My children keep asking me this question: “Why won’t the court listen to what we want mummy? When will they have to listen to what we want? When can we decide who we want to live with?”

My son said: “I wish your psychiatrist hadn’t told the Court that you have Bipolar, mummy. Then we would still have you looking after us.”

They don’t understand why the Court has not listened to what they want or, in their eyes, even asked them what they want. They want to know why they can’t write to the Court or stand up in Court and be listened to. I have promised them that I will find out what their rights are………..

As I do my research, I will post up articles that seem to be helpful on various subjects. Here’s what the website “Compact law” says about the Children’s Voice:

The Children’s Voice

Sometimes a court may decide that the children should be represented themselves, the person who represents the children is the Childrens’ Guardian. This is a person selected from a special panel who will have experience of dealing with and advising children. They may have a social service background or be ex-probation officers. They may speak to the children and find out what the children want.

Your children are also allowed to have their own solicitor, the Children Act gives children a voice. A Children’s Guardian will usually appoint a solicitor to act for the children, but the children can also instruct their own solicitor.

It can be very hard for the judge to make a decision when he or she does not know you or your partner and has not met the children. The judge may appoint someone to be the courts eyes and ears, this person is called the “Court Welfare Officer”. They are usually members of the Probation Service and are attached to the Family Court Service.

They will often visit you and your partner and speak to the children and then write a report for the court, in which they can make suggestions.

The judge does not have to do what the Court Welfare Officer suggests in his or her report.

If you are not happy with the report and argue against it, the judge may accept what you say. You should co-operate with the Court Welfare Officer if you can, they are not there to take sides, but that does not mean that you have to agree with everything they say.

The judge can decide to speak to the children personally. However many judges do not like to do this as the children often get upset, because they do not want to be disloyal to one of their parents.

Also, part of the job of the Court Welfare Officer is to talk to the children to find out where they want to live and which parent they want to see.

The judge may feel it is better for the Court Welfare Officer to find out the children’s views.

If a child is thought to be old enough to understand the court proceedings their views will be taken into account. Children aged 12 or over are usually thought to be old enough to know what they want. The judge can decide to listen to the children or the judge can make the decision for the children.

The only principal the court has to consider is what would be in the best interests of the children.

http://www.compactlaw.co.uk/free_legal_information/children/childf13.html

 All of the article is very interesting if that is what in fact happens. However, in my particular case, it didn’t happen like that. I was not informed by my lawyers or by CAFCASS that the children could have their own solicitor – in fact, I have only just found that out! Clearly, I will now start to investigate further how a child can appoint their own solicitor.

CAFCASS, for those of you who don’t know, is the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. They are the Court appointed Guardian for the children. In theory, they should be interviewing the children to find out what the children want and then prepare a report for the court to make recommendations as to what the children want. However, the judge doesn’t have to accept those recommendations, even though he/she hasn’t usually even met the children so can’t know what the children want unless he/she listens to the CAFCASS officer or interviews the children him/herself.

My judge thought the CAFCASS report was “appalling” as he hadn’t met with the children with each parent on our own thereby seeing the interaction. He only saw the children on one occasion and then misinterpreted what they said: I was there when my son said he “wanted to live with Daddy too” but the CAFCASS officer didn’t hear the “too” so reported my son’s statement as “he wanted to live with his father”. This is simply not the case at all; out of all the children he is the one who is expressing his unhappiness most about living away from me. A vital sentiment was misheard but was catastrophic in its consequences. Remarkably, none of these interviews are taped: if they were, then the judge could hear for themselves what the children said, in what tone of voice and with what body language. Given that 93% of our communication is non-verbal, you would think that it would be vital for the judge to hear/see for themselves the details of the interview with the children and not to rely on the CAFCASS officer’s perception of the interview.

In the meantime, here is an extract from a publication produced by CAFCASS advising children what to do when their parent’s go to court over residency:

 Your rights

CAFCASS respects your rights as a child. In particular, we support the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is an agreement made by many different countries about how children should be treated.

Here are some of your rights when there is a case about you at court:

• You have the right to see the Children’s Guardian who will listen to what you want to happen and tell the court about your wishes and feelings.

• You have the right to have your own Solicitor who will see you and listen to what you want. Your Solicitor will speak up for you in court.

• You have the right to ask to attend the court hearings, to see the court or to meet the Judge or Magistrate. Some children want to do this and some children don’t. Talk to the Children’s Guardian or your Solicitor about what you want.

• You have the right to be given written information about your case as long as the information is not damaging to you or to others.

Speak to the Children’s Guardian or your Solicitor about this.

• You have the right to be told what is happening with your case by both the Children’s Guardian and your Solicitor.

• Your have the right to know the decision made about you by the Judge or Magistrate. The Children’s Guardian must make sure you know what happened as soon as possible.

• You have the right to make a complaint if you are not happy about anything we have said or done. See further details on the back of this leaflet.

• If something does not happen that was decided by the court, you have a right to have this looked into by an Independent Reviewing Officer.

 Well, I have had to go on the website to find this: it certainly wasn’t given to my children. I’m off now to print it out and give it to the children next time I see them, together with a print out of the children-friendly version of the Human Rights Act 1998 giving them rights……..

 More on the Human Rights Act in another post……….

I will also do a post about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child………