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Below is a letter of concern that I put together more than a year ago for you Sir Andrew McFarlane that the Family Court is unfit for purpose and should be disbanded immediately.
This letter was distributed as a template letter for other people in the similar situation.
I do not know how to make it an effective concern for you Sir Andrew? The Regulators and your department do not need an excuse to "not investigate individual complaints", because this is on National scale already and a lot of people are affected by these draconian Courts.
There will be a lot of individual letters coming soon with a family tragedy behind everyone of them.
My daughter is being abused daily and I am struggling to put a stop to it. All of this is hiding behind the Court of Protection that does not protect, anybody but the Authorities.
"21 July 2021
Dear Sir Andrew,
I write to inform you of my extreme concern regarding the Courts of the Family Division.
Successive Presidents have criticised various areas within the Courts, namely, the use of Court experts, the excessive time and costs taken by barristers, the size of court bundles, the secrecy, the misuse of various acts such as the Mental Capacity Act and Mental Health Act, and of course, the cost to the publicpurse etc. There is also the use of hearsay evidence, where a parent is accused and punished on evidence with no substance.
Why is it that no social worker has ever been charged with perjury after giving deliberately false evidence in court and under oath? Does perjury not apply in your courts?
Likewise, how can a witness with absolutely no credibility, also walk from a court unchallenged after giving the most unbelievable statement possible?
The reason being, the secrecy of the court. Should a charge of perjury be laid, then a criminal Ccurt would become involved to study, in public, the accusations that went on in a secret court. How can there be any honesty under those arrangements?
Your courts, both child and adult related, are corrupt, are full of collusion, are used as a means to build salaries and income by dishonest solicitors and barristers. Your courts are biased in favour of professionals who have no compunction in lying openly and without fear. They keep no records. Documents disappear. Even safeguarding concerns are not processed.
I can produce five weeks of medical records that show the most appalling treatment at the hands of a care home, social worker, and medical professionals, but those documents were not put to the court by either the local authority, or the solicitor of the adult lady at the centre of the case, simply because it did not suit the agenda! The lady at the centre of the case has been wrongly labelled as having no mental capacity in three key areas. That was a judge’s decision, but no medical professional will now follow the mental capacity rules and declare in writing, that capacity is sufficient to operate normally, or perhaps with a little support.
This case started with complaints about a care home. theft, lack of promised services, physical assault, poor hygiene, etc. social services created a case in full defence of the care home, stating a lack of capacity, collusion of mother on daughter, bad behaviour and other unsubstantiated allegations. TEN box files of "evidence" were in the bundle. If anybody cares to sit down and read that "evidence" it will be obvious that the professional responsible are inadequate, and being untruthful.
Yet consider this — The Local Authority illegally held the registration of the care home. A fact ignored when pointed out, but quietly corrected some two years later. The Local Authority employ Social Services. The Local Authority, employed a Mental Health Advocate for the lady in the middle. That advocate employed the solicitor for the lady. They employed a barrister, who has never once paid regard to his clients wishes and feelings, but has attacked her mother unmercifully, in full defence of the Authority. The Authority then employed a court expert, and instructed him on the areas to look at. Tell me that this is not a cosy little club of professionals, who will not be held open to scrutiny!
Then the court itself refuses all scrutiny by promises of prison for contempt if anything is ever spoken.
There is no honesty. There is no transparency. There is no proper procedure.
In any other court, the accused is innocent, until proven guilty without shadow of doubt. Not in your Family Division! Simply because your courts take regard of only half of the evidence. Your judges refuse to accept that professionals tell lies. Your judges do not advise all parties to mediate, or even criticise the professionals for failing to keep legally required records, or failing to mediate, or failing to even give full and proper information. Your judges do not even take onboard new evidence! In the case that I mention of failure to provide services, two years after that, the Authority barrister admitted quietly as an afterthought, that the care home had not been sufficiently funded. The judge did not then realise that the complaints by the family were justified in the beginning. Your judges do not administer justice. How can they when they treat every case as a criminal matter, but do not even follow the established rules in criminal cases?
The Dispatches programme on Channel 4 last night, has opened up what many thousands of people know. Despite being child based, the same principles apply to adults who become embroiled in your courts. You cannot defend the system. It cannot remain as it it is. Innocent people are suffering on a daily basis. That is inhumanity.
A family of three people has been split apart. The 35 year old daughter, with only one blood relative in this country has been separated from that relative. There have been no Christmas contacts for three years, and every other family celebration and cultural holiday has been lost. Human Rights have been breached at the instigation of social workers, and hospitals. Your judge does not want to know, nor will she allow an appeal, presumably because the Court of Appeal is not a secret court anymore.
Sir Andrew, it is time to admit that the Family Division is not fit for purpose. It only protects the Authorities, or those who shout loudest. It does not work in the interests of the vulnerable. It probably operates illegally itself, by hiding the known wrongdoings of the Authorities and legal representatives. There are Duties of Care, and Duties of Candour, as well as responsibilities to the court itself, yet these are ignored and remain unchallenged in the name of secrecy. Your predecessors have recognised this. It is now for you to suspend the court system, and study every contentious judgement, with the utmost haste, to right the wrongs being inflicted on countless families , and the damage being done to innocents. You need to openly and transparently publicise the failures and what your reforms are. It falls to you, to at last recognise the failures and put them right! This needs doing now, not next month, or next year, or in the distant future. People and families are suffering today and will suffer tomorrow under the system that is protecting itself. In fact, the snake that is the system, is eating itself from the tail upwards. It cannot survive. It will become the laughing stock of the World’s justice systems that are proudly based on British Justice. There we have the ultimate Orwellian lie!
My assertions above are all in the public realm already, with statements and speeches from your past presidents, and publications such as the Transparency Project, and numerous Governmental reports. Why are innocents still suffering after these official concerns?
Thank you.
Luba Macpherson
Sir Andrew Ewart McFarlane is a British judge currently serving as the President of the Family Division of the High Court of Justice in England and Wales, a position he has held since 28 July 2018. In this role, he also serves as the Head of Family Justice, overseeing matters related to family law, including divorce, adoption, and child welfare