All entries on Feminist Legal Clinic’s News Digest Blog are extracts from news articles and other publications, with the source available at the link at the bottom. The content is not originally generated by Feminist Legal Clinic and does not necessarily reflect our views.
A boy who was taken away from his mother at the age of nine due to a ‘draconian’ court order will be reunited with her in time for Christmas after nearly six years apart.
The teenager, now 15 years old, was removed from his mother’s care along with his sister after an unregulated psychologist, Melanie Gill, advised a family court that their mother had ‘turned the children against their father’, according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
The siblings were sent to live with their father in 2019 before the judge banned any further contact with their mother – which she described as ‘unthinkably draconian’.
But the boy will be able to see his mother, Erin (not her real name), this Christmas after he ran away from his father and hired a lawyer to launch a legal bid at the High Court due to new guidance around allegations of parental alienation, which states experts should not be used to look for parental alienation.
A High Court ruling earlier this year raised concerns about unregulated psychological evidence in family proceedings.
Gill had given expert advice in more than 150 family court cases which often involved allegations of parental alienation.
The High Court found her evidence was ‘unreliable’ and that it ‘should not have been relied upon’ in a parental alienation case where Gill described the mother as a ‘narcissist’ who alienated her children from their father.
Her advice has led to at least 12 children being taken away from their mothers.
The Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales has since called for a review of all the cases of Gill’s where children were removed from a parent’s care.
Source: Teen reunited with his mum after six-year court order