Families should be able to regard home as a place of love, comfort and sanctuary.

Sadly, as myself and my colleagues at Hall Brown are well aware, there are many instances in which home is, to quote the phrase, where the hurt is.

Each year, tens of thousands of such cases come before family courts across England and Wales.

The courtroom experience can be difficult for those involved. In an attempt to improve matters, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) commissioned an inquiry to determine how family courts deals with domestic abuse.

Known as the Harm Panel, it reported in June 2020. Whilst it “identified some good practice and widespread good intentions from those working under increasing pressure within the family justice system”, it also encountered a number of concerns (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5ef3dcade90e075c4e144bfd/assessing-risk-harm-children-parents-pl-childrens-cases-report_.pdf).

One was what it described as a “pro-contact culture”, which the authors concluded, amounted to “undue priority on ensuring contact with the non-resident parent, which resulted in systemic minimisation of allegations of domestic abuse”.

That could now be about to change, if plans announced this week by the Government come to fruition.

It has tabled amendments to legislation already making its way through Parliament – the Victims and Courts Bill (https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3968) – designed to exclude abusive parents from the lives of their children.

The changes would see parental responsibility automatically restricted for those guilty of serious sex offences against children, meaning that they would no longer be able to make decisions about their schooling, medical care or trips abroad.

Justice Secretary, David Lammy, said that the initiative – part of a broader plan to “protect children and restore faith in the justice system” – was intended to ensure that the rights and safety of children come first.

There is a declared intention to repeal the presumption that children benefit from both parents being in their lives.

Everyone should be in full agreement about the importance of tackling domestic abuse and, therefore, it will be interesting to see if and how the amendments presented to the Commons make it into law.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the importance of child welfare has been an integral element of family law for more than 30 years.

The Children Act 1989 includes what is, in practice, a checklist of factors which should be taken into account when it comes to determining what actions or orders might be in a child’s best interests (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/1).

It includes a child’s “physical, emotional and educational needs”, along with their “wishes and feelings”.

Although the Harm Panel detected a variety of issues, there has been a substantial shift in the years since in how family courts address domestic abuse and how it affects adults and children.

That can be gleaned from the data gathered by the MoJ itself (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-court-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2025/family-court-statistics-quarterly-april-to-june-2025).

It shows, for instance, that nearly 40 per cent more domestic violence remedy orders were made last year than a decade ago.

The numbers alone do not, in my opinion, provide the full story. In my experience, the presumption of parental involvement is balanced with analysis of the welfare checklist, with a sense of what is best for the child being at the heart of each and every case.

Even with an ever-rising workload, family courts are inclined to explore all relevant details when considering if an order for no contact in circumstances where domestic abuse has been proven to have occurred really is in a child’s best interests.

In fact, orders prohibiting contact altogether or only allowing indirect contact appear much more common now than they have ever been during my career, although I believe that there is still much more work to do.

The instrument upon which the Government’s amendments to the Victims and Courts Bill would rely – a Prohibited Steps Order (PSO) – is already widely in use.

In 2024, there were 31 per cent more PSOs issued than a decade ago, although I should make clear that they are not just used in cases of domestic or sexual abuse.

They are frequently used when parents cannot agree on certain aspects of a child’s upbringing from taking steps such as changing a school or moving to another country.

Further disputes are resolved away via non-court dispute resolution (NCDR) methods such as mediation or arbitration, in keeping with a general appreciation of how helpful they are in facilitating a settlement in cases which do not present serious safeguarding concerns.

They also involve less of the stress which some people associated with court proceedings.

Flexibility is important because different families’ issues require very individual approaches. There is no ‘one size fits all’ answer to any family law problem.

We should also remember that abuse is not just perpetrated by men against women. It can be committed by men or women in both opposite sex and same sex relationships.

There are also cases featuring deliberately false allegations of such domestic abuse and the court has to consider all the facts presented in a case before reaching a decision which could impact on the rest of a child’s life.

Some of the coverage which has followed the Government’s announcement has overlooked those facts.

Interestingly, one of the women who has campaigned for a review of the presumption of parental involvement has suggested that the legal change should be viewed as one part of a bigger picture.

It is that statement which resonates for me.

The family court is overloaded. Cases take far too long to be dealt with and there is a lack of consistency in how the issue of abuse is addressed across the country.

Survivors of abuse often find themselves stuck in a process which can take more than a year to conclude. That timescale risks compounding their feelings of distress. Meeting the needs of children can also be lost in the process.

Tackling that latter problem should, in my view, be the principal reason for wanting to reform the court system.

The Pathfinder model currently being piloted in various parts of the country is likely to become the basis of the next attempt to improve an imperfect system and protect those whom the Children Act 1989 was introduced to protect; namely, children.