Integrated Domestic Abuse Courts: Problems and Possibilities for Including the Experiences of Adult and Child Victim-Survivors

• In Event: Sentencing in Domestic Abuse and Sex Crimes Cases

Abstract

The harms caused by adversarial family and criminal court processes are well documented, in particular for adult and child victim-survivors of domestic abuse (DA) (DA Commissioner Report, 2023; Birchall & Choudhry, 2022). In 2020, the UK Government published the Harm Panel Report, highlighting the ways in which family courts handle DA and child arrangement proceedings more broadly. The report (Hunter et al 2022) and accompanying review (Barnett, 2020) found that the adversarial process in the family courts often exacerbated conflict between parents, increased existing DA and led to increased likelihood of traumatisation of adult and child victim-survivors. Subsequently, two pilot Pathfinder Integrated Domestic Abuse Courts were established (from 2022 onwards) to improve the experiences for families in child arrangement disputes in private family law. The current paper will explore the process evaluation of the Pathfinder pilots, incorporating qualitative interviews with 70 professionals across the two Pathfinder sites and two Child Arrangement Proceedings (CAP) sites for comparison. The paper will focus on the extent to which the Pathfinder process better captures the ‘voice of the child’ and reduces the re-traumatisation of adult and child DA victim-survivors more broadly in comparison to CAP. It will also include considerations for scalability of these courts, including persistent barriers to centring the experiences of adult and child victim-survivors.

Authors

• Charlotte Barlow, University of Central Lancaster

• Clare Scollay, University of Central Lancashire

• Helen Richardson-Foster, University of Central Lancashire

• Christine Barter, University of Central Lancashire

• Nicky Stanley, University of Central Lancashire