Poor Quality of Mental Health Assessment Reports in UK Family Courts: A ‘call to Action’

Abstract

Introduction

Prof. Jane Ireland found that 65% of assessment reports sampled from UK family courts were ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.

Objective

The presentation raises international awareness of the problem and explains the contextual factors that contribute to malpractice.

Aims

The paper highlights typical deficiencies in family court assessments and forensic processes in order to reduce the risk of unsafe custody rulings.

Method

Due to the paucity of published academic literature ‘ad hoc’ Internet searches were utilised to collect source material and identify advocates. A range of conferences, seminars and continued professional development (CPD) events revealed the background for some of the persistent problems.

Results

The suppression of the trauma-centric approach to mental health issues and its re-emergence are central to understanding the trajectory and how to improve professional practice.

Organised Ritualised Crime Abuse Networks (ORCANs) seem to be at work infiltrating institutions that are supposed to uphold law and order.

Inadequate psychometric instruments appear to beguile some mental health professionals into wrong diagnosis and testimony.

Conclusion

The standard of UK family court assessments must improve. Scrapping ‘forced adoption’ legislation that drives the ‘child snatching’ culture in UK social services department would benefit society including citizens from abroad whose governments vocally criticise the removal of their children through clandestine UK ‘child protection’ procedures.

Disclosure of interest

The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.