‘I lost faith in the system’: The teenager who took on the family courts and won

Florence* was at home with her maths tutor on the day she was taken away from her mother. Without warning, a social worker came to the house and told her she had half an hour to pack her things. Florence burst into tears. She was just 10 years old.

“I stuffed my favourite outfit in a bag – this blue shirt and leggings – along with a photo of me and mum,” she recalls. “And then I got this bunny, my favourite soft toy, and I left it on her bed. It is what mum would do for me if she ever had to go away.”

Florence later learned this parting gesture had been used to criticise her mother, who had been her primary carer since her parents separated two years earlier. “The social worker said to my mum that no child should be worried about their parent’s feelings and it was a sign of abuse”, she told us.

After walking Florence to her father’s house, the social worker told her she would be able to go home in four or five weeks. Later she was told six months. In the end, it took her five years – and a remarkable high court battle – before she was able to return to live with her mother.

Every year, tens of thousands of children are caught in the middle of family court disputes as their parents fight over custody arrangements. For many, the process is fraught but short lived. For others like Florence, these bitter and protracted battles become all consuming, marked by countless hearings and serious allegations between their parents.

Childhoods become punctuated by successive meetings with professionals. Sometimes that support makes a difference. But what happens when trust breaks down and the system meant to protect a child becomes part of the problem?

This is where Florence found herself. Feeling trapped and with nowhere else to turn, she wrote a letter to the president of the family division, the most senior family court judge in England and Wales. “I was desperately seeking help trying to find my own lawyer,” says Florence. She received no response.

As Sir Andrew McFarlane retires today from his role as head of the family division, Florence – now 20 and in her second year at university – has written to him again. “In light of your imminent retirement, I thought it was critical to draw your attention to the detrimental impact private law proceedings have had on my life,” she writes.

This time she received a reply – although not the one she hoped for. It said McFarlane couldn’t comment on a case that he hadn’t presided over, nor on the systemic issues raised. His office did apologise for not previously responding.

“It’s hard to imagine, given his position, that he can’t comment more broadly on issues that affect young people,” says Florence. “Where else can we turn?”

‘I felt powerless’

Florence remembers some “really happy times” growing up. But her childhood memories later became marred by her father’s anger.

“If I had a tantrum he would get angry, but not in the way most parents get annoyed with their kids,” she says. “There were times when he would hold me too tight and hurt my arm or he would hold the bedroom door closed so I couldn’t get out. It would scare me.”

At first it was a relief when her parents separated and her father moved out. “I thought, ‘Thank goodness’, because they had been constantly fighting. But then I realised I would have to spend time alone with dad.”

Initially Florence saw her father on weekends. On one occasion she tried to run away and the police became involved. She told them he had confiscated her shoes and phone and restrained her, locking her in his house.

The animosity continued between her parents, who argued over how much time Florence should spend with each of them. And, eventually, the dispute landed in the family court.

In 2016, a district judge found her father had on one occasion slapped her mother, and on another held Florence down and shouted at her. The judge also found the mother harboured a great deal of anger against Florence’s father and did not want Florence to see him.

A consultant child psychiatrist, Dr Mark Berelowitz, was brought onto the case to assess the family. He said Florence spoke to him about “adult issues” – the implication being she was repeating things her mother had said. He said Florence was opposed to seeing her father because she had been subjected to her mother’s “unresolved angry feelings about the breakdown of the relationship”.

Adopting this narrative, the judge then concluded that the mother did not want her daughter spending time with her father and was not giving her emotional permission to enjoy a relationship with him. She ordered that Florence should move to live with her father.

This story illustrates how an expert introducing the concept of “parental alienation” – the idea one parent can turn a child against the other – can flip a family conflict on its head. Even though the father had findings of abuse against him, it was the mother who was blamed for the issues.

In her recent letter to McFarlane, Florence explains: “I was removed from my mother’s care within hours of a court order being made… I spent the ensuing five years faced with professional after professional who refused to believe me. They said I was repeating my mother’s words and that, despite findings of domestic abuse, it was better to have a relationship with the person who frightened me.”

She said moving to live with her father against her wishes left her with a “heavy grieving feeling” that she was unable to put into words.

When approached about Florence, Berelowitz said it would be inappropriate for him to comment on individual cases. He added: “As an expert witness I take my duties to the court very seriously. My role is to provide an independent medical opinion based on the information available to me at the time, and the questions put to me, to assist the court.

“Decisions in such cases are made by the judge, who considers all the evidence presented before reaching a conclusion.”

Florence also wrote to the judge overseeing her case.

As a result of the court’s decision, Florence’s contact with her mother had to be strictly supervised and phone calls were forbidden. For the first year they met weekly in a contact centre with a supervisor writing down everything that was said.

Then, from 2018, Florence was allowed to visit her for overnight stays on alternate weekends. Meanwhile her mother made repeated attempts to challenge the court’s contact order.

Over the years Florence was shunted between social workers, police officers, expert witnesses and therapists. She was provided with a children’s guardian to represent her views in court but she didn’t trust them.

“I soon came to realise that while they listened to me physically, they didn’t take in what I was saying and my views weren’t cutting through,” she explains.

“Mum always told me if I wanted a relationship with my father she would support me, and I never doubted her. But it wasn’t what I wanted – and no one believed I’d reached that decision on my own. I felt powerless.”

Determined to find her own lawyer she wrote to McFarlane asking if she could appeal a court decision preventing her from having her chosen solicitor.

The lack of a reply compounded her feelings of isolation. In the new letter she writes: “[It] had a negative impact on my case because my voice continued to be silenced and professionals understood this to be a sign that even the president of the family court thought I was being manipulated by my mother.”

At first Florence spoke freely to those professionals, even telling one therapist she thought her father was “a monster”. But she soon learnt that telling the truth could harm her case.

“I started to censor myself, because the theory of parental alienation was always a threat. I couldn’t say how I really felt about my parents.”

This was most stark during court-ordered therapy sessions. Once, a therapist visited Florence at her father’s home. “He sat on a chair in my room while I sat on my bed. I was told if I didn’t get on with my dad I wouldn’t be able to see my mum, “ she recalls. “Looking back I’m shocked that a grown man was given the authority to sit and threaten me in my own bedroom.”

On another occasion Florence was taken to the Anna Freud Centre, a children’s mental health charity that provides clinical services, and sat before two therapists at the other end of a long table. “It felt really intimidating. They tried to tell me there were things I didn’t know about my mum and that she was trying to sway my opinion. It was confusing sometimes but mainly it was just patronising.”

So-called “reunification” therapies for children who have rejected their parents are highly controversial, not least because parental alienation as a diagnosable syndrome has been widely discredited.

Florence wrote in her letter that the suggestion of parental alienation and subsequent therapies caused her great harm and overshadowed her childhood.

A spokesperson for the Anna Freud Centre said they could not comment on individual cases but that “hearing that someone did not feel supported by us is troubling”.

They said they continually review their practice to ensure their work remains “safe, child-centred and responsive”, adding: “We always work within the court’s remit and instructions, informed by professional assessments that take place before our involvement.”

An exceptional case

Florence is softly spoken, unassuming and seems younger than her 20 years. But in fact, her experience has meant she had to mature much quicker than her peers.

The articulate student who describes herself as an “advocate for change”, conveys a quiet confidence and steely determination as she discusses her own case. It’s a quality which no doubt served her well in taking a legal challenge to the high court at the age of 15.

By then she’d already been seeking her own legal representation with the support of her maternal family since she was 12 – her prime objective being to return to her mother’s care.

They made repeated applications which were rejected and one judge ordered a two-year ban on making further applications.

As its expiry approached in early 2020 Florence, by then 15, started to build a case with the help of a solicitor. To keep things from her dad she would make calls or send emails in between school lessons.

Things intensified when the country went into lockdown and she found herself stuck under her dad’s roof. When the ban ended she made a further application. It was rejected – but this time the high court granted her permission to appeal. “It was a strange time,” recalls Florence. “My father joined this remote hearing downstairs on his laptop while I was upstairs instructing my lawyer, having taken him to court.”

Children are usually represented in proceedings by a guardian from Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass). But after Florence had read press articles about the campaigning lawyer Charlotte Proudman, she asked her solicitor to bring the barrister onto the case to represent her.

“Florence was in every sense an exceptional case,” says Proudman. “First the court told her she had no say as to which parent she lived with. Then it told her that she had no right to challenge its decision.”

But as Florence approached 16, it would become increasingly difficult for the court to justify ignoring her unwavering desire to live with her mother.

On the day of the appeal Florence was closely involved, Proudman later wrote in her book about the family courts, He Said, She Said.

Florence would pass her notes or ask her to mute the video feed so she could give instructions. “She was confident, clear and in command of detail – in so many ways, one of the most remarkable clients I have represented,” wrote Proudman.

Granting the appeal, the judge later explained in her published judgment that at the age of 15, Florence should be allowed “some autonomy and for her heartfelt wishes to be respected”.

While she was happy to return to her mother, she did not regard the victory as cause to celebrate. “It was mainly because of my age that they granted the appeal rather than fully understanding the complicated history and what I’d been telling them for years.”

Just before Florence turned 16 she cut off all contact with her father. “This was an incredibly difficult decision to make but it’s also the most liberated I have ever felt,” she says.

She will never get back the time she lost with her mother and still suffers from the longstanding trauma of the legal process.

“It’s so important to believe young people when they say something is wrong. It can take so much to say it and losing faith in a system designed to protect you is painful,” she says.

Florence is sending a copy of her letter to McFarlane’s successor, due to be announced in the coming weeks so lessons can be learnt from her experience. “It is my hope that the next time a young person reaches out for hope in desperation it will lead to action.”

* Name has been changed