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Mother ‘lied to court’ about abuse

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A mother of two lied when she accused the father of her youngest child of rape, domestic violence and abuse, the High Court has ruled.

In a lengthy judgment, Mr Justice MacDonald dismissed all thirteen of the accusations the woman made against her former partner.

The couple began their relationship in 2007 and had a son, ‘S’, in 2009. S was the mother’s second child. The family moved from England to Scotland the following December but their relationship soon broke down.

In the summer of 2014, the mother collected S and took him back to England after she assured the father she would return the boy in time for the start of the next school year. However, she remained in England from that point onwards and did not give a reason for this decision.

The father then launched legal proceedings in Scotland to have S returned to his care. It was only at this point that the mother made several serious accusations about the father. Among other claims, she said that he had raped her on two occasions, was physically violent with her and her two children, and had sexually abused the children.

While the father vehemently denied every single one of the mother’s accusations, the two children backed up her claims. However, after they had been interviewed by police, the officer who spoke to them concluded that the children had been coached by their mother. This suspicion was shared by social workers on the case, who believed the mother spoke to them “in a way that was not age appropriate” and that she “lacked boundaries of what she should and should not talk about in front of the children”.

At the Royal Courts of Justice, Mr Justice MacDonald said that many of the mother’s accusations “lack[ed] specificity in terms of timing” and noted that the mother had been unable “to specify any particular incident of domestic abuse”. After hearing the mother give evidence, he believed she had “told a significant number of lies” to law enforcement and other professionals. When she was challenged on simple details, she either failed to answer the question or “sought refuge in the stock phrase “my head was all over the place“”.

He concluded that none of her claims were true and ruled that both children had “suffered significant emotional harm as a result of the care given to them by their mother”.

The judge noted that the father still faced criminal charges in Scotland as a result of her accusations.

Read AS v TH (False Allegations of Abuse) in full here.

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Comments(14)

  1. spinner says:

    Tip of the iceberg, now she’s been found to have lied about her claims of domestic violence as so many women do, she must be due some time in jail. It would be interesting to analyse from a bias point of view the amount of time she spends in jail compared to a man who has committed perjury against someone else for a similarly serious type of crime such as rape and battery which would I guess attract if found guilty 5 or more years in prison. Maybe that’s one for you John, prove with data and fact that the UK courts are as you consider not bias.

    • Dan says:

      I was falsely accused of domestic violance – mental abuse. She was granted NMO agaist me without any evidence and Legal Aid witout any evidence too. Every single allegation in her witness statement was FALSE. I was arrested for breach of NMO, pleded no guilty. My criminal solicitor exchanged several emails with SCP and the CPS has droped the case instantly discovering that my wife has lied to the Police, CPS and wanted to go to Crown Court and lie to the Jury again.
      In the Family Court at Fact Finding hearing I have disclosed and proofed so many lies, her statements to the Police and court have been completely contradict, she was talking lies and so many ridiculous things that everybody in the court room was loudly laughing including the Judge. I could not believe, the same Judge ordered NMO extention in her favour. The NMO is ordered for things I have never did – 100% false accusations, It bans me from doing things I have never was doing – except talking to her. In Family Court if you are a man, accused by a women you are automatically GUILTY. It scares. If you can not afford a solicitor you are pieces of meat in the Court.
      Is this absolute failure of Justice system or complete corruption in Family Corts only?

      • Johnny says:

        Hi Dan,
        I agree with your statements and am in the exact same boat as you were.
        I have disproven every accusation with evidence or in most instances common sense.
        again, I have to pay for this whilst its granted free for legal aid because of ridiculous lies which seem to be encouraged by the legal aid solicitors.
        I am still going through these proceedings, please tell me, what was the outcome of your situation and did things work out, this is costing me tens of thousands and I cant manage it much longer, do you have any advice?

  2. JamesB says:

    Lol. These courts are so outdated, how is this news or open court? Every family court and cafcass office up and down the country sees women lying, every hour of every day on this.

  3. Luke says:

    ====
    The judge noted that the father still faced criminal charges in Scotland as a result of her accusations.
    ====
    .
    If this article here is correct I’d like to say I am shocked that he is still facing criminal charges – but given the Mark Pearson case below I’m really not:-
    .
    youtube.com/watch?v=LIG7nXR4LZQ
    .
    NOBODY (CPS; Police; accuser) seems to have faced any consequences for this disgrace. !

    • L says:

      I wonder why the accused did not pursue the matter for slander/libel….understandable if he considered it futile, given the shameful mishandling by the authorities.

    • Paul Buttivant says:

      I’ve been accused falsely of domestic abuse and GBH and even now with evidence I’m scared to take it to anyone that will prove my ex has lied to everyone, police, social services, court and even friends who have helped finance her legal costs. I’ve lost every penny and still no one believed me, but as I said I’ve now got evidence and don’t know who tk trust that will take it seriously because if the police do then that exposes how poorly the have acted

  4. LP says:

    I find myself in a similar position; case ongoing.
    As a health care professional, even if I am exonerated in the family court and police decide to take no further action, there will always be an abhorrent stain on my character.
    The result of the background stain (record of a police ‘investigation’, though not charged) suggests I will never again be able to work in my chosen career, as a record of the police ‘investigation’ remains forever; under the circumstances how could any health care employer justify taking a chance on such an employee?
    Until the Family courts perform their duty “To act in the best interest of the children” and tackle the issue of lying in court, the problem will continue unabated, and for the ‘resident’ parent, there are financial incentives to lie (legal aid, increased CMS payments etc)……….Justice?

    • Paul Buttivant says:

      I know how you feel, same here it’s horrible knowing your innocent and no one seems to care. I’ve lost faith in the police and criminal justice system.

  5. Michael says:

    This case and many others would seem to make a mockery of the entire system.
    There is so much at stake for parents and children in the family court that it is little wonder why parents who experience this injustice have little faith in the courts.

  6. Rob says:

    My ex left me for an ex and took the three kids with her. She claimed to be fleeing domestic violence and abuse. In the time since she left I have had at least a hundred attempts of contact. Been accused of rape etc. Now she is being charged with stalking and malicious communications. Social worker told me she feels now that the ex moved and got re housed under false pretences. Is it likely she will be held accountable ?

    • Paul Buttivant says:

      It’s reassuring I’m not alone, sadly I’ve been broken emotionally by my ex and she’s not given up yet. No one seems to want to help and I can’t afford a lawyer so police support her even though she ignores their calls for evidence she’s still believed. I’ve got compelling evidence she’s misled police, social services, and committed perjury in court but she’s a woman so she can’t be lying can she?

  7. BC says:

    I was the party known as BC in these proceedings. I would like to say that I was also surprised that AS did not face any criminal charges over this affair. I would also like to add that TH did not wish to press matters in this way as he just wanted the whole ordeal to be over, and he was afraid of alienating his son. Although I do not agree with his decision, I do respect it.

    Since the end of the court hearing, myself and my family have tried to repair the damage that AS had done to my son. N had regular, supervised contact in a contact centre with his mother, as well as weekly Skype contact. We then moved to contact where we go out with N and AS to cinema, skating, etc., usually with TH and SH. She was never allowed unsupervised contact.

    However, last year AS gave N an iPhone, and it has now become obvious that she has used this method of contact to undermine me, and manipulate N, manipulating him once more. She also gave him a bank card with her name on it, so that she could transfer money into it for him to spend. My son’s personality and behavior has changed drastically over the last year, becoming more distant from myself and my family. I firmly believe that this is down to his mother’s interference. He has been confiding in her about problems that he has been having at school and, late last year, she tried to pressure me into letting her enrol him in a private school in Glasgow, which I was against because I did not want to uproot him as he has had more stability in the last 4 years with me than he ever had with her.

    6 weeks ago, N had been staying at my mother’s house for 2 weeks while as I was doing a lot of work around my house. Everything seemed fine until that Saturday, when N told my mother that he was going to his friend’s house to help them with their computer, and that he would be back for dinner around 5. At 6p.m., my mother called me to ask if I had heard from N. I hadn’t, so she picked me up and went to his girlfriend’s street to try and find her house, but we could not find it. I texted AS to ask if she could remember which house it was, as we had dropped off N’s girlfriend a couple of weeks before. I received a reply from her, saying that N had been in contact with her and that she would call me in an hour.

    I returned to my mother’s house and called AS, and she told me that N was with her as he’d got on a train to London without a ticket, and she had picked him up from Euston. She then proceeded to give myself and mother verbal abuse, saying that this is all our lots effing fault. My mother said that she wanted to hear this from N, and all he said was “Hello”, before he or AS cut her off. N had previously always been very close to his gran, a relationship that his mother always seemed to be jealous of, so it came as a nasty shock when the police later told us that he had claimed to them that his gran had not fed him and that she had constantly left him in the house alone whilst she went to the spiritualist church every night. Needless to say, these claims were completely untrue and my mother was heartbroken. The police were satisfied that N was safe and well with his mother, despite me telling them that I had hundreds of pages of court documents that proved otherwise.

    I have spoken to a woman at the local council where they are living, and she says that it will be very difficult for him to get into a good local school. There is also the fact that he was due to sit exams next year, and that it would be a different curriculum to what he has been taught in Scotland. As well as undoing all the work that I and others have put into repairing the damage that she did to him previously, and endangering his physical health by keeping him in a heavily populated city, she is also going to ruin his education. She has destroyed his relationships with the people who love and care about him the most.

    AS has never shown any regret or remorse, nor taken any responsibility for what she did to those boys. She was advised to seek counselling after the court case ended, but has never done so. Unfortunately, the court decided that she did have a right to have contact with the boys, a decision that may cost those boys dearly.

  8. RVM says:

    I’ve read the comments above and just wanted to add that I share you’re despair. I’ve just brought proceedings to an end by accepting a poor contact order from ex’s barrister. As a litigate in person, the physical and mental toll just became too much for me. Ex made so many allegations that were untrue, the list just kept growing throughout the 18 months and 4 hearings. Her solicitor included statement and documents that were never served to me or were served so late that I had no time to prepare.
    The court seemed disinterested in this. As just an example of how ridiculous it was, in the first hearing the judge asked ex why she blocked contact, her excuse was that the child wouldn’t poop in a toilet other than hers. The judge told her she would need better reasons, she said she would find some other evidence and reasons… So the court adjorned so she could make up some new allegations. I couldn’t believe it. 3 months later, she was the victim of abuse, financial abuse etc. Her example of financial abuse was, I had financed her business but it was a career she didn’t like. This from a person who threatened to abort my child if I had a relationship with anyone else after we broke up.
    Now, 2 weeks after final hearing and I’m on sick leave from work for panic attacks and anxiety. I feel thoroughly broken. I will (hopefully) see my child for the third time this year tomorrow for 2hrs. I have spent half my child life in court fighting her. I’m broken.
    My only regret is not selling a kidney and getting legal help.

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