A v B

In care proceedings, allegations of parental alienation are ultimately questions of fact rather than a distinct legal doctrine. The court must determine whether, on the evidence, one parent wilfully sought to alienate the children from the other by promoting a false narrative or persuading them not to have contact. The local authority must prove the relied-on facts on the balance of probabilities and link them to a risk of significant harm. Evidence should be assessed with caution, particularly demeanour evidence, and contemporaneous records may be especially valuable. The court rejected allegations of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and coercive control, but found that the mother had exaggerated the children’s medical conditions and had sought to turn them against their father.

The local authority brought care proceedings concerning four children following extensive medical presentations, school non-attendance, allegations of domestic abuse and allegations that the father had abused the children. Interim care orders were made, but the children remained living with their mother and had no contact with their father after February 2019.

After earlier fact-finding hearings were adjourned and the case was reallocated, the court considered the local authority’s threshold allegations and the parents’ competing allegations. The central issues were the reliability of the evidence, whether the mother had exaggerated or fabricated medical conditions, whether she had alienated the children from their father, and whether the father had committed domestic or sexual abuse.

1. The court applied the balance of probabilities to the factual allegations and emphasised that the local authority also had to link the proved facts to an assertion that the children were at risk of significant harm ([2013] EWHC 1569; para [43]).

2. Allegations of parental alienation were not governed by a separate legal test or label. They were questions of fact. The court had to decide whether one parent had wilfully sought to alienate the children from the other by asserting a false narrative, persuading the children not to see the other parent, or using other conduct whose significance depended on the facts (para [44]).

3. In assessing disputed oral evidence, the court treated contemporaneous third-party and documentary evidence as generally valuable and exercised caution before drawing conclusions from demeanour. The principles associated with Gestmin SGPS SA v Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd [2013] EWHC 3560 (Comm) were relevant (paras [43], [45], [54]).

4. The mother was an unreliable witness. The court rejected her allegations that the father had exercised coercive control, forced non-consensual sex, assaulted her or sexually abused D. It also rejected the allegations that the father had sexually abused D or possessed pornography of young girls.

5. The court found that the mother had sought to turn the children against the father and had promoted a narrative that he was abusive. It also found that she had exaggerated, and sometimes fabricated, the children’s medical conditions. That conduct had caused or was capable of causing significant harm.

6. The court made the findings set out above after the fact-finding hearing. The judgment records the findings but does not state a separate final care-order disposition.