Dame Esther Rantzen changed child safeguarding by creating somewhere children could speak when they felt unable to tell anyone else. Her legacy raises an important question for the Family Court: when we say a child has been heard, have we actually listened?
Five years after the Harm Panel exposed serious problems in the treatment of domestic abuse in private law children proceedings, the IDAS Family Court Report 2026 suggests many survivors are still encountering the same failure points. JSH Law examines what has changed, what has not, and why implementation may now be the central family justice challenge.
The Court of Appeal has given its first judgment on the new Child Focused Court model. Re C [2026] EWCA Civ 1216 examines domestic abuse, Cafcass recommendations, fact-finding, informed agreement, procedural fairness and section 91(14).
Since 20 July 2026, new Family Procedure Rules restrict the use of unregulated experts in children proceedings. This practical guide explains who counts as a regulated expert, the exceptions, what Re Y means for parental-alienation and domestic-abuse cases, and how litigants in person can audit and respond to an expert report.
Can historic Family Court findings be reopened because the law and professional guidance have moved on? In Re SB [2026] EWFC 264, the court considered whether 2020 findings of alienating behaviour should be revisited following Re Y and the Family Justice Council’s modern approach.
What happens when a Child Arrangements Order intended to preserve a relationship begins damaging it? In [2026] EWFC 277 (B), the Family Court discharged an order concerning a 15-year-old who had refused contact with his father for around nine months.
AI can generate convincing text, audio, photographs and video — and the Ministry of Justice has now identified synthetic and manipulated evidence as an emerging risk to the justice system. For family-court litigants, the practical response is not panic. It is better evidence discipline: preserve originals, retain context, record provenance and understand what each item actually proves.
Family court paperwork can be technically complete while still losing the context that matters. This article examines eight developments in family justice—from domestic abuse and Cafcass evidence to AI, expert reports, neurodiversity and Child Focused Courts—and introduces a six-question framework for checking how important conclusions are reached.
If domestic-abuse allegations are disputed in a child-arrangements case, the Family Court does not automatically need a separate fact-finding hearing. But serious allegations cannot simply be left unresolved if Cafcass or the court needs to know whether they are true before assessing risk. This guide explains the current Cafcass practice aid, the PD12J test and what evidence the court actually needs.
Daniel Thomas’s criminal case moved from arrest and charge to a magistrates’ court appearance within a remarkably short period. Against a record Crown Court backlog, that has prompted questions about whether the case is receiving exceptional treatment. But rapid first appearances for defendants kept in custody are built into criminal procedure. This article separates the publicly known facts from speculation and asks what evidence would actually be needed before drawing conclusions about equal treatment before the law.