New powers to stop warring parents using contact with their children as a weapon could backfire and inflame fraught family relations, according to judges and lawyers.

The measures, which take effect today, could criminalise mothers and fathers who fail to keep contact arrangements, they say. The powers, contained in the Children and Adoption Act 2006, enable judges to order parents who breach contact orders to attend parenting classes, pay a fine or compensation. Defaulters can also be ordered to carry out up to 100 hours of unpaid community work, such as removing graffiti or picking up litter.

The move comes in response to persistent criticisms from fathers that mothers regularly breach contact orders and courts do little to enforce them because imprisonment harms the children.

Family judges have told The Times that the measures, although welcome in principle, could damage tense family relations, rebound on fathers as well as mothers and fetter judges’ discretion.

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The wording of the powers appeared to require judges to add a “warning notice” to any contact order so that, if it were breached, penalties would be incurred immediately – with no discretion, one said.

“The measures could be inflammatory and damaging,” one family judge said, and could be counter-productive to fathers trying to improve relations with children. “You might have terrified children thinking: if I don’t go and see Dad, my Mum’s going to prison.” He added that the measures were devised to be evenhanded. That meant they would hit fathers equally. “So if a father fails to take a child on a weekend when arranged and a mother loses out – perhaps because she has arranged a holiday – the father can be ordered to pay compensation.”

The compensation could be limitless, he added. “You could envisage a situation where a mother had to keep taking time off or changing her hours because a father did not keep to the arrangements and so she loses her job. The father could then be ordered to pay thousands of pounds in compensation for the loss of that job.”

Emma Flisher, a family solicitor with the law firm Mills & Reeve, said there was a danger that mothers would be criminalised through the powers to penalise parents with up to 100 hours of unpaid work – which can be increased to 200 hours and a fine if they fail to turn up.

“Whilst some people may welcome the law flexing its muscles in this way, opponents question whether it will actually change the way parents behave. There is also a concern it sends the wrong message, by appearing to criminalise mothers.”

Resolution, the association of family lawyers, said that the measures will not work without a properly funded network of support facilities to run classes or “contact activities”.

Chris Goulden, who chairs its children committee, said: “The principles behind these new powers are laudable but they are unlikely to bring about any meaningful improvement unless the new services are up and running, properly funded and readily available for the courts to refer families to.”

At present there was a “disturbing lack of clarity” about what activities would be available and who would pay for them.

Parents ordered to attend “contact activities” could be covered in some cases by legal aid, but others on low incomes might face footing the bill themselves, paying fees ranging from “£200 to £2,500”, he added. “Access to help and advice for parents struggling to handle the impact of family breakdown must not become another postcode lottery.”

Barbara Reeves, family partner with Mishcon de Reya, in London, said that any measures to support parental contact after separation were welcome. She added: “It remains to be seen, however, just how far the courts will take advantage of these new powers and move us towards the ideal situation whereby children are brought up always knowing both parents and honouring agreements or orders that facilitate contact.”

Calum Chase, of Families Need Fathers, also welcomed the powers, urged by the group for years, as they would “press home the message that children need good levels of contact with both parents”.

But he said: “We are, however, concerned that some members of the judiciary may shrink from deploying the new powers.”

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