Enforcement of Contact Orders - A New Era?

Joanne Edwards Partner Manches LLP. In April 2004 in a judgment which received much press coverage Munby J apologised to a father who left his court in tears having been forced to abandon his 5 year battle for contact with his daughter due to the mother's implacable hostility. In a rallying call to Parliament Munby J complained that this case illustrates all too uncomfortably the failings of the system. There is much wrong with our system and the time has come for us to recognise that fact and to face up to it honestly. If we do not we risk forfeiting public confidence." This is the second of two articles on the Children and Adoption Bill and looks at: the problems surrounding enforcement of contact orders; the proposals in the Green Paper published 3 months after Munby J's plea Parental Separation: Children's Needs and Parent's Responsibilities Cm 6273 (HMSO 2004); and the changes which are set to be made when the Bill which received its third reading in the House of Lords in November 2005 becomes law. See February [2006]...

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