Fact finding hearings are essential when there are serious allegations of abuse. They are more like a criminal trial than any other hearing in the family court and they can last from two days to several weeks. Not surprisingly, most parents are completely wrung out both physically and emotionally, and often financially too, at the end of these hearings and cannot contemplate appealing a wrong decision. And appeals are hard to win anyway as you have to prove the judge made an error in law or procedure. But when they go wrong, i.e. when the judge wrongly finds there has been no abuse, the results can be disastrous for the children involved.

That was where Rose found herself 7 years ago, devastated when the judge took the side of her ex and decided she had not been raped or abused. So many judges do not understand domestic abuse and take as gospel any evidence in black and white – in this case text messages evidencing a loving relationship. This is why it’s so important to document any abuse and sending a text or WhatsApp to the perpetrator soon after the incident, setting out exactly what they did, can be an effective way of doing this e.g. ‘you called me a [set out exact words], please stop this abuse’ or ‘you pushed the table into my leg which cut and bruised it’ – and be sure to take photos of any injuries.

The judge ordered Rose to send her daughter back to unsupervised contact with her father, and it wasn’t long before Mia started to report sexual and emotional abuse. Social workers also sided with the father, hid Mia’s evidence and threatened that Mia would be taken into care, if Rose continued to make allegations.

Rose had to sell her house and paid a total of £175,000 in legal fees before running out of money. Some of this was well spent as her legal team managed to get the judge to recuse himself, which is a rare achievement. And then a KC managed to get the new judge to reopen the fact finding hearing which, so far as we know, is unheard of. The father argued that it was a backdoor attempt to appeal the decision 5 years out of time but the judge decided that the Court of Appeal decision in Re H-N 2021 means that allegations of coercive controlling behaviour now have to be dealt with differently.

Another change since Rose’s first fact finding hearing is that survivors are now able to have an IDVA (Independent Domestic Violence Advocate) attend court with them for emotional support during the hearing. This will be of enormous help to Rose who is dreading having to relive the trauma of the rape and abuse a decade ago. But unless your domestic abuse agency is able to provide one free of charge, you will normally have to pay the IDVA. And Rose has no money for this. She struggles to pay her rent and bills every month, she still owes money for previous legal fees and has had debt collectors knocking at her door.

As this is an important case, which will hopefully help others to overturn unsafe fact findings, I have been working with Rose pro-bono for the last couple of years. But she has no way of meeting her legal and IDVA expenses for these next hearings.

Fortunately, Mia has not seen her father for a few years now but she will be at risk of that again if this new hearing does not go the way we hope. Mia still needs to recover from the abuse and trauma but Rose cannot pay for the medical and therapeutic treatment she needs.

The Crowdfunder (https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/8-year-family-court-hell—groundbreaking-case) is now closed, with huge thanks to all who contributed.