[user104658]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

The one thing that they do differently nowadays here that they didn't do when Gavin was going through his stuff is the judges order a Section 7 report much more readily when parents seem to be at war with each other. It's basically a very detailed report carried out by professionals, extensive interviews with both parents and the children (if they're old enough) and they send this back to the judge with their own recommendations. It's a much better system then just listening to both parents in the courtroom and the judge trying to decide which one is lying.

One of the things that this new development should hopefully help in that regard, is that currently because it's so closed-door to reporting, judges only have to hear and consider expert witnesses - they can totally disregard it if they feel like it and again there's no way to challenge the decisions or even talk about them outside the court room. I will concede that the Scottish family court system is particularly bad - "corrupt" might be a bit far - but certainly, all of the judges and higher-profile family legal professionals are a bit too chummy, so if an abusive ex partner with the funds to hire a lawyer with connections gets a "chummy judge" then it's basically game over.

Unfortunately I do know of a few cases of court-ordered professionals being extremely dodgy too - lazy with assessments, asking leading questions, basically reporting back "standard stuff" (for a high fee) and in one of the worst examples I know of - reporting back "verbatim quotes" from a meeting that was cancelled and never went ahead. So completely fabricated direct quotes from a child. But again the closed-door nature of the court sessions means none of this has ever been able to be talked about after court. It's a very broken system.

Thankfully those examples (crap court professionals) are rare. Judges ignoring professional assessments from child psychologists, teachers, social workers etc... not so rare. An individual judge shouldn't have that sort of power, IMO.