Domestic abuse, parental alienation and Family Court proceedings

Abstract

When a relationship breaks down and the parents go to court contesting arrangements for who the child or children will live with or spend time with it is often the case that the courts struggle to assess the significance of domestic abuse for those child arrangements. Where domestic abuse is raised in child arrangement cases in the Family Courts, ‘parental alienation’ (PA) is an increasingly prevalent form of counter allegation. This chapter shows that PA is a contested concept, yet often the courts are not as critical as they might be or aware of how abusers may be manipulating allegations to deflect from their own behaviour.