Mother appeals ‘draconian’ custody decision after expert’s suspension

A mother whose child was taken away by the family court is trying to overturn the decision due to concerns about the credentials of an expert witness who gave evidence in her case.

Graham Flatman, an educational psychologist, recommended to the court that the girl should remain with her father. The mother’s temporary loss of custody was then made permanent by the judge.

Flatman, who says he has given evidence in around 1,700 cases, later had his professional registration suspended after undertaking an assessment he wasn’t qualified to carry out.

Now the mother has applied to overturn the ruling by Her Honour Judge O’Neill, who was highly critical of her after hearing evidence from Flatman as well as a social worker, the parents and the guardian for the child. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) can report on the application after obtaining a transparency order.

In documents submitted to the court in April, the mother’s barrister James Bogle wrote that O’Neill’s December 2021 judgment was “fundamentally flawed” in light of Flatman’s subsequent six-month suspension, which was for similar conduct.

He was suspended by the regulator, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), in April last year after making an assessment of a vulnerable woman he was not qualified to undertake.

Educational psychologists are only trained to assess the needs of children and young people up to the age of 25 who have learning difficulties, not adults more generally.

The HCPC said Flatman had misled the court and brought the profession into disrepute by undertaking the work of a clinical psychologist (who examine people of all ages for a wide range of disorders), which he was not qualified to do.

Bogle said in both cases Flatman had “held himself out to be a clinical psychologist” and acted outside the scope of his practice.

In a statement to TBIJ, Flatman said he had worked as an expert witness in family courts since 1997. He did not respond when asked how many assessments he had undertaken on adults in total.

“I have never presented myself as a clinical psychologist,” he said. “With every report, I accurately included my professional qualifications and experience as an educational psychologist.”

Flatman added that he immediately stopped his family court work after the HCPC’s findings and took the subsequent six-month suspension “very seriously”.

‘Not qualified’

In both cases – the one for which he was disciplined and the more recent case – Flatman described the women in question as having narcissistic traits.

Flatman, who in addition to his report provided oral evidence to the court for more than three hours, found the mother in the more recent case had “significant personality features in terms of being histrionic and narcissistic” while the father was “somewhat histrionic although not excessively so”.

He said the child had suffered emotional harm in her mother’s care due to a “lack of consistent attention to her needs”, which the father could better prioritise.

In her judgment, O’Neill described Flatman as “a very experienced clinician and expert in his field” and said he was “crystal clear” that the child should remain in the father’s care and have only supervised contact with her mother.

She wrote: “I accept and rely on [Flatman’s] evidence, but my conclusions are based upon all of the evidence including that of the parties, social worker and the guardian as well as the patterns I can identify in the litigation.”

Miriam Silver, a consultant clinical psychologist who co-authored the guidance on the use of psychologists in the family courts in England and Wales, told TBIJ: “The court findings say Flatman commented on the mother’s ability to benefit from counselling and that he could assess her progress in therapy – when an educational psychologist has no training about the effectiveness of therapy or interventions in adult mental health.

“As the HCPC concluded, Flatman was not qualified to undertake a psychological or psychiatric assessment of an adult.”

She said that anyone involved in the cases Flatman has given evidence in may understandably feel that his conclusions “could not be relied upon by the court”.

​​O’Neill’s numerous negative findings against the mother included that she tried to “manipulate and influence” the girl against the father and that she was a “flight risk” after obtaining a passport for her child in breach of a court order.

Second questionable expert

Both the social worker assigned to the case and the guardian were opposed to the child returning to her mother’s care, saying she had responded well to living with her father.

But Bogle argued they had been influenced by the report of a previous expert, Stuart Graham, who is not registered with the HCPC and therefore not regulated as a practitioner psychologist. He was discharged by a previous judge after the mother raised concerns about his credentials.

In a response to TBIJ Graham said: “The only court documents purporting that I was unqualified to assess the case were presented by [the mother] and were dismissed by the court.”

He added that he was removed, not because he wasn’t qualified, but because both parties are required to agree on a joint expert.

The social worker did not accept she was unduly influenced by Graham’s report and, according to O’Neill, the guardian gave detailed reasons for her evidence.

Bogle said the judge’s ruling was “unusually draconian” and restricted the mother’s parental responsibility. He added that, as a foreign national, she had “faced systemic barriers in accessing justice”.

In response to the mother’s application, the father highlighted it was her who had proposed Flatman in the first instance and that a previous attempt by her to appeal O’Neill’s final order had already been refused in 2023 as “totally without merit”.

He also said the mother had made false allegations of domestic abuse against him and had caused emotional harm to their daughter, who he said has “flourished” in his care.