REFORMS are urgently needed to help the soaring number of couples resorting to courts to sort out squabbles over children, family lawyers say.
Between 1992 and 2002, the number of residence orders made in England and Wales rose from 16,424 to 30,006 and the number of contact orders from 17,470 to 61,356.
“This is a disturbing trend,” the Solicitors Family Law Association says. A report published today, Practical Steps to Co-Parenting, calls for reforms including a presumption in law that a child should have contact with both parents.
It also urges tougher sanctions over breaches of court orders — the main complaint of many fathers’ groups.
Courts should have power to impose an “increasingly punitive” range of orders to enforce compliance, including fines, community service orders and imprisonment, the report says. As a last resort, a child could be moved to live with the other parent.
Advertisement
But the guiding principle should be that children should have an ongoing relationship with both parents unless that would not be in their best interests. It says: “This would make it crystal clear that a child’s relationship with a parent is not dependent on the wishes of the other parent.”
Courts should be a last resort where intervention fails, the report suggests.