Court Papers

[grace]

Hi everyone, can anybody please advise. After five years an accusation of DV has been made against our son by his ex partner. Previous accusations prior to 2009 were judged to be unfounded by the court, during a long and extremely fraught custody battle.
Our son was granted a permanent RO in 2011 and the children have had no contact with mother at all as the order specifically prohibited it.
When our son asked what exactly the claim of DV referred to, the CaffCass officer said she could not tell him.

Is this lawful?

Surely our son is entitled to know what the accusation is before he walks into court?

My husband and I genuinely thought that maybe the "Wolfe" report would apply here (apologies if I have misunderstood that)

Regards

Grace

[Robin D]

If your son has been charged with a criminal offence and that is why he is in court, then full disclosure to his legal team is part of the process.

However, if these are new family court proceedings regarding the children (as suggested by the fact that CAFCASS are involved), then slightly different rules apply. The CAFCASS officer may not be the correct person, or indeed authorised to pass on those details. Normally such allegations are put by the police, and SW's and the like always say they cannot tell the accused as to do so would potentially compromise the police investigation. If Children's Services are taking it back to court, he would be made aware of the substance of any allegation unless it was felt that to do so would put the children at risk.

So I think its just a case of everyone following the correct procedures. That being the case, annoying as it is, you just have to wait and see. Remember that Children's Services have a duty to ensure that there is nothing in it and that the children are not exposed or going to be exposed to domestic violence.

[grace]

Thank you Robin, its as we thought. However, there are no charges, there never have been. As far as we know this is yet another attempt by mother to discredit our son. Not once has she ever given any weighting to the childrens' needs and feelings. Despite still being at a tender young age, they are not lacking in common sense and they know something is amiss.

We will just have to deal with it when in court.

Thanks again

Grace