ENGLAND AND WALES — Right to Equality released a report titled 'Scratching the Surface: Victim-Blaming and Bias in Family Court Judgments,' which analyzed 91 published family law judgments and found that 72.5% contained judicial victim-blaming language. The report identified 530 instances of victim-blaming language by court professionals, primarily judges, across 66 of the analyzed judgments in England and Wales.
The report concluded that court professionals often scrutinized mothers' behavior more intensely. In contrast, fathers' conduct was frequently contextualized or minimized within the judgments. The findings of the report are scheduled to be presented on Tuesday during a parliamentary event.
"As a barrister, I have stood in family courts and watched judges normalise abuse, trivialise trauma and silence survivors," said Dr. Charlotte Proudman, a barrister and co-director of Right to Equality. The report recommends that the family judiciary begin publishing 20% of judgments selected at random each month. It also suggests establishing specific publication targets for judgments that involve allegations of domestic and sexual abuse.
Rose, a family court participant cited in the report, said: "He was allowed to sort of laugh and scoff and mock while we were in court, so he wasn't in any way held to account for the behaviours that he exhibited." She said: "The Cafcass barrister said that my ex-partner should be praised for how he handled himself and conducted himself in the hearings, which is just beyond a joke." Rose said: "There's this false view that women, and mothers especially, get anything that they want in the family court – they get all the money, they get all their kids' time, they get everything they like – and it couldn't be any further from the truth."
The report also recommends mandatory training for judges aimed at addressing gender bias and victim-blaming. Additionally, it suggests exploring the use of artificial intelligence tools to detect bias and victim-blaming in family courts. "The judiciary is stuck. They still mark their own homework, and you get judges making decisions in an absolute void," said Marie, another family court participant quoted in the report.