She Accused Her Ex of Abuse. The Family Court Found She Was Abusing Him

Serious allegations — and a fact-finding process

The proceedings began with applications concerning child arrangements and prohibited steps orders. Both parents made serious allegations. The mother’s case included allegations that the father had repeatedly raped her and had behaved coercively and controllingly. The father’s case included allegations about the mother’s treatment of him and the children and about reports made to outside agencies.

The allegations were disputed. The court therefore had to decide which matters were proved before it could safely determine the children’s future arrangements. This was not a criminal trial. It was a Family Court process governed by the civil standard of proof: whether something was more likely than not to have happened.

The judgment records an extensive evidential picture. Recorder Cowton KC read a bundle of 841 pages. It included statements from both parents and adult family members, a Cafcass section 7 report, local-authority material, police disclosure, medical evidence, video clips and voice recordings. The judge also heard oral evidence.

A fact-finding hearing is not ordered merely to decide who is the “better” parent. Its purpose is to resolve disputed facts that may be necessary for a proper assessment of risk and for later welfare decisions. Practice Direction 12J says the court should consider whether findings are needed to provide a factual basis for risk assessment, welfare reports or final child-arrangements orders.

Evidence contradicted some of the allegations

Two parts of the judgment illustrate why contemporaneous records can be so important. One rape allegation related to a period in December 2018 when, the judgment records, the father produced a photograph and medical notes showing that he was an inpatient in hospital. Another allegation concerned a specified time on 31 December 2022. The father produced a police interpreter form showing that he was working for British Transport Police during the relevant hours.

The court also considered police analysis of communications between the parents following the later alleged incident. Recorder Cowton KC weighed that material alongside the mother’s evidence, the father’s evidence and the wider documentary record. The judge concluded that the mother’s evidence about the rape allegations was not truthful and did not accept that the father had raped her.

This does not mean that the absence of a document disproves an allegation, or that trauma cannot affect recall. The judgment itself expressly acknowledged that trauma can affect a person’s recollection of details and dates. The evidential point is narrower: where reliable records do exist, they can help a court test chronology, consistency and context.

The court’s findings

The judgment ends with a concise schedule of formal findings. Recorder Cowton KC found that:

• the mother had made false allegations of rape against the father;
• the mother had perpetrated domestic abuse towards the children and the father, including physical, verbal and emotional abuse;
• the mother had exposed one child to a serious safeguarding risk and later made an allegation to police involving that child which the judgment records she subsequently said was untrue;
• the mother had harassed the father and the children after separation; and
• the mother had engaged in malicious communications with the police, local authority, schools and NSPCC after separation.

These are the court’s findings in this particular family, reached after considering the evidence in these proceedings. They are not a basis for generalising about mothers, fathers, complainants or people who report domestic abuse.

The judgment also records that the mother’s reports led to repeated professional involvement. On two occasions, allegations led to the father’s arrest at the family home in front of the children. The fact that police investigate an allegation does not show that the report was improper: investigation is part of the safeguarding and criminal-justice process. Here, however, the judge considered the reports together with the evidence and made affirmative findings about falsity and malicious communications.

The effect on the children

The adult dispute did not remain between the adults. The judgment records evidence that police attended the family home, that arrests took place in front of the children and that enquiries by agencies repeatedly disrupted family life. One of the adult children described the arrests as traumatic and said the home stopped feeling like a safe space.

The court’s welfare analysis focused on the younger children’s need for stability. They had been living with their father for several years. Their wishes and feelings, the evidence about their experience and the mother’s lack of insight into the impact of her behaviour were central to the judge’s decision.

False allegations can affect far more than the adult who is accused. They can shape a child’s sense of safety, bring professionals repeatedly into the home and prolong litigation that becomes part of childhood.

That observation must be kept in balance. Genuine disclosures can also be difficult, disruptive and essential. Children and adults must be able to report abuse and receive a proper safeguarding response. The distinction lies in what the evidence ultimately establishes, not in the fact that an allegation was made.

What happened next?

The children remained living with their father

The court ordered that the two children concerned should live with their father. The judgment records that this continued the stable care arrangement that had been in place for a substantial period.

No direct contact with the mother at that stage

The mother was permitted to send letters, cards and small gifts no more than once a month. The father was directed to provide quarterly updates through AppClose. Recorder Cowton KC did not order video or face-to-face contact at that stage, concluding that it would be inappropriate to override the children’s wishes and feelings while the safeguarding concerns and lack of insight remained.

A prohibited steps order remained

The prohibited steps order preventing the mother from removing the children from their father’s care, from a school or trusted third party, or from England and Wales was continued for three years. The judge said the children needed the stability and reassurance the order would bring.

A three-year section 91(14) order

The court imposed a section 91(14) order for three years. This is sometimes informally called a barring order, but it is not a permanent ban on going to court. It is a protective filter: the named person must first obtain the court’s permission before making the specified further Children Act applications.

The official Practice Direction 12Q explains that these orders are made in the interests of children and require an application for permission if the named person later wishes to bring a specified application. In this case, the judge considered that the children needed a break from litigation and time to rebuild their sense of stability.

The anonymised judgment could be disclosed to police

After hearing submissions, the Family Court permitted the whole anonymised judgment to be disclosed to police. The judge noted that police had already been involved with the family and that the Family Court had relied on police disclosure alongside additional evidence.

This permission did not amount to a criminal conviction, a finding of perjury or a decision that a prosecution should follow. Recorder Cowton KC expressly distinguished the civil standard used in the Family Court from the criminal standard. Any investigation or prosecution would be a separate matter for the relevant authorities.

A separate case with exceptional costs consequences

Re A and B (Parental Alienation No.3) [2021] EWHC 2602 (Fam) arose from a different and unusually long-running set of proceedings. The published judgments must not be confused with Re A & B (Children) [2026]. They involved a different anonymised family and a different judge, Mr Justice Keehan.

In the No.3 judgment, the High Court considered the financial consequences of litigation conduct. The court concluded that the mother had maintained very serious allegations of abuse which she later accepted were not true. Her behaviour was characterised as reprehensible and her stance in the litigation as wholly unreasonable. The court then considered which costs had been unnecessarily incurred rather than treating every cost in the case as recoverable.

The official Courts and Tribunals Judiciary page publishes the first four anonymised judgments in that litigation.

What the later 2023 judgment recorded

The proceedings continued. In Re A and B (Children: ‘Parental Alienation’) (No.5) [2023] EWHC 1864 (Fam), Mr Justice Keehan reviewed what had happened over several years.

The judgment records that the children had been transferred from their mother’s care to their father’s care under an earlier welfare decision. It describes further allegations and efforts to undermine that placement. After a detailed fact-finding exercise, Keehan J found that the mother’s conduct amounted to coercive and controlling behaviour towards both the children and the father. The judge also found serious emotional and psychological abuse of the children.

By the time of the No.5 judgment, the court recorded a marked improvement in the children’s stability in their father’s care and in the absence of contact with the mother and maternal family. Keehan J concluded that allowing the mother to regain a role through contact or other means would create a serious risk of repetition of the past behaviour.

The financial outcome was exceptional. The father’s schedule of costs totalled £240,954. The court ordered the mother to pay that sum and gave directions concerning assets already subject to a freezing injunction. The judgment also referred to an earlier outstanding costs order.

That figure should not be treated as a normal tariff for false allegations in family court proceedings. Costs orders in cases concerning children remain exceptional. The result followed findings about a prolonged pattern of conduct, repeated litigation and the particular costs generated in that case.

The Court of Appeal’s recent approach to costs

E (Children: Costs) [2025] EWCA Civ 183 provides a more recent appellate example. It is important because the Court of Appeal did not adopt a simplistic rule that an unsuccessful allegation should lead to a costs order.

The underlying case was mixed. The trial judge made some findings against the father and rejected others. The mother’s allegation that he had raped her was not proved, but the Court of Appeal expressly said there was no basis, in light of the overall findings, for penalising her in costs merely because she failed to prove that allegation.

The position was different in relation to extreme allegations that the father had sexually abused the children and involved them in a paedophile sex ring. The Court of Appeal found that those allegations transformed the proceedings, caused extraordinary delay and greatly increased the costs. It concluded that the mother’s litigation conduct in pursuing them was reprehensible or unreasonable.

The appeal court ordered the mother to pay half of the father’s costs of the Children Act proceedings up to 3 July 2024, excluding representation costs for hearings where an order had already been made that there should be no order for costs. It also directed that the order could not be enforced against her without permission from the Family Court.

That carefully limited order matters. It demonstrates both sides of the principle: courts can respond to false allegations and unreasonable litigation conduct, but costs are not automatic whenever an allegation fails.

An allegation being unproved does not mean somebody lied

Family proceedings require careful distinctions that are easily lost in headlines. There are at least four different situations:

1. An allegation is made. At that point it is a claim requiring an appropriate response, not an established fact and not evidence of wrongdoing by the person who reported it.
2. An allegation is not proved. The court is not satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that it happened. This does not by itself establish dishonesty.
3. The court positively finds that an allegation was false. The court has gone further than saying the evidence was insufficient.
4. The court finds that somebody knowingly advanced something false. That involves an additional conclusion about knowledge, intention or litigation conduct and must be supported by the judgment.

Evidence may be incomplete. Memories may differ. Trauma can affect the way an experience is recalled or disclosed. Some events happen without witnesses or documents. A court can therefore be unable to find an allegation proved without concluding that the person who made it acted dishonestly.

Genuine allegations of domestic abuse must be taken seriously. So must evidence showing that an allegation was deliberately fabricated. Those positions are not contradictory.

Genuine victims must be able to tell professionals and the court what has happened without fearing punishment merely because every allegation cannot ultimately be proved. Equally, deliberate fabrication can cause profound harm to children, accused parents, genuine victims and trust in safeguarding systems.

None of the judgments discussed here supports a claim that women commonly make false allegations, or that men cannot perpetrate abuse. They demonstrate only that courts must examine the evidence in the individual case before them.

What is a fact-finding hearing in Family Court?

A fact-finding hearing is a hearing at which the Family Court decides disputed facts that are relevant to later decisions about a child. It may be used where allegations of domestic abuse, coercive control, neglect or other harmful behaviour are denied and the court cannot properly assess risk or welfare without resolving them.

The court first identifies which allegations actually need to be tried. Not every disagreement will be relevant or proportionate. Where a hearing is necessary, the parties usually provide written evidence and may give oral evidence. The judge can also consider material from third parties and professionals.

Depending on the issues and the directions made in the case, evidence may include:

• messages, emails and other written communications;
• police disclosure and body-worn video;
• medical and social-care records;
• photographs or recordings that are lawfully available;
• school, Cafcass and other professional records;
• calendars and contemporaneous notes;
• documents showing locations, work commitments or appointments; and
• witness statements and oral evidence.

The civil standard of proof is the balance of probabilities. In plain English, the court asks whether the alleged event is more likely than not to have happened. Findings must be based on evidence and proper inferences, not suspicion or speculation.

A fact-finding decision is not necessarily the final welfare decision. Once findings have been made, the court may need Cafcass or expert input before deciding where a child should live, how contact should operate or what protective orders are necessary. Parents should obtain advice about their own proceedings from a qualified family-law professional.

Why clear records can matter in high-conflict co-parenting

The recurring lesson in these judgments is not that every parent should try to “build a case” against the other. It is that when two people later give very different accounts, reliable records can help establish chronology and context.

A message can show what was requested and how somebody replied. A shared calendar can show when an arrangement was proposed, changed or cancelled. A receipt can establish when an expense was incurred. A handover entry can record what was noted at the time rather than months later. None of those items decides the case by itself, but together they may make an account easier to understand and test.

This is one reason written, child-focused communication is usually more useful than scattered conversations across calls, text messages and social media. Our guides to communicating with a difficult co-parent, high-conflict co-parenting and responding to controlling co-parenting behaviour explain practical ways to reduce escalation without ignoring necessary information about a child.

The Coparent App provides secure co-parenting messaging, a permanent communication history, a shared calendar, expenses and receipts, handover records, and storage for relevant photos and documents. Boundary Mode^™ by The Coparent App can limit repeated unanswered normal messages to three when enabled, helping parents put a boundary around message volume without blocking necessary communication.

These tools organise material; they do not prove that somebody is telling the truth, guarantee that evidence will be accepted or determine a court outcome. How any material is treated in proceedings will depend on the circumstances and the court. Our guide to court-ready co-parenting records explains the difference between organised, reviewable records and unsupported claims that an app is “court approved”.

Parents who want broader practical guidance can visit the Co-Parenting Advice & Resources hub. Anyone involved in proceedings should also consider taking advice about disclosure, privacy and the safest way to preserve relevant material.

What parents can take from these judgments

Published judgments can be uncomfortable to read because they expose the consequences of adult conflict in detail. They can nevertheless offer several grounded lessons:

• Report genuine safety concerns. Nothing in these cases should deter a parent or child from disclosing abuse to appropriate professionals.
• Separate fact from interpretation. Record what happened, when it happened and what was actually said. Avoid turning assumptions about motive into statements of fact.
• Preserve original context. Cropped screenshots and isolated phrases can be misleading. Keep complete conversations and relevant surrounding information where it is lawful and safe to do so.
• Do not coach children. Children should not be asked to repeat an adult narrative, collect evidence or carry messages between parents.
• Keep communication proportionate. Repeated accusations and rapid-fire messaging can make it harder to identify the information that genuinely concerns the child.
• Get case-specific advice. Rules about evidence, disclosure and recording can depend on the circumstances. A published judgment is not a substitute for advice about an individual case.