Family

Nicholas Mostyn QC has been appointed  a High Court judge in the Family Division. He will replace Mr Justice Bennett, who is retiring. Mostyn was Called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1980 and took Silk in 1997. He was appointed a Recorder in 2000 and sat as a deputy High Court judge. 

Three years on from the Corston Report, Kim Hollis QC, who has recently visited Styal Prison, outlines the implications of sending women, many of whom have children, to prison 

In 2007 the Corston Report: a review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system (“the Corston Report”), commissioned by the Home Secretary following the deaths of six women at Styal Prison in Cheshire, took a hard look at whether and for how long women needed to be sent to prison. Baroness Corston recommended the immediate establishment of an Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group for women who offend to govern a new Commission and to drive forward an agenda properly to address specific issues relating to women’s criminality, and with a visible direction in respect of women in custody. She further crucially recommended that custodial sentences/remands into custody for women must be reserved only for serious and violent offenders who pose a “threat to the public”. 

Shauneen Lambe, director of “Just for Kids Law” has been named by the World Economic Forum as one of the Young Global Leaders of 2010. 

She is a barrister of 12 years’ Call and currently works in-house at Lawrence & Co solicitors.  

Dedicated drug courts are being established to combat drug abuse.  Elizabeth Forrester reflects on how the Drug Court in Jamaica and the Family Drug and Alcohol Court in London are tackling this worldwide issue 

The worldwide disease that is drug abuse has traditionally been attacked from two sides: the Ministry of Defence, customs, the police and the criminal justice system are used to strike at the supply of drugs; and the Ministry of Health, State welfare, charities, NGOs and social workers tackle the demand for them. When drug addicts commit crimes, they are punished accordingly; when drug addicts cannot care for their children, the State removes them. Still, despite all the sentencing guidelines and educational efforts, it is painfully clear that these measures do not stop this disease from progressing. Addicts sent to prison, or even given unpaid work requirements, fuel their habits more easily than before, and are just as likely to reoffend upon release. Desperate, addicted mothers who have children removed into the care system become more desperate—they often have more babies with withdrawal symptoms which are removed from them again. 

The Ministry of Justice is to carry out a wide-ranging review of the family justice system in England and Wales. 

The review—part of the cross-government “Families and Relationship Green Paper” launched in January—will look at ways to avoid confrontational court hearings and encourage the use of mediation. 

The Ministry of Justice has announced plans to re-focus legal aid away from low value damages claims against public bodies or “hopeless” judicial reviews. 

Before legal aid is granted in divorce and child contact disputes, the LSC will contact opponents to check applicants’ eligibility. Access to civil legal aid for non-residents will be restricted. Legal aid minister, Lord Bach said the changes would be introduced in April 2010. A consultation, “Legal Aid: Refocusing on Priority Cases”, took place last year. 

The increase in family work has placed “great strains” on family judges at all levels, according to the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge.
His report, “Review of the Administration of Justice in the Courts”, published in February, identifies matters of importance to the judiciary and the administration of justice which arose during the 2008–09 Legal Year. 

The decision in R v Barker on child witness evidence in criminal cases establishes that the competency test is the same for children and adults, write Professor Penny Cooper and David Wurtzel.  

With the decision in R v Barker [2010] EWCA Crim 4 the matter of children giving evidence in criminal trials has, so to speak, come of age. On 1 May 2009 at The Old Bailey, Baby Peter’s step-father, Stephen Barker, was convicted of the anal rape of a girl, “X”, who was less than three years’ old at the time of the offence. She was four and a half years’ old when she gave evidence. X had been living with her mother Tracey Connelly, Stephen Barker and his brother. At the age of two years and ten months X was taken into care following the unnatural death of Baby Peter. X made disclosures to her foster carer of sexual abuse by Barker and subsequently to a child psychologist who was seeing her for the purposes of care proceedings. Six months after the first allegation she was interviewed on video under “Achieving Best Evidence in Criminal Proceeding” (“the ABE interview”). The trial for anal rape of a child under 13 was postponed until after the murder trial in the Baby Peter case. X watched her ABE interview a few days before the trial; it stood as her evidence-in-chief. She was cross-examined by leading counsel for her mother and for Barker. 

Expert witnesses fear for their personal security in family law cases that are reported by the press. The media were given limited powers to report family law cases including adoption, care proceedings and divorce, in April. During a quest ion and answer session with senior family judge, Lord Justice Wall, at the Bond Solon expert witness conference in November, several experts expressed concern that, if their personal details were made public, aggrieved family members would cause problems f or t hem. Some e xpe r t sthought it would be difficult to anonymise reports suffi ciently. Wall LJ sympathised with their concerns. In his speech, he recommended that a detailed protocol be adopted to ensure fair reporting, following discussions between lawyers, experts and the press. “Th e disadvantage is that we are in the hands of the media, which is interested in personalities, not issues,” he said. 

Opening the family courts to the media has now settled “into a kind of limbo of uncertainty” the President of the Family Division has said. 

Speaking about the changes in media reporting which allow accredited press the right to be present at private hearings of children proceedings, Sir Mark Potter commented: “Following the initial flurry of interest in the first few days, things have settled into a kind of limbo of uncertainty while the government works out the next step toward a coherent scheme in final form. Ministers have still to work out and give directions to their civil servants where their priorities lie between their professions of concern for the privacy and welfare of the child and their apparent desire to satisfy the demands of the press in relation to so-called transparency.”