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Family Practice Press

Putting Children First

Harry’s Law Launched!

“Who is looking after Harry?”

Judge Wilcox April 1996, High Court.

07 Sep 20. The Family Practice Press Announces the Launch of ‘Harry’s Law’ today.

Julian Nettlefold of the Family Practice Press said, “For too long the High Court Family Division has been living in the past using slow, cumbersome, biased, expensive and outdated processes to manage children’s case in Court. The agonizing and cruel abuse suffered by my son Harry which preceded his early death could have easily been avoided if proper processes were in place in the Family Courts to manage the lawyers concerned and to govern the process by which these cases are heard. The Family Courts have expressed huge reluctance, in spite of years of pressure from a number of groups including Families Need Fathers and Fathers4Justice to adjust to the 21st century. Rather than admit a mistake had been made in 1990 the Family Courts made sure that every time I came back to Court to express my concern for my son, I was thwarted by a biased, outdated and creaking legal process which prefers coverup rather than admittance of mistakes. The system allowed coverup, no doubt to save the lawyers concerned being sued for negligence.”

“The process is stuck in the18th Century where the Court relies on the biased rhetoric of a barrister who is working for his client not the child to determine the future safety of a child. There are numerous technologies available to the Courts such as EEG tests and brain scans to determine if the abuser is suffering from a long-term condition such as Personality Disorder. At the moment the Personality Disorder sufferer, often the mother, is left unsupervised with the children until she or he commits a crime of abuse or murder. That is what I was faced with in 1992 when my ex-wife was granted custody of my son with the key evidence of Personality Disorder concealed from the Court. That hidden evidence was then not available to various local authorities and later the Court who conducted a Section 41 Child Abuse investigation after my son gave a Statement of Abuse in 1997. He was sent back to suffer more abuse and death.

“Today I am launching Harry’s Law that requires not only proper supervision and training of family lawyers but an automatic prison sentence for any lawyer who conceals evidence that could prevent a child from abuse and/or death. My son Harry’s name is just added to the long list of errors made by child protection agencies and the Courts where children are killed by their parent or parents. Most of these errors are caused by the crucial information proving that the mother or father is suffering from Personality Disorder, alcoholism or other such abuse-causing long-term conditions being hidden or deliberately withheld, that is unacceptable. One needless death of a child is one too many.”

On Friday, I am discussing the launch of ‘Harry’s Law’ with Andrea Leadsom M.P. with a view to progressing the issue through the House of Commons to introduce these much-needed reforms to protect children.

The agenda I have proposed is:

  1. Establish proper credentials for lawyers practicing under the Law Society Children Panel.
  2. As above for barristers practicing with children
  3. Annual audit for all firms and barristers.
  4. Fines for firms employing unqualified staff who deal with children.
  5. Strike off for life for all Partners who deliberately employ unqualified staff who are portrayed as trained.
  6. Automatic imprisonment for all lawyers and barristers who omit key evidence from Court which causes a child to be abused or die/murdered.
  7. Fixed tariffs for custody and wardship cases.
  8. Establish proper credentials for CAFCASS staff.
  9. Automatic use of technology as evidence to establish structural brain damage and Personality Disorder (PD).
  10. Proper management of mothers with PD with their children. Refusal to accept treatment should mean automatic loss of custody.
  11. Establish proper credentials for Expert Witnesses giving psychiatric opinions.
  12. Automatic calling of the GP to give evidence.
  13. Automatic rules of full disclosure of evidence in children’s cases.

If all the above fail the only option would be remove the franchise from lawyers in dealing with children and wardships and bring it under a Government-run umbrella Organisation, a kind of ‘Super CAFCASS.’ Although this would increase costs for the Government, the overall savings to the Government spending, particularly the NHS, would be billions. It would also ensure that families are not bankrupted by huge legal fees racked up in these cases. Local Authorities would also have huge savings from such a system.

On the wider issue of Domestic Violence in divorce, Lord Scarman’s landmark 1985 Richards Vs. Richards Judgement was meant to stop this process but lawyers went round this by the use of Court 38 in the High Court. The only way that Domestic Violence can be dealt with properly is for it to be made a crime and all DV cases heard in the criminal court.

Finally, my own opinion is that the No Fault Divorce Bill was brought in purely to protect lawyers from being sued for negligence. Making ‘No Fault’ mandatory will allow all abusers to get away with having their behaviour tried in court thus leaving children open to abuse post-divorce.

“When my son died in 2011 my barrister who had known the case since 1992 said to me that he knew it would end like that, as these cases always do.”

For the Family Courts to allow such a process is abhorrent.

For further information contact:

Julian Nettlefold, Family Practice Press, (M) 077689 54766

E:

For Further Information contact:

Julian Nettlefold

Family Practice Press

Old Charlock

Abthorpe Road

Silverstone

Towcester

NN12 8TW

Tel: +44 (0) 1327858188

Mobile:  +44 077689 54766

e-mail

 


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