Roma families in care proceedings: fair process beyond formal access

Roma children are overrepresented in state care, yet Roma families remain poorly understood within England’s family justice system. This article examines how that lack of understanding can weaken effective participation and affect the evidence before the court. Formal access to a solicitor, interpreter or hearing does not ensure that a parent understands the case, can give instructions or challenge what is recorded. Language difficulties, hardship or fear may instead be interpreted as non-engagement, poor insight or parental failure. By the time a case reaches court, those interpretations may already have shaped assessments, agreements and accounts of conduct, giving the record a false sense of clarity. Drawing on Roma parents’ accounts, legal analysis and research, the article argues that courts should distinguish observation from professional inference and structural disadvantage from parental failure. Roma-specific knowledge is relevant to the assessment of evidence and welfare. The article shows why fair decision-making depends on the reliability of the record: whether the family’s circumstances have been understood accurately enough for parents to be heard and for judges to decide the case on a sound basis.