An Open Letter to the Family Justice System.
To those who hold responsibility within the family courts,
I am writing not out of anger alone, but out of deep frustration, exhaustion, and — still, somehow — hope.
I have spent years inside your system. Years of hearings, bundles, cross-examinations, and orders that shift as soon as they are made. Years of my children’s lives ticking by while we sit in limbo, waiting for decisions that too often come too late.
I have learnt that the system is full of brilliant and committed individuals. Judges who carry impossible caseloads, Cafcass officers who listen with compassion, lawyers who fight tirelessly. I have met them. I have seen them trying. I’ve worked with them.
And yet — the system itself is profoundly flawed.
Here is what I have learnt:
Delay is harm. Each adjournment, each “come back in six months,” is not neutral. It erodes children’s stability, a parent’s financial security, and the chance to rebuild lives.
The truth is obscured by performance. Courtrooms reward the confident performance — the well-timed charm, the polished narrative, the tears shed in front of the right audience. Meanwhile, the quieter, messier truth of children’s lived reality can be lost. This is not harmless theatre: it is devastating when outcomes are shaped more by persuasion than by protection.
Safety is not central enough. Emotional, financial, and psychological abuse are still treated as background “conflict” rather than serious safeguarding issues. The law acknowledges them, but practice lags behind.
Children’s needs are diminished. We talk about the welfare checklist and “the voice of the child,” but too often their words are drowned out by legal technicalities and procedural gamesmanship. What children live and feel is filtered through layers of reports and hearings until it becomes almost unrecognisable. Too often, no-one is brave enough to say plainly what is at play. Adult power struggles dominate, while the child’s reality is quietly sidelined.
Access to justice is rationed by wealth. Legal aid deserts, astronomical costs, and the weaponisation of resources mean that those with money control the pace and scope of proceedings, while those without are left fighting uphill battles — often alone.
Enforcement is toothless. Court orders are treated as optional by those determined to flout them, leaving the burden on the other parent to spend more time, money, and emotional energy chasing compliance.
The system is reactive, not preventative. We wait until families are broken down, until children are traumatised, until financial ruin is entrenched — instead of intervening early, with solutions that protect and support.
None of this is about individuals not caring enough. It is about a structure that is not fit for purpose. A structure that is overburdened, under-resourced, and still rooted in assumptions about “fairness” between adults, rather than the lived reality of children and protective parents.
I do not write this letter to despair. I write it because I believe change is possible. We need a family justice system that:
Puts children’s safety and stability above all else.
Recognises and acts on patterns of abuse — financial, emotional, psychological — not just physical harm.
Has the courage to look past performance and say out loud what is really at play.
Provides swift, affordable access to justice for all, not just the wealthy.
Enforces its own orders with urgency and authority.
Integrates financial and child proceedings so families are not torn apart in parallel battles.
Builds in early, holistic support — legal, emotional, and practical — to prevent crisis before it arrives in court.
To every judge, social worker, barrister, and policy-maker reading this: I know you see these cracks too. I know many of you lie awake worrying about the cases you cannot resolve as you would wish. I know most of you entered this work to make a difference.
Please, let us be honest about the failings — not as a betrayal of the system, but as an act of care for the children and families it exists to serve.
Because families in crisis do not have years to wait. Children do not get a second childhood. And every day we delay reform, more lives are unravelled on the altar of procedure.
The family justice system is not beyond saving. But it must change.
With urgency, with humility, and with the courage to listen — not only to professionals, but to those who live through it.
Sincerely,
A parent who has lived it. And one who is committed to be a part of change.
Susie xx
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