In Re A and B (children: ‘parental alienation’) [2023] EWHC 1864 (Fam), handed down last week, Mr Justice Keehan said: ‘It is with great sadness, which I believe is shared by the children, that it is imperative in their welfare best interests that she plays no future role of any description in their lives.’
The unusual ruling is the latest of ten judgments stretching over a four-year period. It concerns two children, now aged 17 and 14 years old, who live with their father and stepmother.
Delivering his judgment, Keehan J said the case ‘has a long and tortuous history’. He concluded that each of the father’s facts has been proved.
The facts included that the mother tried to thwart the therapeutic work of a child psychiatrist, in breach of the court’s orders. The children had been approached by an ‘unknown male’, given mobile phones and told to contact the mother and maternal grandparents, told to run away and to make false allegations about the father. The ‘unknown male’ gave the children trackers to conceal on their person at all times, and tied ribbons around trees near the family home in London to signal to the children that he was there.
The mother did not attend and was not represented at this hearing.
Keehan J commended the work of the child psychiatrist and commented that the children now appeared to be relaxed and happy.
He concluded: ‘The mother has had and has a very distorted and false view of her children, her abusive role in their lives and the devoted care given to them by this father. I am in no doubt that her actions amount to coercive and controlling behaviour towards the children and towards the father and I so find.’
