EMOTIONAL ABUSE IN FAMILY LAW CASES

I recently spoke to a child psychologist who said that he was very concerned at the growing number of cases he deals with involving what he described as severe cases of emotional abuse. 

This generally happens in cases where one parent denies a child contact with the other parent. The psychologist said that in cases such as this, the child can suffer very severe harm and that there is great need for substantial input from experts, normally located within the HSE. He had raised the matter with the HSE on a number of occasions saying that they have very comprehensive structures in place to deal with physical abuse and sexual abuse but they do not appear to have any structures in place to deal with emotional abuse. The answer was that emotional abuse would be very hard to prove, which is certainly the case, but the reality seems to be that the HSE just do not have the staff or the finance available to deal with such cases. 

We therefore have situations like a case I am dealing with at the moment where in my view and in the father’s view, a mother is deliberately trying to alienate his young daughter from him. Children who are subjected to this type of alienation can suffer lifelong consequences and the courts are simply not in a position to deal with this level of manipulation and harm. 

Over the years I have had many clients who have had problems with access and who come away feeling very badly about the legal system and lawyers. Unfortunately, the system as it is framed at the present time, simply cannot cope with a manipulative intelligent parent who is quite prepared to inflict emotional damage on a young child as part of an ongoing battle with a former partner. 

I would be very happy to act for a guardian on behalf of a child to take an action against a parent who has inflicted such emotional damage on that child. I would be very happy to see legislation that introduced a criminal offence of deliberately causing emotional harm and damage to a child in the course of a family law dispute.

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors