The Afro-Caribbean father cut a lonely figure in his open-necked shirt as he
faced the judge in the echoing court. He had not seen his children for two
years. There were no lawyers and the mother could not attend.
The setting was one of the grandest of the Victorian Gothic courtrooms at the
Royal Courts of Justice — scene of many a highly publicised battle. But
today the oak benches and public gallery were empty. It was a family court —
where justice is dispensed behind closed doors.
The father’s words were almost lost in the lofty ceiling vault. If he expected
a final decision, he did not get it. Mr Justice Hedley — wearing a suit (no
wig or robe) — told him he was sending the case to Croydon where the mother
lived. This had two advantages: a single district judge could take charge of
the case and a contact regime could be set up at a special centre. “I would
appreciate it,” the man said. “I’ve not had any contact with my children
since 2006.”
In his room the judge explained that the “intractable family dispute” had run
for years. The man had been offered contact under supervision. He had
refused but wanted to reapply.
As the family liaison judge for Greater London Mr Justice Hedley, 62, is
responsible for family courts in the capital outside the High Court. But
this was holiday time and he was doing a stint of vacation duty — a mix of
emergency or procedural applications in continuing cases that need attention.
Judges, and the system, feel beleaguered. The Times has accused family
courts of operating in a “conspiracy of silence” — particularly in care
cases. While injustices may occur, judges feel that the picture is
distorted. So The Times had been granted rare access to sit on the
bench and witness family justice from a judge’s-eye view.
Mr Justice Hedley, who with his wife had two children and fostered three
others, adopting two of them, admits that he may have handled “more
children’s cases than any other judge”. By the law of averages over 16
years’ judging he must have made mistakes, he admits. When he has been
troubled over a decision, it had not been over removing a child from its
home, rather over returning a child to where it might be at risk.
“I’m human like anyone else but I don’t remove a child unless I’m as confident
as |I can be] that it is the right thing to do. If you have to make a choice
between the welfare of the child and the rights of the parents, the welfare
of the child has to prevail. Inevitably that will result in the occasional
injustice because someone will get it wrong. But an injustice to the parent,
however grave, is probably less grave than returning a child to an
environment where it is at risk.”
In court again there was an abduction case involving a couple of Iranian
origin from America. The wife had fled with their baby to the UK. “Almost
all our work has an international dimension,” the judge said. “Often it
involves us wrestling with the laws of another country, which can be quite
difficult.”
Both parents had lawyers. The father claimed custody rights but the mother
alleged that he was abusive — and said she could not return to the US
because she was a “visa overstayer”. Pending a full hearing, the main issue
was what contact in London the father could have with the baby, now five
months. The judge became impatient. “I will have to make a rough-and-ready
decision — there’s no way I can get to the truth of what is said here. Each
just denies what the other says.” All logic and sense had “fled from the
case”. His ruling (after questions about the baby’s sleeping patterns)
seemed fair: contact every other afternoon, initially supervised but not
thereafter. Neither parent had “won”.
Next was another international abduction case involving a Czech teenage mother
and child: the father alleged the mother had brought the child permanently
to the UK and then wrongly abducted the child back to the Czech Republic.
The question was where the child permanently lived. This time the parents
were not in court. The judge had to decide how much oral evidence to allow
at a future hearing. There had to be limits, he said.
Left with extra time the judge’s clerk, Christopher Mills, identified
“floating” cases, hoping for a slot. Mr Mills, a former detective sergeant
with the Metropolitan Police and lance corporal with the Grenadier Guards,
provides the papers to keep the judge ticking over. “All he has to do then
is worry about the judging,” he said. Presented with four lever-arch files,
Mr Justice Hedley had just minutes to grapple with the new case. In one
month he has dealt with about 100 such cases. All require crucial decisions.
He snatched a sandwich and roughed out a judgment.
Next up was the case of a businessman in jail in America whose wife had
flouted a court order to flee with one of their children to the Middle East.
The other child was in Britain. She wanted to establish a regime of contact
with her first child, anticipating the father’s return in the near future.
Neither was in court. “Everyone in this case has behaved disgracefully,” the
judge said. “You both come here with unclean hands — one has committed
offences in the US and the other is a contemnor. He added: “Everyone has
lived as if the law did not matter and suddenly they want the law to sort
things out.”
Back in his room, he said that he had “endless patience” in cases — such as
care proceedings — “when dealing with people where everything’s too much”.
It was different where “people ought to know better”.
Finally there was what seemed a bitter wrangle with a father alleging that the
mother, living in Cambridgeshire, was unfit to care for their child. A
middle-class couple, each looked strained and avoided eye contact. The case
“has a long and unfortunate history as this father has tried to establish
contact with his daughter”, his barrister said. The mother gave evidence to
confirm where she lives and the judge ordered her not to remove the girl
from school pending a hearing. From time to time the mother shook her head
at comments by her husband’s counsel or leapt forward to brief her own. The
case now goes to a district judge.
Family courts are accused of being unfair to the parent without care of the
child — usually fathers. Mr Justice Hedley disagrees, save for a hard core
of intractable cases “where you are not dealing with wholly rational
parents”. He added: “One thing I am not prepared to do is to make children
pay the price of their parents’ conflict. So if there are persistent rows
when the child is handed over and the whole thing is misery for the child,
that’s a factor with me and the loser is likely to be the non-residential
parent.”
It had been a typical vacation day. Justice was dispensed; and if, in the
judge’s words, it was sometimes rough and ready, it seemed fair. All could
withstand public scrutiny. Would the family courts get a better press if
more open? It is in judges’ own interests, he agrees, that as much is done
in public as possible. Many judges have no problem with that: “It makes no
difference whether I sit in open court \ or not.”
He has allowed broadcasters into a care case, subject to anonymity orders, and
had no problem with coverage in the case of Charlotte Wyatt, in which he
ruled that doctors be allowed to let the severely disabled toddler die if
they felt that was in her best interests. But views diverge: one problem
would be cases that attract“supporters’ clubs from hostile families”. Could
anonymity be guaranteed? To hope for that in a “highly fraught private
family case may be singing in the wind”. “There is a good case to be made on
both sides — but it’s a matter for Parliament.”
