We’re fighting the same fight against injustice

My name is Nataly Anderson. In 2021 I came up with the idea of a website named Family Court Crisis, to publish information on the international phenomenon of children being given to abusers in child custody cases.

In the same year I wrote posts in a private Facebook group for mothers trapped in family courts in Croatia, urging them to take collective action against Government bodies, go to the media and start World War 3 if necessary to protect our children.

These posts ended up in the hands of my ex husband, who printed out 14 pages of them and delivered them to the family court, along with a pile of my confidential documentation that had been given to him by social services in Croatia. I presume I was supposed to be cowed by this. I stand by every word. A translation is provided in the footnotes.

We are now in the early days of 2025. We have been perilously close to World War 3.

We have learned that the very institutions that are tasked with protecting our families and children from crime have been tolerating violence against them, even participating in their torture.

This shows us that there is no sense in waiting for those institutions to help us. It is time for families to unite and fight for change. Just as I said in those Facebook posts.

I am no longer afraid of what anyone thinks of me. Least of all, courts or social services which are incapable of protecting children.

On Sunday 19 January 2025, we held the first small in-person meeting of the Family Court Crisis campaign group. The inspiration for this came from a wonderful man, who lives close to me.

His name is Davinder Misra. He is the husband of Seema Misra OBE. In Britain Seema is well-known as a campaigner for justice for the victims of the Post Office Scandal. She was wrongly convicted of theft due to a glitch? back door? in the Horizon computer system that the sub postmasters still use to handle financial transactions in their post office branches.

Seema is one of more than 900 sub postmasters who were convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting due to problems with the Horizon system. But for her and her husband, being thrown into prison while entirely innocent, and 8 weeks pregnant, was a special kind of hell.

The Post Office Scandal live show

In 2022 my attention was caught by an advert for a live show about the Post Office scandal, and I went along. I didn’t know much about the Post Office scandal. But as I listened to journalist Nick Wallis and forensic investigator Ian Henderson speak, one lightbulb after another lit up. Governance problems, fraud risk, officials acting like feudal overlords, a war of attrition… I realised we were fighting the same problem.

Theirs was an IT system, ours was an offline system, but the outcomes were the same. Torpedoes thrown on the lives of families, while others enriched themselves at our expense. Then they lied to cover it up.

In the interval I was able to speak with some of the sub postmasters, and met Seema and her husband Davinder. We realised we were practically neighbours and agreed to meet up for tea. But as Seema and I are both women fighting for justice for our families, our energy levels and schedules got in the way.

Just before Christmas 2024, we finally set a date for a coffee.

I determined to go just as much to ask them what we, the family court victims, could do for them as to ask for help for our campaign group. After 20 years of struggling to clear their names and dealing with the impacts of wrongful conviction, the sub-postmasters still do not have the full compensation payouts they have been promised. I was certain there were many other, less visible, impacts.

I sat and listened, and they listened. And the generosity of support that they offered blew me away. I didn’t expect this. I started to cry – I couldn’t believe this was real. Davinder took charge. “You need a website”, he said. “Set a date for a meeting”. He wanted to get families in one room to speak with MPs and the media about what is happening. We agreed mid January would be ideal.

The village hall

I had long had a dream about renting Horsell Village Hall. This is the pretty village where I was lucky enough to grow up. In 2019, when I managed to get my children home three years after their kidnap, I wanted to throw a party for them, inviting family and friends to celebrate their return. Unfortunately, that idea was scuppered when their father then accused me of child abduction for lawfully returning them home, and they were sent back to Croatia against their will. Once again, failed by the family courts, with a judgment that was completely unlawful.

After that, when I was learning how bad the problems with the family court were and how desperate the need for a movement for reform, I felt that Horsell Village Hall would be a great venue for community meetings. This was inspired by the famous meeting at Fenny Compton Village Hall, where the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance was born. I loved Alan Bates’ egalitarian approach, for example using circular seating arrangements to signal that there is no hierarchy.

Then, in December 2024 the nation reeled in shock at the circumstances of the death of a little girl, Sara Sharif, who had been placed in the care of her father by Guildford family court and subsequently tortured and killed. I attended a vigil outside the house where she was killed, and found it was close to my old school in Horsell Village.

With our local MP, Will Forster, spearheading calls for a full and open inquiry, and a determined effort by the judiciary to conceal the names of those responsible for the catastrophic decision to send Sara and her brother to live with her violent father, I felt Horsell would be a great spiritual home for the movement to stop the torture of children through the family courts. In memory of Sara, but also in honour of Seema’s ordeal, of my children’s ordeal and even more.

In memory of Baby Aisha Cleary who died at birth, her mother’s cries for help ignored at nearby Bronzefield Prison. In memory of little Zane Gbangbola who died as a result of toxic gases from the landfill site his home was built on. Of all the people who fall through the cracks when the people whose job it is to protect them fail to do their jobs, and then cover up their failings. Especially children.

Fortified by Davinder’s advice, I went home and over New Year decided to sit in my room until my two year battle to get a website built was won.

Family Court Crisis has been a constituted group since 2022, but the constitution needed some spring cleaning and we needed an augmented Leadership Team. So our team of volunteers did some organisational spring cleaning over the Christmas break.

After New Year I started sending round invites, and the first in person Family Court Crisis in person community meetup started to take shape, almost one year to the day since our online global community Unconference a year before.

This meeting would be small. Davinder’s idea had been to invite a handful of local families, to share their stories with local MPs. But I had an email back from Horsell Village Hall. The space was affordable. This enabled us to invite quite a few families. The idea was to focus on the Guildford court, where Sara’s child custody cases were heard, and Surrey children’s services. But we invited families who had been through family cases in the surrounding areas and a little further afield, to illustrate the systemic nature of the problem.

The meeting

Fourteen parents turned up. One now works as a peer parent advocate, one as a mental health professional. One is now a family solicitor. Three are doctors. One works in a highly regulated professional industry. One worked in corporate governance. Most can no longer work. Their health is in ruins. They are all suffering physical impacts from extreme emotional and psychological distress.

It was brave of them to give up their time come to share their stories.

Seema and Davinder were true to their word and joined us, as did my Independent local councillor, Hassan Akberali.

I was sorry that Saj Hussain, our former mayor and current Chair of Surrey County Council did not make it, although he had promised he would. Saj is very well liked in our community, and I felt that listening to families’ testimonies would open his eyes to the reality of what is happening. He is a busy man as he is also a sub-postmaster. But I am sure there will be other opportunities to work with Saj, and a healthy engagement with Surrey County Council will be very important.

I had invited a number of MPs from Woking and the surrounding constituencies, most of whom are Liberal Democrat since the last election. Sadly they could not come, as admittedly the invite did arrive at short notice. But the two critical MPs for Woking and Guildford did express their willingness to be briefed on the outcome and engage with us further down the line. This is very encouraging.

I had written to participants asking them to prepare one-minute intros to who they were, what happened to them and why they were here, to allow plenty of time for discussion. But as time went on, this proved impossible. These are people who have been through extremely traumatising experiences lasting several years. They may have been speaking about it publicly (albeit in confidence) for the first time. It took them a while to tell their stories.

People need to speak. These are ordeals they have endured for so long. These are not stories that can be told in short format. And there is therapeutic value in speaking and being heard.

One participant wrote the next day saying:

“It was emotional, triggering, fortifying, empowering and informative”.

Some way through the meeting, Jonathan Lord came in. Jonathan is Woking’s former Conservative MP. I was very glad to see him as he has been very kind to me, and I know he has done a great deal for the sub postmasters.

Jonathan sat in disbelief as we listened to people’s testimonies.

Here are some vignettes from what we heard.

• One mother spent £80,000 and only stopped her child being taken on appeal. She has been unable to work and had a mental health crisis.
• One boy had a mental health crisis, was hospitalised several times, deeply agitated, and is now highly medicated as a direct result of being forced into unsafe contact with his abusive father. His mother had to give up career as a doctor to support her children. The father threatened her that if she ever left he would report her to social services, and ruin her.
• One child became violent towards a parent due to severe trauma after the other parent’s attempt to kill him. Guildford family court ruled that the younger siblings must be in the shared care of that parent but their older sibling is old enough to choose not to see that parent at all.
• Well-known campaigner and author Samantha Baldwin lost custody of her two young sons after they disclosed sexual abuse by their father and third parties. In her books Samantha describes clearly how Greater Manchester police, which is heavily impacted by accusations of abuse of power, shut down the investigation. The boys had reported being injected by their father, but family court claimed that their mother had drugged the boys to try to frame their father. Samantha hasn’t seen her boys for 7 years except via recorded video messages.
• A mother spent 12 years and £700,000 in court. The father made anonymous phone calls to the LA alleging abuse, then refused to return the child to her. A notorious unqualified expert witness has been involved. A social work team leader understands dad’s “passionate outbursts”. This mother reports racism in the family justice and child protection system.
• Another mum, a GP, is unable to work, due to the health impacts of years of coercive and controlling behaviour and family court. She lost custody of the children due to accusations of parental alienation, even though the father was a documented abuser. This GP was accused of child neglect because her child needed home schooling due to special educational needs. She was put on a child protection plan and accused of FII – fabricated induced illness, the present day incarnation of Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.
• A mother lost her childafter she had successfully defended child abduction charges in the High Court as the father was considered a grave risk to the child. In a local court in a subsequent child custody case, a fraudulent expert report led to her daughter being sent to live with her abuser overseas. The mother has only had 12 hours of direct contact over a year and a half.
• Nicky Adolphe is now the founder of peer parent advocacy service Autonomy Hotline. Nine years ago her baby was in hospital due to a heart condition. A doctor decided Nicky was a safety risk. The police were called and the baby was taken into foster care the next day. Nicky was shocked at the power the State has over families. She was lucky to have a good judge and barrister and after 3 day her baby came home but Nicky still has flashbacks. If the child had not been returned, then a whole family would have been financially ruined and destroyed as a unit.
• Rosie Heys was advised by a top law firm that she would need a litigation loan for her divorce settlement. The Financial Ombudsman has ruled that she was mis-sold high interest litigation debt. Interest rates of such loans are 18-33% which is extraordinarily high for secured loans. The other party is not informed that a loan has been secured against the property. These loans are causing bankruptcy, homelessness, ill health and suicides. Rosie encourages families impacted by these loans to join her Facebook group, the Legal Negligence and Mismanagement Campaign Group. She has worked as a MacKenzie friend, and supported a woman through the family court in Guildford. What she witnessed horrified her.
• One Asian single mother lives in fear of knocks on the door by social workers. She has spent nights in public places with her son because of this fear. The Steven Lawrence case caused her to fear the police. She is now scared of white collar criminals, not of criminals on the streets.
• One mother was living overseas, and had twin boys. Her husband was a doctor. He was violent and tried to section her. The courts did protect her in that country, the father only had supervised access for 2 years. Then an order was made in the mother’s absence saying they were going to take the children away. She fled to the British Embassy, but no one could help. Four armed police came to take her children away. She had to fight for contact with them. Forced to return to the UK, she retrained as a family solicitor and brought her case to the High Court but was made to feel worthless by a senior judge.
• One mother is fighting tobe heard by Surrey County Council. A single mum, her children were removed on the day of her stepbrother’s funeral. The local authority alleged maternal neglect and abuse instead of recognising her children’s autism. The mother’s mental health deteriorated after the involvement of social services. She was discriminated against due to resultant physical health issues. A social worker told her she was a terrible parent, and that they would remove the children from her. Her own lawyer told her to admit she was an appalling parent. A social worker from outside the borough supported her, but was destroyed and ignored. She was told off for crying. Police were called because she was holding her daughter. This mother heard her son was suicidal. She was told she was a risk to her children because she was trying to be a “better than average parent”. Doing courses to improve her ability to support her children was held against her. This mother continues to work hard towards improving outcomes for herself and others, and to continue to support her children. She has discovered examples where local authorities have worked well to prevent children unnecessarily entering the care system, and to reunite them with their families.

Summing up

Jonathan Lord, former Conservative MP for Woking described what these parents had been through as “Kafkaesque”.

He strongly recommended that we go to our MPs and Shadow Ministers, and ask for their help to get in direct contact with people in leadership roles in local councils, as well as campaigning at the central government level.

One parent was concerned that asking for help from MPs would be seen as contempt of court. But raising complaints through the right channels is allowed according to Family Procedure Rules 12.75 Communication of information for purposes connected with the proceedings.

The question is, how many judges are familiar with the Family Procedure Rules? I had to go though a High Court hearing to find out that I was entitled to disclose information to a regulator. Nevertheless, parents remain afraid that making complaints will negatively impact their cases.

I found it very fitting, and a bright spot, that the last mother spoke from such a positive mindset, and is already advocating for constructive engagement with Local Authorities.

Engaging on both the local and central government level is important.

Without the inclusion of families with lived experience, the Sara Sharif inquiry is unlikely to get to the truth of what happened.

A digression about accountability

I feel strongly that there may be an assumption in the public domain and among professionals that Olga was a bad parent and that Surrey County Council was right to put Sara in foster care. But there do not seem to be proven instances of Olga Sharif harming her children. The testimony of so many parents in our meeting who manifestly are not bad parents shows that it could be a devastating mistake to assume that she had done anything to deserve having her children taken from her.

I believe that the courts should have acted to protect Olga and her children from a man with a documented history of violence. I believe it is likely Sara and her brother should never have been taken from their mother. But without the ability to see the court documentation, and perhaps hear from Olga herself if she is able, it is impossible to know for certain. This is why an open and transparent inquiry is important. It is why the family courts should be transparent.

I am in touch with families who are observing Government narratives on the Sharif case to be knee-jerk reactions which threaten to result in taking yet more children into care by victimising home schoolers. Home schoolers are an already embattled community, usually doing this because they cannot access their children’s special needs entitlement.

To attack home schoolers would undermine Surrey County Council’s ambitions to reduce the number of children in care and make significant cost savings.

However, we are finding evidence of financial incentives to take children into care homes, foster care and adoption agencies, so the question is whether Surrey will withstand the lobbying of those with vested financial interests or protect families and taxpayers.

If less money were spent on putting children in care, perhaps the money could be released to fund SEND provision.

It is particularly concerning that some care homes are run by people like former porn barons and their glamour model girlfriends, while on 20 January it was reported that a man convicted of sexual activity with a child was trying to open a children’s home. The same safety concerns apply to foster carers and adoptive parents, where there is even less scrutiny over what happens to the child. Historically there is a high incidence of abuse of children in all forms of social care. Current screening and supervision protocols are inadequate.

Clearly, the fact that Sara was withdrawn from school immediately after concerns about abuse were voiced should have been a red flag, but the crux of the problem is the courts giving custody of children to abusers. This is not the narrative we are hearing from politicians and the media.

I have experienced for myself what it is like to turn to the courts and social services for help, only to find that instead of dealing with your abusive ex-partner they tell you that if you don’t cooperate with your abuser your children will be put in a home.

I have experienced a system that drags children’s cases out intentionally, for years, repeatedly interviewing them to get the result the father wants, only to ignore the children’s wishes. Then when you tell social workers your children are traumatised, they want to put them through therapy to deal with their trauma. This destroys their childhood, a time which should be innocent and carefree.

This is a criminally stupid system that causes trauma, then wants to make money by selling therapy provided by quacks. This is called iatrogenic harm.

Transparency and data

Parents dealing with the family justice system need to know who the professionals, including the judges, involved in the Sara Sharif case were. We know that in 2019 an inexperienced social worker recommended that the children be put into the custody of their father. It is easy to imagine that this social worker will be haunted by this for life. We must remember that a judge, who bears ultimate responsibility, gave this decision his or her blessing.

We need to know if there were expert witnesses involved in the decision-making process. Surrey has a number of expert witness mental health practitioners working in family courts that treat victims of domestic abuse as if they are the problem rather than helping them protect their children.

People who have experienced this system describe it as torture. Professor Nils Melzer, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, writes in this report that where the State makes it impossible to escape domestic abuse, it traps victims in a situation of torture and may have liability.

We need to know the names of judges and other professionals in family courts who have inflicted these human rights abuses on children and families. We need to be sure they never work with children or vulnerable people again.

The system tends to be very forgiving of its own people at the expense of public safety. This is even more unacceptable when it puts children at risk.

We need data on outcomes in the family court system. We need to know which judges give custody of children to abusive men and paedophiles. We need to know which expert witnesses do the same. We need to know which lawyers egg them on, provoking conflict and tormenting vulnerable opponents. We need to have these people prosecuted where their actions have resulted in the torture and death of children, suicide, early deaths caused by extreme distress, and where they have committed perjury and fraud. They need to be struck off, their DBS records permanently marked.

Prison sentences and seizure of assets may be appropriate. I am talking about deliberate harm. These are preventable deaths and health impacts caused by the actions of public officials and court appointed experts. In the medical profession, they would be convicted of gross negligence manslaughter.

Researchers investigating the family courts have identified Surrey judges as among those making the most problematic decisions in children’s cases.

When they are going into court, parents need to know whether the professionals they are dealing with are safe.

It is possible that there are no safe judges. If that is so, we need to shut down the family courts and urgently find a way to help families.

We need to compensate parents, children and other family members for injury, loss and harm, damages caused by the disastrous family “justice” system.

We need to investigate how this was allowed to happen and why meaningful reform has been blocked for so long.

This digression ends here. It was important.

Summing up from Seema and Davinder Misra

Many of the stories told by the parents today were very similar to experiences that Seema and Davinder Misra have been through.

Davinder said: “They took my wife from me. They took your children”.

Seema’s strong message to us was: Keep fighting.

She said: “Maybe you will ask yourself “Why me?” Maybe we are the chosen ones who will change things for the better.”

“We are fighting the same thing. We are fighting injustice,” she told us. “This is about putting our house in order.”

We need to be brave.

The sub postmasters were intimidated about going public, but once they started doing it others gained confidence and this is what brought the Post Office to its knees.

This might be a long fight so we must prepare ourselves mentally.

We need to have the mindset that this is a war we have already won.

Taking children from loving homes and knowingly putting them into situations where they will suffer abuse is a crime against humanity in peacetime.

It is up to us now to push for changes that will result in meaningful improvements in outcomes for families, and to secure redress for our families.

The day we stop being scared is the day they lose power over us.

PS: One final note. For women who have been through family court and been betrayed by our partners, the very people we trusted to protect us, it so wonderful to see Davinder’s loyalty to Seema. He always believed her, stood by her and fought for her. Thank you Davinder, you restore our faith in human nature. Thank you Seema for your kindness, grace and spiritual strength. You are both amazing!

Please join the Family Court Crisis campaign. Together we will campaign for justice and a better future for our children.

Use our contact form to send us a message.

Please donate to help us camapaign.

——–

Translation of Croatian Facebook comments:

• She [the Children’s Ombudsman] got involved in my case… but then again I don’t know if anything will happen as a result of that but at least I know I have done all I can. You simply have to be prepared to start World War 3 to achieve anything.
• I am convinced that we have to collectively, as a group, sue the State together, all the institutions and every individual, hit extremely hard, legally (and maybe also with media), show how the institutions are working against international and national law. We have no more time to lose.
• That’s why it may be worth involving the City Council and the Croatian Health Service Institute. If we just shrug our shoulders and say “nothing will happen”, then really nothing will happen.
• There are other things we can do. But the point is that we become EXTREMELY annoying, and if the situation still doesn’t change (which it won’t), we have grounds to go collectively to the media, otherwise it will be too dispersed. I urge the #SaveMe collective to do something like that, it’s already too late. [Not visible: if they don’t want to, I suggest we create a new group and do it ourselves]