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Low-income mums bear brunt of legal aid cuts

© Copyright LexisNexis 2024. All rights reserved.
Date:23 JUN 2014
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Marc Lopatin
Mediator

Over 10 000 more mothers went to court without a lawyer to fight child contact and custody battles in the nine months following cuts to legal aid new government figures reveal.

Court user data – compiled by the Ministry of Justice – shows that between April and December 2013 over half (57%) of all UK parents went to court without a lawyer for child-related proceedings. The huge rise in unrepresented parents follows the withdrawal of legal aid from family lawyers in April 2013 for most family law matters.

Mothers have been the hardest hit: the Ministry of Justice listed 27 017 women listed as unrepresented an increase of almost two-thirds (64%) over the same period in 2012 when the figure stood at 16 458. The number of unrepresented mothers increased at almost double the rate of unrepresented fathers.

The shocking revelation follows a Freedom of Information request by...

Read the full article here.

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