In the case of cot deaths mothers have been wrongly locked up on the basis of expert evidence.

In the case of cot deaths the Appeal Court found large scale injustice resulting from the Family Court's belief that justice must be done in secret, and by banning the public and independent experts from attending courts to scrutinise court appointed experts.

Instead of dealing with identical injustice, the UK Government moves to imprison critics of secret family court proceedings.

Link:
Denning on Secret Courts

Dr. Pelling writes (Monday, February 09, 2004):

"This is to inform that the trial of my civil Claim against the Assistant High Court Tipstaff Philip Johnson begins on Monday 23 February 2004, listed for 4 days.

The Claim is for damages for assault, invasion of privacy (Art.8 ECHR violation), and misfeasance in public office [see also Particulars of Claim attached]. The Claim arose out of proceedings in the Family Division on 23 January 2003 in Matin v. Ali FD97P02101 when the boy, then aged 10, refused to obey Mr Justice Singer's Order to have immediate Contact with his mother who had ill-treated him.

The Judge himself spent nearly half-an-hour arguing bullying and threatening the child before having to give up and call everyone back into Court and rescind his Order. When Dr Pelling at this point sought to comfort the distressed child he was told by the Assistant Tipstaff that he should not talk to the child, and when Dr Pelling observed there was no such order made by the Judge, Mr Philip Johnson took the law into his own hands and dragged Dr Pelling away from the boy by force.

Later on when the Contact Order had been formally rescinded and Singer J debarred Dr Pelling from further acting as the father's McKenzie Friend, Johnson once again tried to stop him talking to Forhad when he had left the Courtroom. Hence the assault claim, coupled with violation of right to respect for private life and misfeasance in public office. Johnson is represented at taxpayers' expense by the Treasury Solicitor and counsel; Dr Pelling acts in person. Johnson denies the assault etc.

As most of you know, a detailed account of the 23/1/03 events was written up in the CONTACT Journal, Issue No.5 (April 2003), which can be emailed to anyone on request. This aroused the wrath of the Attorney-General who has brought criminal contempt proceedings against Dr Pelling. The Attorney General also accuses Dr Pelling of interfering with the administration of justice by correcting the Cafcass Reporter Muriel Raleigh when she lied to Forhad that his Father had left court and gone home. Fortunately, the Tipstaff Claim will be heard before the contempt proceedings.

So it promises to be an interesting battle arising out of events in the Family Division cesspit. Since it is a civil claim it will be heard in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court and will be in open court.

The ugly truth about the Family Division will not be concealed this time. Philip Johnson is the same Tipstaff who broke down Harry Forder's bedroom door and dragged him off by force to be put into the care of the local authority (as ordered by Judge Altman 19/11/03), because Harry insisted on living with his Father. I will do my best to bring out the moral bankruptcy of the Family Division in this case: for example Raleigh will have to explain in open court why she was so concerned to enforce an order (which was not her job) and persuade a child to go back to a house where he had been brutally ill-treated on many occasions by his mother and other maternal relatives and whose mother had even threatened to kill him if he insisted on living with his father. In short, this case is about a lot more than a minor assault on myself or invasion of my privacy.

The boy himself sued Mr Justice Singer, 2 Tipstaffs (one was Johnson), and Mrs Raleigh for the inhuman treatment of him at Court on 23 January 2003. His Claim was immediately struck out by Master Turner, but the pending Appeal against that will be heard soon on 25 March 2004. If I win my own Tipstaff Claim it will also help Forhad, partly because certain legal points about the boy's own right to independently refuse to co-operate with the Contact Order Singer J made may fall to be decided in my case. If you examine the definition of a Contact order in s.8 Children Act 1989 you will see that such an order is actually directed at the person with whom the child is living: it is not directed at the child himself. So in the absence of other lawful enforcement measures, a Contact order alone cannot be used as an excuse to commit torts and human rights violations against the child who refuses to co-operate with the order.

The case will commence at the RCJ at 1030 on 23 February 2004 and Court Number will be posted on Friday 20 February. Details can also be obtained from the Daily Cause List on the Courts website at www.courtservice.gov.uk after 2pm on 20/2/04.

The boy whom Mr Justice Singer ordered live with the mother who frightened and alledgedly abused him, will himself be giving evidence on Monday 23rd February.

This is a case where a strong public presence will make a difference: it will be a Queen's Bench Judge, not a Family Division judge, but the Judge needs to know that he is under scrutiny and that fathers will no longer tolerate the evils done in the Family Division.

Michael J.Pelling

Secret courts are once again routine in England in a way not not seen since the days of Henry VIII and the Court of Star Chamber.

A justice system which once was the beacon of the world is being corrupted by senior judges.

Family Courts have created a system comprising a class of unaccountable people who - although paid out of public funds - cannot be scrutinised by the electorate or indeed the wider class of all those, including children and foreigners, who are potentially subject to the jurisdiction of the English Courts.

Family Courts have granted themselves the dictator's freedom to operate behind closed doors while making decisions which claim to be done in our name.

Making legitimate and legally binding decisions requires public administration of justice which prevents injustice, corruption, perjury and rip-off lawyers. In Family law above all judicial discretion reigns supreme and the only check on judicial injustice and prejudice is public scrutiny.

English Family Courts ban the public's presence during court hearings - this creates rotten judicial discretion and corruption and wholesale damage to children and families whose interests the Courts are meant to serve. The paramountcy principle of the child's welfare is routinely dishonoured behind the safety of closed doors.

Those who suffer injustice at the hands of legal sharks inside secret family courts are forbidden from publicising what they have suffered on pain of up to 2 years imprisonment for contempt of court. It has even been made an offence to publish the mere orders of those courts or to publish the bare fact of proceedings taking place [s.97(2)(6) Children Act 1989].

Those who appeal and take their complaints to higher courts are denied the right to use their name henceforth by rubberstamp injunctions added automatically by court officials. A person's unfettered use of his own identity is removed from them.

The Courts forbid the press from identifying anyone who has been processed in these secret courts. When once a person was human he becomes the letter A, B or X,Y,Z, initialised into oblivion irrespective of his complaints or wishes: some judges even anonymise the names of expert witnesses and other judges involved in the case - the very people above all who should be identified and subject to scrutiny.

"If the authorities believe there is evidence to justify taking a child into care, they should present it in open court. If the judge thinks the child should not be named, that would be up to him or her, but the evidence should be tested in public." ¹

Information that has been in the public domain, or has been printed in mass circulation newspapers, or is freely available on the Internet, now gets routinely gagged and injuncted.

The first show trials against major critics of this regime were stated in 2003, and are in court later in 2004. Dr M.J.Pelling who took a test case to the ECHR at Strasbourg and subsequently published his Children Act Judgment is being prosecuted by the UK Attorney-General.

Those who speak out or write about the evils of UK's secret courts have thus become criminalised.