How Domestic Abuse Cases Are Dealt With in Family Court and the Impact of Post Separation Abuse with Natalie Page

Natalie founded the campaign for domestic abuse survivor, Family Justice #TheCourtSaid, reaching half a million survivors each month working with survivor families directly. Natalie tutors at her social enterprise survivor family network, providing courses and guidance for survivor families working towards safer outcomes in the family court. Natalie dreams of a world where all survivor families can enjoy secure futures without domestic abuse. 

Transcript

Sara Davison: 0:03

Welcome back to the show. And today, my guest is Natalie Paige. Natalie focuses on advocating for a revolutionised response to domestic abuse in the family court. Natalie founded the campaign for survivor Family Justice #thecourtsaid, reaching alf a million survivors each onth working with survivor amilies directly. Natalie utors at her social enterprise urvivor family network, roviding courses and guidance or survivor families working owards safer outcomes in the amily court. Natalie dreams of world where all survivor amilies can enjoy secure utures Without domestic abuse. o I am super excited to welcome atalie Paige to the show. elcome, Natalie. Hi. Hi, how re you? I'm great. And I'm so leased that you're joining us ecause I have so many listeners hat contact me every week about xactly what we're going to talk bout today. So problems with he family courts. So tell us a ittle bit about what you do, atalie.

Natalie Page: 1:49

All right. Well, I'm a campaigner, and I founded the campaign #thecourtsaid you can search this on any social media platform to find this. We reach about half a million domestic abuse survivors each and every month through the campaign. And we are campaigning for a revolutionized and transformed response to domestic abuse in the family court.

Sara Davison: 2:15

Tell me how that works. What are you seeing what are the big issues that people are contacting you about?

Natalie Page: 2:21

Well, a lot of people find that when they enter the family court with a domestic abuse case. So to be very specific, here, we are talking about relationships that have broken down as a result of domestic abuse. So predominantly, the people that are interacting and engaging with our campaign are women. And so most often times where we're helping mothers who have entered the family court system, and after leaving a domestic abuse relationship, what they find when they enter that system, is that there's a real culture of denial, first and foremost, that domestic abuse even occurs, which is actually really quite at odds with the rates of domestic abuse in wider society, being close to one in three women experiencing domestic abuse in their lifetime. Yeah, if you approach the family court system and ask them how much domestic abuse even occurs, you will see a vastly downplayed figure. So one of the first problems that mothers in particular, I'm not saying this doesn't happen to fathers, because it does happen to all domestic abuse survivors. However, particularly mothers find that the first thing that affects them when they enter the family court system is they're met with this culture of disbelief that domestic abuse even occurs. I do think that lack of training in the judiciary is quite responsible for it is an old boys culture, within the judicial institution, I don't think that helps. I don't think there's enough diversity in the judiciary doesn't really represent wider society, which actually, it should be because we're one of their main stakeholders, but they do tend to have a very, very disdainful view of people who have gone through and enjoy domestic abuse. And there is quite a culture of victim blaming, and the family court. So victims will often be asked after they've left, well, why didn't you leave? You know, why didn't you leave sooner. Whereas Actually, we know that the victims will ensure quite a few instances, usually before they actually take that major step of leaving. So there seems to be a knowledge gap, and an empathy gap as well.

Sara Davison: 4:46

I find that shocking in this day and age, especially, I mean now with the pandemic hitting the front news of domestic abuse rising in the UK and around the world. So I know that I'm the patient of the dashboard. And they've seen over 300% increase in calls coming into them during COVID times. So there definitely is the rise of you seeing that as well. Are you seeing an increase in domestic abuse cases coming through to you?

Natalie Page: 5:12

Absolutely. At the beginning of the first lockdown, our caseload went up by 67%, overnight, and just stay there. At that increase. However, because we are not frontline, we're dealing with family courts. So they usually, by the time you're in front of a judge, that's usually four months later, after leaving. So we see a slightly delayed reaction to what the frontline are reporting as big spikes in the amount of contacts that they've got coming through to them. And we saw just a week on week increase weekend week out throughout COVID. And that's showing no signs of slowing down for us. Because as the restrictions are lifting, we're still getting that wave of victims that are coming through from COVID. Coming through to us.

Sara Davison: 6:05

What specifically Are you seeing coming through what sort of cases what are the most common situations that you're dealing with? Really,

Natalie Page: 6:13

it's kind of twofold. The first situation as I've kind of already explained, which is this culture of disbelief. So usually they people enter the court system as a survivor of domestic abuse, and then met with quite a hostile environment that sort of disbelieving, quite victim blaming, even with evidence, they can be, you know, quite hard to convince that this has even happened. If you don't manage to to overcome that hurdle, you can be very open to a weaponized parental alienation allegation. Now, we're not saying that parental alienation never occurs, because we are talking specifically about domestic abuse cases. So within domestic abuse cases where there has been a pattern of violence and coercive control in the relationship, when that couple of splits up, and they end up in the family court, the perpetrator of that violence, well, around about 95% of the time, allege falsely alleged parental alienation and say that the allegations and evidence of abuse is evidence of usually the mother wanting to stop or control or limit his his contact.

Sara Davison: 7:29

Was there. So you've got a mother there? Potentially? I mean, sometimes it is fathers as well. So we have you know, that can't happen to both, obviously. But I know, predominantly, these cases, tend to be mothers, as the victims of this. How does it show up then? So what is happening in the home? And what is the mother doing? She's going to court saying what exactly,

Natalie Page: 7:49

usually the mothers who are who are in the court system will be entering court with evidence of a pattern of abuse, that can be anything from tax evidence, financial evidence for economic abuse, there could be recordings, they could be all kinds of evidence could be police reports, even merits stating that the mother is at high risk of homicide can be ignored by the family court, as well. So we're talking about some really high risk cases here. Whereas in the public discourse, they quite like to dismiss us as being a bit tit for tat. However, I think that's really quite basic. And we are actually talking about some really high risk cases where these mothers and children are actually in danger. And sometimes they're the children are also being harmed themselves, because domestic abuse doesn't actually stop when you walk out of the door. It continues post separation. And in the court arena, it provides a very willing vehicle for perpetrators to continue to abuse and control through the child arrangements. You're in

Sara Davison: 9:04

front of the judge, and they've got that evidence that you're talking about, then it's quite clear for them to see what's going on. And it is

Natalie Page: 9:13

yes, you know, in my view, the cases that we have, and that we've seen, it is extremely clear, there's a pattern of abuse going on. However, this culture of disbelief does mean that they almost raised the standard and the burden of proof to one that I would say is even beyond the standard in the criminal court arena. Obviously, the civil system and the family court operate on a slightly lower burden of proof. So it's on balance of probability, and the criminal court will operate on beyond reasonable doubt. So there's slightly two different standards and burdens of proof. So I've seen cases that more than exceed the burden of proof of on the balance of probability would probably meet beyond reasonable doubt standard yet they will be ignored largely by the family court. And a lot of survivors report that they don't think that the judge even read it, they don't even want to look at it, some of them will refuse the whole fact find fact finding hearing as a way that they can deal with allegations. And this is where they try the allegations. So it's a little bit like a trial, quite often judges will just refuse to even hold one. So victims never even get the chance to give their best evidence.

Sara Davison: 10:30

There are a lot of cases where it's hard to prove a coercive control is something that's massively if you take an individual event, I suppose, can be seen as something quite small. But if you stack it all together, and you know, know, and understand what abuses that is exactly what it is over a prolonged period of time. But I think in fact, finding hearings, you're only allowed to put together those three or four, maybe five things. And that isn't enough, quite often. And the coercive control case, and I know I've spoken to many lawyers about this, and those episodes, Rachael harmony talks a lot about how it's very difficult to prove these things in court. So it does beg the question, How can it be a crime if it's impossible to prove? So that's something that I hear a lot actually in my coaching clinic. So what can people do in the situation? Natsumi? I think a lot of people go into the court system, expecting justice expecting that when they've put their case forward, that the judge will be able to see what's what and they will get justice. And, you know, I know that that isn't always the case. Right.

Natalie Page: 11:38

In the family court isn't the case. Certainly. I mean, there's vast problems. I mean, they published the harm report, about a year ago. And in that report, there was a lot of reforms promised and that have not yet been delivered. It's very much business as usual, in the family court. So my advice to in particular, domestic abuse survivors entering the court is learn how to protect your position, never come to court without a statement ever. and gather as much evidence as you can, before you leave the relationship. I mean, if we're lucky enough to be talking to anyone who's thinking about going it's, it's great if people can get their ducks in a row before they do. Because often, you know, survivors will find that evidence may or may not be destroyed, hidden, or just moved. And so I think the most important thing to protect your position is actually to demonstrate really, really good parenting and particularly good mothering, because you're walking into court on an equal legal footing with the perpetrator. In your case, no matter what they've done, the court will usually see that contact with both parents is in the best interest of the children, again, no matter what they've done. That's an awful lot for survivors of abuse, to get their head around, because they know it isn't safe. They know the perpetrator better than anybody else in that room. And it's very, very difficult when someone is then telling you that you would be breaking the law if you didn't put your children at that level of risk. So to avoid being at risk of the more brutal and blunt end of this system. And a good way to do that is to really learn how they work, really learn how to communicate with the court. And really learn what you've got to do to demonstrate these patterns of behavior that we're talking about with coercive control, which are very difficult to prove. There are noises from the judiciary, that they're moving away from an incident led model where you've only got, like you You mentioned a few minutes ago, where you've got a couple of incidents that you can prove, but on their own, they don't look enough. But when you put it as part of a wider pattern, it's details a very, very different story. They are making noises about moving to a slightly more inquisitorial approach that allows survivors to tell their whole story rather than just the the violent incident part of their story, or the incidents that they can prove. Because if you've got an instantly you can prove and you've been in a domestic abuse relationship, most survivors will tell you there'll be 10 more that they couldn't ever prove in a court of law that happened just because of lack of evidence, but they still happened. And you know, it's very, very difficult because, you know, you're going in there with a snapshot of your whole relationship and trying to demonstrate the risk that you've been perta and yet you haven't got the space in in which to do that. So learning how to talk in the courts. I'm not using jargon just in what they're looking for what they want to see from mums in particular, is it good mothering because it's very easy for a mum to become very unsettled after domestic abuse, when faced with the perpetrator, again in the courtroom, after going through crimes and the moms are expected, then to be completely okay with that, they might not have special measures in place, you know, and it can be quite an intimidating experience. So it's learning how to overcome, feeling very intimidated and learning how to deal with what is going on in the case and what is going on in that court.

Sara Davison: 15:48

What I see is people going into court thinking, as I said before, they're going to get justice and then going through this process, which is very, very difficult having to face the abuser in court, and having to defend themselves against lies that, you know, they have alienated their children or turn them against the father, when actually, you know, it genuinely is something that's going on with their kids. And it can affect all ages. But sometimes, the stories I hear of sexual abuse that the children have talked about, or you know, children coming home with injuries, or just being very frightened to go and see the other parent. How does a mother stand up to that? If she's worried about the safety of her child? She's going in there, but she's met by disbelief, as you say, and then she's coming home? How do you cope with those things? Are you struggling to cope with your breakup or divorce? Are you feeling devastated, heartbroken, sad and anxious? If so, please know that you're not alone and there is help available. Sarah Davison best known as the divorce coach, and her team of accredited coaches are here to offer you the support and guidance you need to navigate all areas of your breakup. Take back your control, and start feeling happy. Again. Syrah will show you how to dial down those controlling negative emotions, unhook from your ex, get back in the driving seat of your life, and design a future you're excited to live. Sarah has a range of solutions to support any breakup, including free guides, one to one coaching her heartbreak to happiness, virtual retreats, live retreats, and you can even train to be a breakup and divorce coach with sa routine. Visit www dot syra davisson.com today and start to feel happy again. How does a mother stand up to that? If she's worried about the safety of her child? She's going in there but she's met by disbelief as you say, and then she's coming home? How do you cope with those things?

Natalie Page: 18:06

That's a really, really difficult thing to cope with that because, for example, when a child discloses that they've been through abuse, most people have the idea that if a child say told her a social worker, and that they'd been abused, that the child will be taken seriously the people listen to children, when children are saying something has gone that badly wrong at home, that, you know, people are expecting to be heard, when they have the immense courage to say something like that, however, what their system says, when a child discloses something as not. We're really sorry that happened to you, that's make you say, they say, who put you up to saying that, and then the eyes will be looking at mum. Because even in the definition of parental alienation, it says predominantly mothers perpetrate this, what we find actually is that 95% of people who are engaging with our campaign are mothers, and they have been accused of parental alienation, when in fact there are they have been going through domestic abuse. So it's very difficult to get the children heard in a system that is not prepared to listen.

Sara Davison: 19:26

Right, though for a child to have their voice heard. It's really the children's Act says that children shouldn't be forced to go somewhere they don't feel safe, right?

Natalie Page: 19:34

This is true. This is very, very true. But the best interest principle which is the overriding best interests in all children's cases, so it's the overriding concept is the best interest of the child and they view the best interests of the child is being served by contact with both parents at any cost, contact at any cost.

Sara Davison: 20:00

Just so upsetting to hear that that is actually going on. Yeah. I mean, that just sounds like something from a different country in a different time. Maybe not not our country today. But I mean, I also I mean, I'll be speaking to people around the world and I hear this coming up in Australia in the states is not just UK based, isn't it?

Natalie Page: 20:21

No, it's not. This is a global situation, basically, you know, in particular, women and children's rights certainly are being effectively rolled back by the actions of the family court because human rights aren't really considered and children's rights are I think, even further,

Sara Davison: 20:40

saying his father's rights, Trump children's rights and parental alienation Trump's domestic abuse. So are you seeing that weaponized by by, I guess, lawyers, legal firms or perpetrators being the mouthpiece for this now? Are you seeing it as a tactic now that it's being used more often?

Natalie Page: 20:59

Yeah. And it is a well known tactic, like 790 5% of people that are engaging with our campaign have been accused of alienation when they've got evidence of abuse. It's interesting, as well as when parental alienation is alleged. For example, Adrian Barnett, did a study a couple of years ago, and she found that parental alienation was alleged in response to allegations of domestic abuse or evidence of domestic abuse. Fast forward a couple of years, I'm doing a call for cases. And so I'm having a little look and I put a survey out, and I'm asking survivors. Okay, when did you put your allegations of abuse into the court? And when were the parental alienation, allegations made? And very uniformly, in fact, unanimously, it came back, that parental alienation was later alleged, and it is definitely in response to evidence or allegations of domestic abuse.

Sara Davison: 22:04

Find it shocking that there's not more that is, you know, being done. Do you see things changing at the moment? Are you hopeful? Is there anything that we can do to help?

Natalie Page: 22:13

We've made quite good progress in highlighting the issues? A few years ago, this was barely really talked about, whereas now survivors generally are a lot more aware. So I think we've made real inroads there in regards to change, that the harm report was published a year ago, and there was a whole raft of reforms promised there at the moment, I think that is sitting on a desk somewhere in the Ministry of Justice gathering dust. Recently in the domestic abuse bill, the Lord's put in a raft of amendments that would have actually been really progressive and good for survivors. They were recommending that it was legislated that judges receive mandates mandatory training and domestic abuse. There was a serial perpetrators register, amendment in there, amongst others. When it came back to the comments, on the 15th of April, by a unanimous Tory vote, all of those recommend all of those amendments were rejected. They were rejected, they are no longer going to be legislated. These judges are still inadequately trained. And it's not going to be mandatory that they are trained in domestic abuse. They're hearing cases that they don't even understand. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. But the real worry here is the reforms that were arising from the harm report published a year ago, is in the same hands of the same people who just rejected all of those amendments. This is

Sara Davison: 23:55

like shocking, isn't it? I mean, the fact is that when making progress there things are starting to happen. People are hearing it and then they're rejecting it. I just don't understand why what are the consequences of this what's happening to these women and children as a consequence of not being heard.

Natalie Page: 24:13

being heard as as the bare minimum, they will be subjected to an ongoing pattern of post separation abuse. That's what happens at the bare minimum. At worst children do get murdered. #thecourtsaid leader in Canada, Jennifer, her daughter was murdered about a year ago by the father on a court ordered visit. His contact was just about to be reduced on the grounds that he wasn't safe. But the judge allowed one last unsupervised visit and that's when they plunged to their deaths from the top of cliff and Canada and snow. She was full. There's been child homicides in this country. And all around the world, on court ordered contact. So it really is no exaggeration, when we say that they will have blood on their hands for rejecting amendments, like mandatory training and domestic abuse, that kind of training could save children's lives.

Sara Davison: 25:19

What happens next Saturday, what happens next?

Natalie Page: 25:22

The struggle continues, we're taking a short bit of time now just to sort of regroup and see where we're headed next, because the major work with the domestic abuse bill has obviously now finished. So we're looking to see what needs to happen next. We do have some good stuff coming up. I'm writing a new training course at the moment. And that will be to help professionals and also survivors who want a deeper understanding of what's going on in the family court. So I help people navigate it. So an advanced Family Court navigation course

Sara Davison: 25:57

we don't hear the stories that doing because the family courts, you're not allowed to talk about what's happened to you in the family courts. Is that right?

Natalie Page: 26:05

That's absolutely correct. I mean, I spent nine years in the family court, and I can't really tell you anything about it, or I'd be breaking the law. So there's this culture of veil of silence all around the issues and Family Court, which makes it very difficult to campaign about very difficult to speak about. So therefore, like, because no one's talking about it. The first thing that most survivors say to me still to this day, after all the awareness that we've been raising, they will still say to me, I didn't have a clue what was going to happen when I first walked into court, I thought we were going to get justice.

Sara Davison: 26:37

That is the challenge that because of the secrecy, then no one finds out about it. So it's enabled, and the people within the system, I guess, are making money. And, you know, what's their incentive to change? I guess, as we're seeing time and time again, I just can't fathom why it would be blocked. On what basis? are they thinking that that's okay to block it, and what were their reasons speech? And did they say what their

Natalie Page: 27:02

reasons were for blocking it. And the usual reason for evading progress is, they will usually fall back on the arguments of judicial discretion and judicial independence. So they judicial independence is one of the pillars of democracy, so to on demand to mine, that would be seen as anti democratic. So the judges basically are able to operate with total discretion and no scrutiny whatsoever. And so it just sort of leaves the door open to this kind of silo working, where nobody's talking to each other, about the issues. And these in justices are just going on wholesale, they're not trained. And domestic abuse meaningfully, they really don't know what it looks like. And they have just been given the independence to just let that continue, basically,

Sara Davison: 27:59

find it incredible that you don't have to be drained in the job you're doing, which is potentially a life saving decision that you're making or not. So I mean, it's just utterly, you know, soul destroying to hear that that happened very recently. Okay, so you're doing some amazing work there, Natalie. And, you know, I watch you from behind the scenes, and I'm cheering you every step because I know that you're supporting so many people, tell us a bit about your programs, and just how many people you're supporting. I know you've got a huge following, haven't you?

Natalie Page: 28:32

Yeah, we did, I do have quite a large following all over the world actually, are the amount of people that are affected by this issue. It's just, it's just astounding. And you know, the more we reach, the more we find, and it's just so great, bigger and bigger and bigger. So we do put people on our court confidence course, which tells people exactly what to expect and how to handle the family court journey and how to stay safe and secure a safer outcome, learning all the while how to protect your position in a very difficult system. So we funnel quite quite a few people in in England and Wales through the core confidence course, our next course is going to be more suitable for a global audience. When I wrote this course a year ago, we weren't we were really just dealing with England, England and Wales in terms of the caseload, but now we've got it coming in from everywhere. So we're having to create new services, which are just about to launch soon, so keep an eye out for that. I'll be talking about that on social media really, really soon.

Sara Davison: 29:38

Oh, brilliant. So where can people find you, Natalie?

Natalie Page: 29:41

They can find us on social media. Just search#thecoursaid into any social media platform and you will find us and you can find us on the web at the CT said.org. And you can find our training course at w w. w. confidence.com.

Sara Davison: 30:00

It's an amazing program, and it's very reasonably priced. So it's something that, you know, a lot of people can just tap into and give them that extra support when you really need it. You know, I mean, I think a lot of the law firms out there, whether all the legal professionals, if it's not mandatory to have training in this, then it's up to the individual to, to own it and take responsibility. And I guess there's also the fact that some legal professionals will say they're experts, but maybe not quite as expert as they make out they are. So getting educated yourself, I think, is really a great way to take back as much control as you can over this process and go in, you know, armed with the information and clarity of what you're about to face, because I think some of those situations, you might instinctively react in one way, which isn't going to help you. So I think, you know, understanding the system, the right way to react isn't sometimes the instinctive way that we react. So that's why this is important. Would you agree with that?

Natalie Page: 30:59

I would agree that actually, because Family Court is just like a different planet, with its whole own other language. And everything feels very counter intuitive. And it just feels like a parallel universe where all that you thought was right, and normal just doesn't exist that way. So when I say learning to talk the courts language, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about overcoming triggers, because they will be misunderstood by the system. It's talking about how you position an incident and how it's affected you without them, punishing you for it. So it's very much about like walking a tightrope, to try and get some justice that put your foot wrong and falling into some horrible, say, a victim blaming and sort of punishment for it, and everything feels counterintuitive. So you really need someone to hold your hand through that process and say, Look, this is gonna feel really wrong. But you've got to do it, because it's going to have this positive effect on your case. So that's what the course does. It takes people through all the really nuanced and counterintuitive areas and also covers like what abusers will throw at you in the courtroom as well, what they accuse, when they say it, how they do it. So you think you'd know what tactics are going to be pulled on you. And most of our reviews say stuff like, scarily accurate, or this was invaluable, because it really helped me protect my position, most people will do a lot better. in the courtroom. Once I've been on this course, we've got a really good success rate, and it's independently five star rated. So whilst the information does sound counterintuitive, and it doesn't sound like it, it should be that way. Well, that's because it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be the way it is the system is broken. But we can only work in the parameters that we have and the parameters that the justice system gives us. So working within those parameters, it can feel very odd with everything that you sort of know or did believe about the justice system and getting justice,

Sara Davison: 33:22

such important information. Thank you, Natalie. I just think hopefully, people listening wherever you are in the world, it will have maybe opened your eyes or put you in a position where you are going to be better informed if you are going on that journey. So do reach out and find Natalie for some more help and support. So Natalie, just my last question, which I asked everybody who comes on my show as my guest. The podcast is called heartbreak to happiness. I think it's really important to know what happiness is for you so that if you are on the journey, no matter what stage you're on right now, you know what it is so you can recognize it and enjoy it when you find it. So what is happiness for you?

Natalie Page: 34:04

happiness for me was actually recovery. It was recovery from my experience and really embracing the recovery journey. Also biscuits biscuits make me happy.

Sara Davison: 34:18

I love a good brisket. What's your favorite biscuit? I like all of them. The honest chocolate chip cookies. I think my week this. I love them. I love them. I'm with you on that. Well, thank you ever so much, Natalie, for joining me been an amazing guest. And hopefully I know you will have helped many, many listeners out there. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me, and I'll speak to you soon. That's it for today's episode, be sure to head on over to thecourtsaid.org To find out more about Natalie's work, and I look forward to you joining me on our next episode.