Leaving domestic abuse behind
You can download our free guide on navigating the family court after domestic abuse below.
Post-Separation Abuse
Many survivors report that abuse doesn’t stop after the relationship ends. In fact, it continues with a pattern of post-separation abuse sometimes for many years if left unchecked.
What is post-separation abuse?
Post-separation abuse can be exhibited through a wide range of behaviours usually intended to intimidate and control the victim. It can include some or all of the following:
- Stalking and monitoring of a victim’s whereabouts or activities online and in person;
- Acts of violence, harassment, and intimidation;
- Threats or destructive acts against the person, property or life;
- Economic abuse such as controlling a victims access to resources;
- Repetitive or vexatious litigation intended to control and abuse a victim through third parties such as the family court and/or other agencies;
- False allegations of ‘parental alienation’ or false counter claims of abuse;
- Weaponising children through child arrangements to monitor or control the victim.
You may find yourself in family court proceedings after leaving domestic abuse. Patterns of post-separation abuse and control can be perpetrated within the court process and through the child arrangements. Survivors of abuse can find the experience re-traumatising and feel powerless to prevent ongoing coercive control and abuse.
The family court
The family court can be an ideal environment for a perpetrator to continue to exert control over their victims. It is important to understand their motives and your rights. The family court has been criticised extensively for the harmful culture in family court and how that affects victims in family court proceedings, most notably in the ‘harm report’, published by the Ministry of Justice after a 3 month review into the culture and practices of the family court in 2019.
Control
Perpetrators often continue to exert control in the court process and outside of it. This can be exhibited in many ways but most often is evident through repetitive or vexatious litigation which is geared to control and/or punish the victim after leaving.
Risk
If you have been subjected to domestic abuse, you will be acutely aware of the perpetrators patterns and the risk they may present to you and your children. Many victims of abuse feel that the family court does not adequately understand or risk assess abuse sufficiently.
Children
Children are victims under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 if their parent has been identified as a victim of domestic abuse. The law outlines that children who have lived in a household where domestic abuse was perpetrated experience abuse directly or through witnessing or being subjected to patterns of coercive control perpetrated in the household. Children are acutely aware of domestic abuse, even if they have not witnessed or been subjected to abuse directly.
Contact
Whilst many abuse victims are incorrectly advised by friends and family, or other agencies to stop child contact between the perpetrator and their children for safeguarding reasons, the court is the only authority that can decide whether child contact should go ahead. The court has been criticised for their pro-contact culture which has been described as ‘contact at any cost’.
