she described and then fled the jurisdiction with her to avoid the consequences of that serious assault, and that he violently assaulted her at the end of the relationship in October 2023 as she described, I need to consider whether those incidents establish in the Father a tendency at inflicting serious domestic violence upon the Mother and then lying about it. I find that they do establish such tendencies and that these incidents support the evidence behind the Mother's other allegations. Where the Mother and the Father's accounts are in conflict I prefer the Mother's evidence; unlike the Father her evidence was straightforward, consistent with accounts she has given over many years, and often reluctantly, to many different safeguarding professionals, consistent with the scars she bears and the photographs she has provided, and consistent with the police disclosure. I am not going to adumbrate here each individual disclosure that the Mother has made in various DASH assessments, police complaints and local authority assessments between 2019 and 2023, but Miss Javed is correct to say that the local authority and police disclosure bundles reflect a multiplicity of disclosures of severe and repeated beatings at the hands of the Father over the years.

56. I also agree with Ms Javed that the evidence supports the Mother's description in the DV ACT assessment of 14 May 2021 that the Father 'worked the head'. Although Mr Sultan is correct to point out on behalf of the father that the Mother has produced no medical evidence from Ireland, my assessment of the parties' respective honesty and reliability drives me to accept the Mother's account of possibly the first severe beating she received from the Father. It is unclear whether it occurred in May 2018 or May 2019, but it occurred upon the Mother's return from her sister's hen night and left her with 'a cracked eye socket and hairline crack on her nose' according to the Psychological Assessment dated 16 May 2021. She gave some detail about what had occurred in the May 2021 DV ACT Assessment: 'She had gone to her sister's hen party and the Father was angry because she had not contacted him enough during the evening. She was afraid to go home and waited until she thought he had calmed down. When she did go home he trapped her in the flat and subjected her to a prolonged and severe beating. She said, 'he kept punching and punching and punching'.' She told the DV ACT Assessor that this was the 'worst incident', notwithstanding the stabbing. It is clear that her mental scars from this incident rival the physical ones from the stabbing. She again described it to police on 17 September 2022, after the Father had once again punched her repeatedly to the head causing facial bruising. About the hen night incident she said in her witness statement, 'I lost my phone he didn't believe me when I returned home as I was away for my sisters hen do he has punched me several times to the head and has taken a knife and tried to stab me in the bum area which sliced my jeans open. I managed to get away from him to try and protect myself in my home I locked myself in the bathroom. He then went away and came back with a screwdriver and unscrewed the lock of the door. I had hid all the knives so he had a fork and he used this to stab me in the head multiple times. I managed to run out the house and he chased after me saying that he was sorry and that he will stop. Security at one of the hotels nearby have found me with blood dripping from my head and the police over in IRELAND were called and he was arrested. He had apparently cleaned up the apartment where we were living at the time and put on a wash to get rid of evidence. He came out to where I was in the street and asked what was going on, he tried to lie to the officers who were on scene and tried to make out that I was crazy. He had an injury to his hand from when he hit me and tried to claim this was a work injury. He has a scar on his foot from when he caught it with a chainsaw and he tried to claim to officers that I had given him that scar.' This was the most detailed account given by the Mother in previous disclosures and it is broadly consistent with her evidence in these proceedings. She was challenged about it in her oral evidence and I found her responses convincing. I find that it happened as she described to the police.

57. I am further satisfied that the other specific allegations of violence alleged by the Mother are made out which include the Father punching her when she was pregnant on 24 July 2020 causing injury to her mouth, and include him attacking her on 18 April 2021, after A's birth and during the currency of the mother and baby foster placement, causing facial injury.

Non-Fatal Strangulation

58. There is a further aspect of the Father's controlling and coercive behaviour evident through the papers that I consider that I am compelled to address notwithstanding there is no specific pleaded allegation, and that is the issue of non-fatal strangulation (NFS). This is because although no real attention was drawn to it during the hearing, perhaps due to the lateness of the disclosure bundles, there is evidence within police reports and in local authority safeguarding reports of the Mother having been subjected to NFS at the hands of the Father.

59. I have considered whether it is proper to consider this evidence given the Mother did not make a specific allegation of NFS in her written evidence or in her schedule of allegations, and the same has only really come to light before me through the two disclosure bundles that were served on the eve of trial and which I have carefully reviewed overnight. Having said that, it is referred to in the main bundle of evidence in the same terms as in the DV ACT Assessment: the Section 37 report dated 20 June 2024 records 'she said that he also kicked her in the face, kneed her in the face, strangled her and pulled her hair out.'

60. The Mother did reference having been "choked" by the Father seemingly in passing in her oral evidence; it is not something the Father was asked about and therefore has not had the opportunity directly to address. However, this is not a case where even minimal violence or abuse has been accepted; the Father has maintained a blanket denial of all and any abuse and so it is safe to assume that he also denies perpetrating NFS on the Mother.

61. I sought additional submissions from the parties on this specific issue this morning. Mr Horrocks on behalf of the Guardian submits that the court "is perfectly entitled to deal with the NFS material as a part of its consideration of the alleged course of coercive control and domestic abuse." He helpfully drew my attention to the following paragraphs from K v K [2022] EWCA Civ 468: 'Para 68. In Re H-N... the court explained the correct approach where an allegation of coercive or controlling behaviour is made....[the court] made clear that the focus on coercive or controlling behaviour as the primary issue should make it generally unnecessary to determine other subsidiary date-specific factual allegations. Para 69. Re H-N... included the following sentence which may inadvertently have been misunderstood. It read: Where however an issue properly arises as to whether there has been a pattern of coercive and/or controlling abusive behaviour within a family, and the determination of that issue is likely to be relevant to the assessment of the risk of future harm, a judge who fails expressly to consider the issue may be held on appeal to have fallen into error. Para 70. That sentence is a requirement to consider an overarching issue of coercive or controlling behaviour, where to do so is necessary for the determination of a dispute relating to a child's welfare. ...The court only decides individual factual allegations where it is strictly necessary to do so in addition to determining the wider issue of coercive or controlling behaviour when that itself is necessary.'

62. On behalf of the Mother Ms Javed adopts that position, and says, "The NFS is part of a larger pattern of severe physical violence as well as coercive control". She points out that the evidence of NFS is in the section 37 report filed as evidence in these proceedings, separately from the disclosure bundles and that the Father is therefore aware of the allegation.

63. On behalf of the Father Mr Sultan opposes any finding in relation to NFS as a form of coercive behaviour, pointing out that it hasn't been specifically alleged by the Mother in her Schedule of Allegations or in her statement in support. It wasn't therefore a matter he specifically addressed in his written or oral evidence. He submits, "The Mother made only a brief passing reference to being "choked" in her oral evidence, with no detail as to when, where, or how. It is not open to the court to make a finding of such gravity in circumstances where the father had no proper opportunity to respond. The assertion that the Father "was aware" of this allegation by reason of historical disclosure does not remedy the procedural unfairness caused by the failure to put the allegation directly to him during the hearing." He points to what he says are inconsistencies within the documentation, the lack of contemporaneous complaint, and the lack of medical evidence in support.

64. I have at the forefront of my mind the purpose of this fact find pursuant to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and PD12J, and also the purpose of these Children Act Proceedings generally. They are not punitive; they are protective. I am asked to determine the factual matrix in order that a proper risk assessment can be conducted pursuant to PD12J paragraphs 36 and 37. This will bite in two ways: firstly it has relevance to the fact and extent of any time that the court may direct A should spend with her Father; second it has relevance to any ongoing domestic abuse or other therapeutic work deemed necessary for the Mother, in A's welfare interests.

65. This is a case where the level of physical violence and the level of coercive control are both unusually high. Nonetheless it seems to me necessary to determine the issue of NFS in A's welfare interests since, as recognised by the Court of Appeal in R v Cook [2023] EWCA Crim 452, there is real harm inherent in the act of strangulation. Further, it is a particularly risk-laden form of abuse indicative of heightened danger posed by the perpetrator; current widely reported research indicates that where a victim of domestic abuse is subject to NFS, she is very significantly more likely ultimately to be killed by the perpetrator than a victim of domestic abuse that does not include NFS. The Mother needs to know this, and to be offered the opportunity to increase her understanding of the associated risks, in order properly to safeguard her daughter. Finally, if the Father has perpetrated NFS on the Mother, that would raise his risk profile which may have relevance to any future public law proceedings should the Father once again persuade the Mother to reunite.

66. Mr Sultan has made proper and reasoned submissions on behalf of the Father, which I have considered with care. However he has been unable to point to any real prejudice faced by the Father that arises from the Mother's failure to particularise NFS in her Schedule in the context of his blanket denials of all forms of abuse and coercive behaviour.

67. For these reasons I consider it appropriate to assess the evidence within the bundle before me that goes to the issue of strangulation.

68. The evidence is found in the 14 May 2021 DV ACT Vulnerability Assessment: 'However, she said that he also kicked her in the face, kneed her in the face, strangled her and pulled her hair out'. As already indicated this has been repeated in the section 37 report prepared for these proceedings. The Mother's response to interim Threshold within the public law proceedings surrounding A accepted the local authority averment that on 24 July 2020 she 'disclosed to police that the father had strangled her, resulting with her blacking out and urinating herself' (sic). It is recorded in the SWET dated 24 February 2021, and also in the police disclosure: 'she was subject to being strangled, blacking out and awakening having wet herself'. Some of her contemporaneous words are recorded in the DASH Assessment: "he's choked me a few times; I pissed myself two months ago."

69. Mr Sultan is correct to point out the lack of contemporaneous complaint, and the lack of medical evidence in support. However, failure to report NFS contemporaneously is not unusual in the experience of the courts, and in most cases of NFS there is no visible injury, even though loss of consciousness is itself a symptom of mild traumatic brain injury. The Mother's complaint came by way of answers in response to a DASH assessment that she underwent having been hit by the Father. I am satisfied that the Mother had no reason to lie. The terms of her response are forthright, and humiliating - "I pissed myself" - which indicates honesty to me. The fact that she didn't plead NFS as a specific allegation under either umbrella of physical violence or coercive control is more likely to reflect her lack of understanding of both how serious the NFS perpetrated upon her is, and the heightened risk of future severe violence and homicide that it implies, than untruthfulness.

Post-Separation Harassment and Coercive Control

70. Turning to post-separation harassment and coercive control, this is well-evidenced within the main bundle. The Emergency Duty Service report sets out the Father's unfounded report that the Mother had left the jurisdiction with A. On 8 June 2024, having investigated the matter, EDS confirmed to the Father that she had not. The following day the Father made what can only be a malicious report to the Metropolitan Police that the Mother had left the country with A, alongside allegations of alcohol abuse and neglect. In the context of the parties' history, I am satisfied that the Father filed these malicious reports in order to (a) try to locate the Mother and (b) to harass her.

71. The Contact Risk Assessment of the Father dated 15 July 2024 reveals that in May 2024 the Father had tried to track the Mother down through a mediation service, likely in breach of his bail conditions, and certainly in furtherance of his attempts to harass the Mother. He also tried to track the Mother down by contacting A's nursery on 7 June 2024, which he then lied about to the contact assessor, stating that the nursery had contacted him with concerns.

Narrative Findings

72. I do not intend to go through the Schedule of Allegations item by item, since it will be apparent from my assessment of the evidence that in my judgment this is a case where the Mother was regularly subjected to extreme violence over the course of an on-off coercively-controlling relationship between late 2017 and late 2023. I intend to eschew the box-ticking exercise in favour of a narrative of my findings, which is both in my discretion and in line with the Court of Appeal suggested approach in H-N and Others.

73. I find then that the Mother and Father were in a relationship together no later than 8 October 2017, which date coincides with the Mother's first exhibited photograph of them together. This was a relationship that very quickly became coercively controlling, with the Father preying on the Mother's vulnerabilities first to target her, and then to undermine her whenever she tried to end the relationship or report his violence. The violence was repeated and often extreme and included two serious incidents that occurred in Ireland that continue to affect the Mother traumatically.

74. The incident that the Mother describes as the worst occurred in either May 2018 or May 2019 and followed her sister's hen night. The Mother was beaten to the head, repeatedly stabbed in the head with a fork, and was left with at least two facial fractures.

75. The second very serious incident occurred in October or November 2018 when the Father attacked the Mother with a knife. She required emergency treatment for blood loss, underwent 16 stitches to her leg and had plastic surgery above her left eyebrow. She has been left with a prominent and permanent scar to her forehead which she tries to cover with her hair.

76. There were other episodes of violence in Ireland, including the Father smashing the Mother's head into a pub door and into a bathroom mirror, but it was the serious stabbing that led to the Father's arrest, remand and release on bail to await his trial which was listed in November 2019. Over the summer of 2019 the Father persuaded the Mother to leave the country with him. Such was his control over the Mother that not only had he persuaded her to resume the relationship, he had pressured her into retracting her witness statement. However he was concerned, with reason, that in respect of such a serious offence the court would likely summons the Mother to give evidence and, if necessary permit her to be questioned as 'hostile'. He persuaded the Mother to leave Ireland with him, agreeing that she could return monthly to see her older children in foster care.

77. Shortly upon their settlement in England the significant violence resumed. On the rare occasions that the Mother did involve the police the Father was able to pressure her to withdraw her cooperation either by the promise of change, or by telling her that she would not be believed due to her history. He punched her causing injury when she was pregnant in July 2020. At that time she reported having been 'choked... a few times' and stated that during such an incident two months previously he had strangled her until she was rendered unconscious and lost control of her bladder. The Father perpetrated this NFS upon her as part of his coercive behaviour in order to frighten, humiliate and control the Mother.

78. After A was born the Father continued to physically attack the Mother, using A as a further method of control: he played on the Mother's fears that if she revealed the fact and extent of the violence perpetrated on her A would be taken into care, and also by threatening to malign her to social services. He was able to persuade the Mother to meet him in April 2021, just two months after A's birth and away from the placement. Again he beat the Mother.

79. The Mother repeatedly tried to maintain her separation from the Father after A's birth, but she was and remains highly vulnerable, and he was always able to persuade her back to him using a variety of well-established methods used by coercive controllers, including threats of suicide and threats to use her history against her to have A removed from her care. Matters culminated on 2 October 2023 when the Father attacked the Mother while A slept in the room next door. The Mother took her beating in silence so as not to wake A, before fleeing and waving down a passing taxi driver. The Father was the aggressor; I reject his allegation that the Mother hit him with a hammer. After the Father's release on stringent bail conditions, in breach of the same he tried to track the Mother down and made malicious reports to police and social services that she had fled the jurisdiction. He did this in order to find her and to harass her. I find that a primary purpose of his application for a 'lives with' order in respect of A - which he must know has no prospect of success, made in circumstances where he has refused to engage at all in the public law proceedings and safeguarding to date - is to continue his pattern of trying coercively to control the Mother.

80. This narrative ruling shall be attached to the order; the parties have permission to disclose a copy of the full judgment to the local authority, to the police and to the CPS currently prosecuting the Father, to the Garda in Ireland, to the relevant Irish children's services, and to the Irish Embassy.

HHJ Nott

26 March 2025

	The Mother
	- and –
	The Father
	- and –
	A by her Children's Guardian

	Re A

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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges) >> A, Re [2025] EWFC 101 (B) (26 March 2025) URL: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/OJ/2025/101.html Cite as: [2025] EWFC 101 (B)

England and Wales Family Court Decisions (other Judges)