Children at risk of “enduring harm” from abusive parents if family courts don’t reform, say campaigners

Children of abusive parents will continue to be at risk of “enduring harm” say campaigners, after a government minister suggested reform is not needed on how family courts rule on parental contact in the UK. In June 2020, a Ministry for Justice report called for an urgent review into the presumption of parental involvement in family court proceedings “to address its detrimental effects”. But four years later Tortoise has learned that Lord Bellamy KC, under-secretary of state for justice, is suggesting not even “minor” legislative changes are currently needed. Conservative MP Kate Kniveton will call on the government today to reverse the presumption that contact is in the best interest of a child. Kniveton’s ex-husband, the former MP and minister Andrew Griffiths, was found in a family court to have physically abused and raped her.