A Father v A Mother

This is a fact finding hearing in proceedings concerning 3 children, J who is 12 years old, K who is 10 years old, and L who is 4 years old. Their mother is M, and their father is F. Both parents share parental responsibility for their children.

The mother and the father are Polish. They both speak Polish as their first language, and speak good English. I made it clear to them throughout the hearing that they could address me in whichever language they felt most comfortable; and both parents decided to primarily speak in English, and to use the court’s interpreters as and when they needed clarification or translation, or when they wanted to speak in Polish. Both interpreters who assisted the court worked flexibly in this manner, and I am grateful to them for all they did to assist me.

The parents met at university in Poland in 2005, and married in 2009 in Poland. A month later they moved to England, the father says to earn and save money for their family to live in Poland. During the marriage, and whilst the family were living in England, all 3 children were born.

Both parents say they were the primary carer for the children over the last couple of years of the relationship.

Importantly when looking at the timing of allegations being made by the mother, she says she asked the father for a divorce in 2022, and he was not in agreement to the relationship ending. The mother told me about this in her oral evidence, and it was clear to me that from 2022 onwards the relationship was an unhappy one.

On 5^th March 2024 the parents separated. The circumstances of the separation are in dispute. The mother reported to the police that the father had domestically abused her, and as a result he was arrested and released on bail which included conditions preventing him from living at the family home, preventing him contacting the mother directly or indirectly, and providing for any arrangements for contact with the children to be arranged through a third party. The mother alleges that he breached those bail conditions, and reported a number of alleged breaches to the police.

As a result of having being excluded from the family home, the father is living in temporary accommodation in a caravan that his employer has allowed him to occupy. He has not returned to the family home since his bail conditions came to an end.

On 25^th March 2024 the father applied for a child arrangements order seeking for the court to determine with which parent the children should live, and an order for him to have contact with the children. He raised issues of domestic abuse and child abuse in that application. The father filed with his application a form containing his allegations of domestic abuse, saying that the mother had been physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusive of him and the children, and financially abusive of him. He stated that he believed the children were at risk of being abducted by the mother to Poland.

The father issued an application for divorce in Poland in June 2024, and I understand (although have not seen documents related to it) that the mother has applied for divorce in England also in June 2024. The court is separately determining what should happen to that application, and I am not hearing those proceedings.

On 8^th July 2024 the mother applied for a prohibited steps order to prevent the father removing the children from her care or the care of anybody else looking after the children. That order was granted on 10^th July 2024 at the first hearing, and also prohibited the father from removing the children from the United Kingdom.

On 9^th October 2024 the mother applied for a child arrangements order that the children live with her. She asserted the children have always lived with her, and said she wanted to formalise that position.

On 18^th October 2024 the father applied for permission to remove the children permanently to Poland, saying it was always the family’s plan to return to their family home in Poland in the summer school holidays in 2024, and that a Polish school had previously been secured for the children with the agreement of the mother.

On 13^th March 2025 the father’s application for a prohibited steps order to prevent the mother removing the children from the jurisdiction was issued, and for discharge of the prohibited steps order against him.

Those applications in respect of the children were case managed by other judges to bring this matter on before me for this finding of fact hearing to determine the allegations the parents make against each other of domestic abuse, and abuse of the children.

During the proceedings the children have been living with their mother, and initially had only informal indirect contact with their father, before that stopped and then contact recommenced on a supervised basis, initially by video call, and then face to face contact in a contact centre.

The father has represented himself throughout this case, and has done so with care and precision in the hearing before me.

The father was prohibited from cross examining the mother himself, and sadly the court had been unable to secure a qualified legal representative to question the mother at this hearing. The father prepared a detailed list of proposed questions which were sent to me in advance of the hearing, and which I asked the mother with amendment as needed. Throughout the questioning of the mother, I ensured that the father had the opportunity to disagree when I re-worded questions or decided that certain questions did not need asking.

The mother was represented by Miss Mifsud, to whom I am most grateful for the measured and thorough manner in which she has presented the mother’s case. Miss Mifsud has said everything she properly could on behalf of the mother, and has been of great assistance to the court.

The father has structured his allegations to focus mainly on the mother’s behaviour towards the children. He alleges that the L reported that the mother hurt K causing a bruise to her nose, that K reported that her mother embarrassed her in front of a friend and manhandled her, that the mother intentionally harmed K on another occasion bruising her leg, that the children told him their mother had kicked J and the mother reacted with rage once told about this, including saying she doesn’t want the girls anymore, and that the mother threw a remote control at K causing her injury. I have treated the allegations of the children reporting something to include an allegation that what the children said happened did in fact happen (i.e. that the mother did hurt the children as they said she had).

The father alleges that the mother pushed J and shouted at her when J said she would kill herself.

The father alleges that the mother has assaulted K by pushing her into a wall, and that the mother has on another occasion kicked K and called her a bitch whilst home schooling her in 2021.

The father alleges that the mother has been domestically abusive towards him, and whilst giving a longer narrative of a number of abusive incidents in his statements, limits himself to one allegation that the mother assaulted him in January 2022.

The mother alleges that the father is coercive and controlling, limiting her relationship with others including a friend called X, that he accused her of being in love with X, and said these things in front of the children.

She says that the father turned her mother against her, and contacted the maternal grandmother after his arrest to pressure the mother to withdraw her allegations and not to end the relationship.

The mother alleges that as part of the coercive and controlling behaviour the father installed tracking apps on the mother’s phone, vehicle, and the children’s phone; installed cameras in the home including by the side of their bed, and in the children’s bedrooms; had access to all of her online accounts and the PIN number for her phone; and would regularly question her mental health in front of the children calling her mad, an unfit mother, and trying to break her.

The mother says that the father pressured her to work 40-50 hours per week whilst pregnant between 2020 and January 2021, and then pressured her to work 70-80 hours per week, whilst ensuring that nearly all her wages were kept by the father.

She says that the father verbally abused her between 2017 – 2024, including calling her a narcissist, and would from August 2022 onwards threaten to remove the children from her as a means of control.

The mother also alleges that the father stalked her and the children at school between March and April 2024, and drove past her home slowly for no reason as well as attending the local swimming pool after his arrest in March 2024.

I was provided with a main bundle and a police disclosure bundle, both of which I have read.

On the first day of the hearing I admitted into evidence a further statement from the father which exhibited relevant evidence related to the mother’s work schedule, and gave time to the mother to provide instructions to her barrister. The mother had not opposed that application, and it was agreed she could respond to it when giving her oral evidence, which she did.

This hearing had been listed for 3 days; however that allocation proved inadequate, and the evidence alone took 4 days. Part of the delay was caused by resolving difficulties in providing me with the extensive audio-visual evidence that has been filed in the case in a manner that I could access. I have watched and listened to all of that evidence. I am grateful to the father and Miss Mifsud for having worked together to achieve provision of that evidence to me.

The video and audio recordings are predominantly in Polish, and I have translated transcripts of each recording, which I have read whilst watching or listening to the recordings.

I heard oral evidence from both parents, who were offered breaks as and when they needed. The mother gave her evidence from behind a screen, but was willing to sit in court without a screen for the rest of the hearing including when listening to the father’s evidence.

Following the conclusion of the oral evidence the parties lodged and exchanged written submissions, which I have read. I thank the father and Miss Mifsud for the obvious care taken to produce submissions that were focussed and designed to assist the court.

I also thank both parents for how they each behaved during what must have been a very difficult hearing for them. Each parent was polite, constructive, and dignified throughout.

The law applicable to this finding of fact hearing is uncontroversial and can be summarised briefly. The person making an allegation has the burden of proving it on the balance of probabilities. Findings must be based on evidence rather than speculation or suspicion. The court must take into account all the evidence in the case, and consider each piece of evidence in the context of all the other evidence rather than assessing evidence in separate compartments.

I bear in mind that people do not always tell the truth about things in court, and may have many reasons for being untruthful. They may tell lies because they are frightened or distressed, or ashamed of conduct which does not form part of the allegations against them. Sometimes people lie out of misplaced loyalty, to bolster a true case, or for no reason that can be identified. The fact someone has lied about one thing does not mean that they have lied about others, and a lie should never be considered a direct proof of guilt.

I bear in mind that discrepancies and inconsistencies in evidence can arise in ways that are not sinister or a result of bad faith. See Lancashire County Council v C, M & F (Children: Fact Finding Hearing) [2014] EWFC 3:

“In cases where repeated accounts are given of events surrounding injury and death, the court must think carefully about the significance or otherwise of any reported discrepancies. They may arise for a number of reasons. One possibility is of course that they are lies designed to hide culpability. Another is that they are lies told for other reasons. Further possibilities include faulty recollection or confusion at times of stress or when the importance of accuracy is not fully appreciated, or there may be inaccuracy or mistake in the record-keeping or recollection of the person hearing and relaying the account. The possible effects of delay and repeated questioning upon memory should also be considered, as should the effect on one person of hearing accounts given by others. As memory fades, a desire to iron out wrinkles may not be unnatural a process that might inelegantly be described as ‘story-creep’ may occur without any necessary inference of bad faith.”

These words echo the words of Leggatt J in Gestmin SGPS v Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd [2013] EWHC 3560 as to the fallibility of human recollection and the limitations of memory.

I must be alive to the specific risks in private law proceedings that allegations are being made by a parent against the other parent, and that parent may be making them to gain an advantage. That does not mean allegations are false; but it does increase the risk of misinterpretation, exaggeration or downright fabrication as set out by Baroness Hale in Re B (Care Proceedings: Standard of Proof) [2008] UKHL 35. In the case of AS v TH (False Allegations of Abuse) [2016] EWHC 532 Mr Justice Jackson reminded the court that in the context of private law disputes focus should not just be on statements made by a child at the expense of other evidence because that risks producing a false result if the child is unreliable or if the child’s primary care-taker is unreliable.

I should avoid placing excessive or exclusive reliance on the demeanour of a witness: Re B-M (Children: Findings of Fact) [2021] EWCA Civ 137. My assessment of the impression made by a witness may be given weight by me, taking due account of the pressure involved in giving oral evidence, alongside other matters in a case where the facts are not likely to be primarily found in contemporaneous documents.

Domestic abuse is defined in section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 for the purposes of that Act as:

Practice Direction 12J adopts the definition from the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and defines other terms:

“coercive behaviour” means an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten the victim;

“controlling behaviour” means an act or pattern of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape and regulating their everyday behaviour;”

When considering acts alleged to be domestically abusive, I must bear in mind that as set out in Re H-N and Others (Children)(Domestic Abuse: findings of fact hearings) [2021] EWCA Civ 448, it is possible to be the victim of coercive behaviour or controlling behaviour, or threatening behaviour without being the victim of physical injury, and that specific incidents may be part of a wider pattern of behaviour, but:

“It is equally important to be clear that not all directive, assertive, stubborn or selfish behaviour, will be 'abuse' in the context of proceedings concerning the welfare of a child; much will turn on the intention of the perpetrator of the alleged abuse and on the harmful impact of the behaviour.”

Peter Jackson LJ made an important point in the case of Re L (Relocation: Second Appeal) [2017] EWCA Civ 2121, endorsed in Re H-N, namely:

“Few relationships lack instances of bad behaviour on the part of one or both parties at some time and it is a rare family case that does not contain complaints by one party against the other, and often complaints are made by both. Yet not all such behaviour will amount to 'domestic abuse', where 'coercive behaviour' is defined as behaviour that is 'used to harm, punish, or frighten the victim…' and 'controlling behaviour' as behaviour 'designed to make a person subordinate…'  In cases where the alleged behaviour does not have this character it is likely to be unnecessary and disproportionate for detailed findings of fact to be made about the complaints; indeed, in such cases it will not be in the interests of the child or of justice for the court to allow itself to become another battleground for adult conflict.”

Central to the modern understanding of domestic abuse is coercive and/or controlling behaviour. Hayden J in Re F v M [2021] EWFC 4 considered that coercive and controlling behaviour needs no definition and is unambiguous:

“Understanding the scope and ambit of the behaviour however, requires a recognition that “coercion” will usually involve a pattern of acts encompassing, for example, assault, intimidation, humiliation and threats. “Controlling behaviour” really involves a range of acts designed to render an individual subordinate and to corrode their sense of personal autonomy. Key to both behaviours is an appreciation of a “pattern” or “a series of acts”, the impact of which must be assessed cumulatively and rarely in isolation.”

The primary question in many cases is likely to be whether the evidence establishes an abusive pattern of coercive and/or controlling behaviour. The duty on the court, as set out in Re K [2022] EWCA Civ 468 is limited to determining only those factual matters which are likely to be relevant to the arrangements for the children. The court is reminded in that case against being allowed to be a venue for the parents to air their grievances against each other.

In respect of the covert recordings, I have had regard to M v F (Covert Recording of Children) [2016] EWFC 29, and SKJ v SLJ [2023] EWHC 246 (Fam). I have also had regard to the guidance issued by the Family Justice Council in May 2025 titled Covert Recordings in Family Law Proceedings Concerning Children.

The father’s evidence was set out in a number of statements he filed in support of his application, and in response to the mother’s allegations against him.

The father says that the relationship had involved domestic abuse towards him from the mother since 2014. He described 2 incidents in 2014 where he says he was scratched by the mother, and provided photographs of what he said were his injuries. The father described other assaults particularly in more recent years.

The father says that on 19^th January 2021 K told him that her mother was stressed out and had kicked her. K did not know why her mother had done that. By this stage, the father had installed cameras in the house, and he watched back the recording which I have also seen. The father accurately describes in his statement what the recording shows, which is the mother calling K a fucking bitch repeatedly, pushing K on the floor with her leg, and then kicking her swiftly squarely between the buttocks, I am clear on purpose. There is a pause between the mother pushing K with her leg, and the kick. K holds her bottom where her mother kicked her and receives no comfort from her mother despite being in obvious pain.

The father describes an incident on 24^th October 2021 when he and the mother had a disagreement about advertising items of furniture for sale. The father says the mother was very aggressive in front of the children, shouting and swearing at him. The father later saw on the home camera footage the mother throw what he says is his work bag containing a tablet computer, credit card, and other items, onto the floor and stamping on it, followed by aggressively pushing the computer chair against the desk, causing the monitors to sway. He says J asks her mother to calm down, but the mother kept swearing and saying that this was all the father’s fault, following which J repeatedly asked her mother to calm down. The father says that the mother kept shouting he was selfish, and that J remonstrated with her, asking her not to say that about her dad. I have seen the CCTV footage of this incident, which shows what the father describes, although I can’t see what is in the bag that is stamped on. The father is calm, and the mother is loud, aggressive, and clearly the person who is dysregulated.

The father says that on 22^nd January 2022 he was assaulted by the mother. He gives describes in detail the run up to the assault, how the mother involved K in a parental disagreement about buying her a second hand bed, and how after suggesting to the mother that she go and sleep she jumped at him, put both hands on his throat and started choking him, then hit him a few times on his head and chest, and pushed him away. This all happened in front of L who was a little over 1 year old at the time. The father says when the mother was walking away from him, she hit L with her leg, who fell to the floor and started crying. The mother picked him up, and when the father asked her to hand L to him, she refused, and was crying and shouting that she would kill herself because of the father. She walked away according to the father swearing and shouting at the father whilst holding L. The father exhibited the home camera footage which shows what the father describes in his evidence. The mother is clearly very angry.

The father describes being told by K on 19^th May 2022 that she had been pushed by her mother into a brick border outside their home when they were running late for swimming, and that her mother walked away and did not care. The father says that K told him it was very painful at the time, but she was ok by the time she told him. He didn’t see any bruising on K. The father says when he asked the mother about it, she told him that K was lying, and asked him whether he believed his daughter or her. The father decided to check the CCTV cameras and could see that K had told him the truth.

I have seen the recording of the incident, which shows J and K happy singing, playing in the pathway near the door to the home, picking some petals from roses like confetti. The mother is clearly unhappy about something, and says unkind things to K when K goes into the house, telling K to hurry up and saying, “Fuck, K!”. K comes back outside and lines up with her sister just by the front door to surprise their mother with the petals. When their mother comes out of the house, she shouts, they throw the petals in the air smiling. For no reason that is apparent from the video, the mother responds by shoving K aggressively and hard into a brick border whilst walking away shouting that she will be late. K starts screaming and J picks her up from the ground before they walk off (the father says to the car). The mother can be seen returning home and slamming the door several times in an aggressive manner while crying. The mother is clearly completely out of control, and the children respond like this is normal in their lives which is concerning.

The father says on 1^st December 2022 he returned home from work and one of the children told him that in the morning their mother was stressed, and J was saying she would kill herself. The father checked the CCTV footage, which I have also seen, and says it shows J sitting at the foot of the stairs crying and screaming that she will kill herself, the mother taking L to the car, with L running back to the home, and the mother grabbing L to take him back to the car whilst telling J that she will not go to school. J was left on the stairs crying, and not being consoled. When her mother shouts to her from the street that they will be late and she doesn’t have a choice, J puts her shoes on. The father says that the mother returns to the home, tells J to fuck off, then pushes J telling her to get the fuck out multiple times before going to the car leaving J in the home crying before she takes her school bag and goes to the car. I have seen the footage, which entirely supports the father’s account. J is clearly very distressed, and being ignored by her mother who speaks to her abruptly and unkindly. She shouts at an extremely distressed child in a manner that is disturbing to see. Whilst it is difficult to see clearly, having watched the footage a number of times, I am not satisfied that what I can see is the results of J being pushed by her mother during being screamed at by her. The footage, however, shows the mother completely out of control.

The father describes an incident on 25^th July 2023 when they were in their family home in Poland (the family maintains a home in both countries) where the mother shouted at him accusing him of manipulating K. He says that she shouted at him, telling him that the family home will not be his and that the father will never live there, and then assaulted him.

The father describes an incident on the evening of 13^th August 2023 in which he is bathing L, and hears the mother shouting at K calling her a disgusting girl. He hears a bang, and J shouted, “Mummy”, following which he heard K crying and saying that she wants Daddy. The father describes going downstairs to find the mother laughing, and telling K to go to her Daddy to complain that she got hit with a remote control. The father says he saw K holding her nose with both hands, crying loudly, and that whilst he comforted K, the mother told him that she got hit with the remote control, saying it was an accident and that, “she will live.” The father checked on K’s injury whilst J collected the batteries that he fallen out of the remote control on impact. He took a picture 5 days later of the injury, which shows a small mark on her nose between her eyes, and made an audio recording of the incident which I have heard. The recording fully supports the father’s account, and in it the mother clearly remonstrates that it wasn’t deliberate, but that she threw the remote. K is clear in the recording that her mother, “threw it at me.”

He says about an incident in October 2023, during half term, in which the mother tells him that she was giving him the girls, and she will take L. This seems to have been the result of complaints that the mother had about the girls’ behaviour. The father says the mother denied kicking J when the mother had broken a nail (as J told her father), and shouted at the father asking him if he believes her or the children. The father says that the mother started crying and shouting at him, blaming the children for her reactions. The children were able to hear all of this according to the father, who says that K came up to him and told him again that Mummy had told J to get out and when J did not get out the mother kicked J.

The father provided a recording of this incident, which supports what he says, with the mother saying that she will take L with him because he is too small and is having breast milk. She says, “they are yours!” when talking about the girls, and that she will just pack up her bags one day and can be a weekend mummy. The mother says that the girls will corrupt L and he will become like them. The recording supports the father’s account, and is disturbing to hear when considering children were listening to it. It shows that J took a knife out during the mother’s shouting, and that the mother didn’t calm despite the father reminding her that J has panic attacks. The mother compares the girls unfavourably to L, who she says is wonderful.

The father says later in that incident the mother told him to put the house on the market because he was relocating to Poland before Christmas, and repeated she was taking L to Poland and that the father could come with the girls whenever he wanted, but she will not stay with the girls at home, telling him how badly behaved the girls are during the day and blaming them for making her like she was behaving. The father says that J told her mother she should have told them earlier and she would have behaved, and the mother then shouted at J that she will report them to the school and social services. This led to significant upset from J, which led to the mother calming down. The father says he suggested the mother go to the gym to relax, but she continued to cry and swear because she couldn’t find her phone. The father recorded this incident which supports his account and is consistent with it.

On what was originally said to be 10^th November 2023, corrected during this hearing to 13^th October 2023, the father says when he got back from work K told him that in the kitchen she had been hurt by her mother, after accidentally staining her bedroom carpet. He says K described her mother calling her names, and stabbing her fingers in K’s leg causing what the father describes as “big pain”. The father photographed the bruise, which I have seen and does show a bruise on a child’s right thigh. He says that the mother shouted from upstairs that K was lying, which K refuted, telling her mother that it was her mother who was lying, and reiterating that she stabbed her fingers in K’s leg. The father says he comforted K and reassured her everything would be ok. When he later talked to the mother about the incident, the father says that the mother denied it happened and changed the subject. The father recorded this incident which I have heard and confirms the account of K telling her father that after spilling something on the carpet, “mummy went mad”, and when K was on the ground hurt K with her finger.

The father describes another assault on him on 10^th December 2023, when the Christmas tree was being decorated by the family. He says the mother became upset after a mark was left by stepladders on a play mat, and this led to her pushing him on the dining table, punching him hard with her fist on the back of his head, grabbing his t-shirt and ripping a small hole in it whilst breaking his silver chain (which I understand from his evidence was around his neck). The father says he told the mother he will call the police, and locked himself in the bathroom where he took photographs of the injury. I have seen those photographs which do appear to be taken in a bathroom and show a ripped t-shirt and reddening to the father’s shoulder near where it meets his neck. The father says he decided not to call the police because he didn’t think they would believe him, and it would cause the children a bad experience just before Christmas.

The father describes an incident on 23^rd December 2023 when he was in the kitchen and after hearing the mother arguing with the maternal grandmother, he told her not to speak with her mother like that with J present. The father says that the mother started blaming him and verbally attacking him, saying he had turned her mother against her, and that he and her mother were destroying the mother’s mental health. The father says that the mother shouted at him, asking why he hated her so much, and asking if he wanted her to leave or kill herself. He says that he had to remind the mother that J was present listening to all of this, and the mother then asked J for a hug, but continued shouting at the father, telling him that she did not want him anymore and to let her go (which I understood to mean to leave the relationship rather than that he had physically held her at that point). The father says that he came downstairs to try and stop the argument but that the mother continued crying and saying things to him that were intended to restart the argument. He says that when he didn’t engage, and told the mother that he wanted to sort out their problems together, the mother told him that he didn’t love her, to which he reassured her.

The father says on 23^rd February 2024 K asked him not to let her mother take her to school again because her mother has been shouting, stressed out, calling K “rude words” and swearing when the mother had been unable to find her bank card. The father recorded this conversation, and the transcript which matches his account.

The father says that on the 5^th March 2024 he took the children to school, and returned home to redecorate before an estate agent attended on 7^th March to take photographs were taken of the home, which was to be marketed for sale. He describes being arrested after police officers attended the home, and being interviewed about allegations of domestic abuse against the mother. He says that he was arrested due to false allegations against him by the mother. The father says that he checked with the police whether he could speak with the children by telephone or video calls, and they confirmed he could if it was on the child’s device and the mother was not involved in the calls.

Following his arrest the father claims the mother restricted the children being able to have contact with him. At that stage all arrangements for contact had to be communicated through a third party, and a family friend kindly helped by fulfilling that role. The father sets out evidence of plans being agreed through the family friend for K’s 9^th birthday which were cancelled by the mother on the evening they were supposed to happen. K texted her father to say she had the worst birthday.

The father says that the mother was obstructive and would only allow him to have direct contact at a supervised contact centre when there was no reason for supervision. The father has provided some of the messages that went between him and the family friend, which I consider show the father being polite and pursuing his request to see the children.

The father says that on 30^th March 2024 K told him during a video call that her mother had pushed her from a computer chair, and banged her head on the computer desk, scratching her elbow which was bleeding a little bit. He says that K explained this happened when she didn’t immediately take pans from the sofa as asked by her mother. He says that K told him her mother did not care and just walked away when K was crying. The father recorded that conversation.

The father described the concerns he had on 30^th April 2024 when the children did not reply to him, which was unusual. He details the enquiries he made to ascertain that the mother had taken the children to Poland without his consent or knowledge, and the attempts he made for social services and the children’s school to help him know where they were and if they were abroad. The school replied to tell him that the children were not in school, and their absence had been authorised. The school refused to provide further information and directed him to social services. He also reported the matter to the police, who directed him back to social services. The father says that K missed a residential trip at school due to having been taken to Poland, and that once he found out the children were in fact in Poland, he reported the mother’s actions to the police. The children returned to the UK on 11^th May 2024.

On 29^th May 2024, the father says that K told him that the mother stands and listens to all her calls with her father. The father says that K said that she feels like the mother doesn’t care about her, and gave some examples of when that happened, including that day, when she told her father that her mother had embarrassed her in front of a friend, and that when they went shopping her mother bought a lollipop for her friend and for L but not for K. The father says that later in the conversation K told him that her mother told K to stop crying like a little baby, and after K sat on the floor in her room the mother had pulled K’s arm, dragged her on the floor, and pushed her. When K said those things to her father, he says that the mother came into the room, he heard shouting from her telling K to go and to stop it, and then the call ended. When the father called back, K confirmed that the mother had hurt her in the way she had described, and he says that the mother came back into the room and asked K why she was lying, to which K responded she was not lying. The call then disconnected, and the father reported the incident to social services.

On 27^th June 2024 K spoke with her father through Facebook Messenger, and had a red bruise on her nose. Her father asked her what happened, and K told him that she had a big fight with L. The father says L said, “No that was mummy”, K looked at him and told L, “Yes it was”, and L kept repeating “that was mummy”, confidently saying it was his Mummy who caused the mark. The father’s evidence is that K said later in the conversation that she bumped her nose on the table, and was crying that morning after L bumped into her. The father emailed the school the next day to enquiry about the injury, and find out if the school asked K about it. The school responded with 1 sentence, simply saying that K says she feels safe at home and that his comments have been logged on their system. The father provided a photograph taken during the video call, which shows a red mark to the end of K’s nose on top of the tip of her nose.

The father responded in a statement to the mother’s allegations, denying that he has controlled or coerced her during the relationship; denying controlling her relationship with the children, her family, or friends; and being clear that the mother made her own decisions. The father gives examples of dates and events that the mother went to in 2022-2024 with her friends, international travel with a friend without him, and a night out to watch a male strip show with one of her female friends. The father provided photographs that he says support those accounts. I have seen them, and they show the mother happy and smiling out with friends abroad and in the UK without the father. He says he did not control how she was able to communicate with her friends. The father denies being aggressive to X when the mother invited him to their house.

The father says that he did not install a tracking app on the mother’s phone for the purpose of controlling her, but that instead this was an app called KidControl that he and the other agreed should be installed on all the family’s mobile phones with something called a Family Circle allowing the family members to all see where the devices were. He says this was done in 2018, and that the mother was aware of how the app functioned and how to turn off GPS location if she wanted to do so. The father gives examples of when the app was used in front of the mother to find her phone when the mother thought she had lost it. He says that around the start of April 2023 the maternal grandfather was visiting, and the mother asked him if he has installed GPS on her phone, which he didn’t because it is built in; however when she then asked if he had installed an app to let him know where she is he replied by reminding her all the phones have KidControl and that she can see where his phone is as well, and could turn location off if she wanted. The mother asked him to uninstall the app, which the father says he did in front of her father.

The father denies there was anything untoward in the installation of the CCTV cameras at home, saying that he installed two in 2018 for house security and upgraded them in 2020, with additional cameras being installed in 2021. The father says that all of the cameras were obvious and installed with the mother’s agreement, initially for home protection. He says that in January 2021 he was defending himself against false allegations the mother had made to her own mother, and showed the maternal grandmother footage of the mother’s behaviour, which is when the mother started switching the cameras off when she was using violence against him or the children. The father says that thereafter he told the mother that the cameras were for his and the children’s safety, and refused to grant her access to the recordings so that she could not delete footage of her poor behaviour, but offered that she could install her own cameras should she wish. He says he told the mother that she could turn the cameras off when he and the children were not in the home, and explains that sometimes he turned the cameras back on when coming back from work or staying home over weekends, and was able to capture evidence of some of the mother’s abusive behaviour towards him and the children.

The father says that when the mother at some point removed the cameras and hid them, he let it go to avoid a distressing incident in front of the children.

The father denies installing a tracking app on J’s phone, pointing out that KidControl was installed on it by agreement with the mother in 2018, and that the children knew about that and another app called The Family Link, which helps manage phone usage. He says that J was aware of those apps and their purpose, and that when her phone broke in 2023 and he replaced it, he used the backup from the old phone with those apps on it. The father says that J was also able to see where the father’s phone was on the KidControl app.

The father denies making the mother work 70-80 hours per week, describing that she decided how many hours to work and how many jobs to have. He says she did cash in hand work that was not declared to HMRC such as private cleaning and private care jobs, and that the father encouraged her to think about her health over money when the mother started to justify her abusive reactions to him and the children as being caused by lack of sleep (when doing night shifts). The father says it was the mother who decided to take on more work to fund unnecessary shopping for clothing and expensive jewellery.

The father agrees that he had access to some of the mother’s online accounts, but says this is because the mother gave him access and told him her passwords so he could help her when she didn’t know how to do something with those accounts, such as changing a password when she was targeted by a phishing attack. He says that the mother asked him for help sending official email from her workplace email address because he was better at that type of thing, and that he helped her set up her new phone at her request for which he needed to use her Gmail email address, but that he showed her how everything worked. The father also says that the mother knew the passwords to his online accounts, before 2022 when they still trusted each other, because he has the same one for all his accounts.

The father says he never had the passcode to the mother’s phone.

It is a theme through the father’s evidence responding to the mother’s allegations that he says she is twisting and exaggerating to portray a negative image of him. The father says, in terms, that the mother is using a form of manipulative control called DAVRO, which stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender in some of her allegations against him, saying an example is her allegation that he humiliated her in front of the children, which he denies but says she did to him.

The father denies trying to separate the children when they started direct supervised contact with him at a family centre, explaining how he thought it was good for the children to have one on one time with him, and explaining the problems with arranging the first of those contact sessions. He says the last minute changes were due to the mother’s manipulation so that she could go to a festival, and to show him that she still had control over him.

The father denies trying to make the mother feel worthless, saying he was always supportive of her.

He denies threatening to damage and destroy the family home, saying that in March 2024 he requested the children’s passports when the mother was supposed to go on a trip to Prague so that he could fill in school submission forms for the Polish school they would be starting in September 2024. He says that he gave the mother all of the children’s passports when he went to Poland for his father’s funeral in October 2023 in case anything happened to him so that she had them, and wanted the same arrangements for when she was away.

The father denies threatening to remove the children from the mother’s care if she did not do as he said.

The father says he did not request all of the mother’s wages at the end of the month, and gives a detailed description of how the family planned their finances together. He explains they had a spreadsheet budget that he maintained and shared with the mother, providing an example email in which he sent them to her. The father says that he was the main provider for the household in terms of paying household bills until the end of 2018 when he realised (as he says it) that the mother was taking advantage of him because she was spending her income on herself and unnecessary items when he was struggling to maintain the household expenditure. The father says that he and the mother agreed to keep things fair by contributing to the household budget in proportion to their incomes, and from the beginning of 2023 that changes to an equal share because the mother thought that it was unfair that because she earnt more she contributed more. The father says he got into £3000 of debt because the mother didn’t contribute in November and December, and since then she made the monthly budget discussions difficulty by yelling, swearing, and addressing threats towards the father sometimes in front of the children. He says that the mother tells him it is her money, and she can spend it on what she wants, and says that she sold household items without telling him to support her spending.

The father denies stalking the mother or the children after they separated. He describes K asking him to pick her and J up from a dance club and bring them home in March 2024, and that he tried to arrange that through the family friend with the mother, but she did not reply so he contacted the school directly to ask them to check with the mother. The school reasonably declined to get involved, and the father went to the school to collect the children in line with K’s wishes. He says that the mother turned up earlier than the end of the school day to collect them, and that it ended up with the police being called who confirmed no bail conditions had been breached. That evening he says that K sent him a message crying because she missed him so much.

The father says that when the mother realised her old tactics didn’t work against him anymore after he educated himself about toxic relationship behaviours, she started a smear campaign against him involving the local authority, school, nursery, GP, friends, neighbours, where she was playing the victim to pain him as the villain.

The father says that once the mother’s allegations to the police had been investigated and in September 2024 the police decided to take no further action about them, the mother then made a further false allegation to the police to try and bring him back into what he describes as the “system”.

The father denied leaving the family home in January 2024 as alleged by the mother, and provided photographs showing he was still in the home after that date, and describes their plans to move to Poland, which he says have not happened because the mother decided to stay in the UK and to achieve that has twisted events and made false allegations to the police.

The father also described an incident in the beginning of 2023 where the maternal grandmother had visited for Christmas, and the mother blamed him for her uncontrolled emotional reactions, admitting she had become a monster. The father says that the mother said to the grandmother that the only way out of it was the total exclusion / elimination of the father from the mother’s life, which he says clearly shows she was planning to eliminate him from her life using the justice system. He provides a recording of that conversation.

I have listened to the recording, and it says what the father describes, with the mother blaming the father, saying she is scared of him, and saying (in the translated transcript), “Nobody ever made me look and feel like this, only you … When I am with you many times I hated myself and I become a monster. I don’t want that. I am telling you honestly … one and only way out of this is total exclusion of you from my life. Completely.” The rest of the recording shows the father calmly trying to encourage the mother to go to family therapy, and the mother telling the father, “Get yourself a solicitor.” She then remonstrates with her mother saying that if her mother deliberately tries to threaten her (there is no hint of that in the recording) then she will have no daughter. The mother says, “I am not going to wait 2 years before we go back to Poland because in 2 years this relationship will be fucking over … and you know it well. Sorry I am not going to live in it for a next 2 years. Not me. No.”

The father gave his evidence in a calm and controlled manner. His answers were all precise, and his oral evidence was consistent with his written evidence. He answered questions directly, and gave evidence clearly when his account of each incident was carefully probed by Miss Mifsud. That father was willing to expand on incidents when questioned in what seemed a natural and unrehearsed manner. He presented as an open witness doing his best to help the court, being quite happy to agree he sometimes shouted in the home, and can get cross. His accounts were compelling, and consistent with the surrounding evidence. I found his descriptions of keeping the children away from adult conversations and issues, whereas the mother involved the children in them consistent with the recordings I have heard of the family. The father was, however, less able to put himself in his children’s shoes and consider what it was like for them having so many cameras in the home.

The mother has also set out her evidence in a number of statements, supporting her allegations and responding to the father’s allegations.

The mother says that throughout their relationship the father had controlled and coerced her. She says there were some instances before K was born, and that the father’s attitude towards her significantly deteriorated during her pregnancy with K in 2014/2015. The mother asserts the father is jealous and controlling of her relationship with others, giving examples of the father telling her off for offering a plumber who was in the home for a month in 2016 a coffee and talking to him; and giving details about a friend called X, who is gay, saying that the father accused her of having an affair with X, and that the father was aggressive towards X in front of the children. She provides some of the messages between X and the father. The first version of the messages is different to the complete version she later provided after being directed to do so. I have read that later version, and they show initially pleasant messages between the two men in April 2023, and when thanking X for his birthday wishes, the father expresses that he wishes the mother never met X in the past so their marriage would not have been destroyed. There is an earlier message in December 2021 where the father tells X that the mother “for a moment” will not be coming to do cleaning anymore because their marriage and family life is more important, and says he hopes that X will understand.

The mother says that the father controlled how she could communicate with her friends, that he has the password to her phone, and installed a tracking app on her phone. She says that it was her father who found the tracking app in March 2023, and that at that time the father admitted that it had been on her phone since June 2020. She says that because the father could see the messages she got, friends stopped contacting her by phone, and that the father on one occasion phoned her unhappy that she had received a message from X. The mother says that the father controlled her use of her phone, and would call her if she sent or received messages that he did not like, or had been places he didn’t like.

She says that she struggled to communicate with her friends and support network over the phone because the father knew what she was doing, and this meant she felt trapped. The mother says that the father turned family members against her, including her mother who had taken the father’s side in what the mother says were lies the father told against her. The mother says that after the father’s arrest, the maternal grandmother called the children and blamed the mother for his arrest. The mother says that caused the children to struggle to sleep that night, and says she is concerned that the father will do the same and try and alienate the children from her if he had unsupervised contact with them.

The mother describes a time just before Christmas 2023 when she spoke with a friend by chance in a shop, and that friend helped the mother change the passwords to her online accounts. The mother says that she received 10 or more calls from the father in 30 minutes, and received messages asking why she was taking so long and when she would be back. The mother says the father was unhappy when he found out 2 days later that she had changed the passwords, but does not say how he found out.

The mother says she believes the father was tracking her vehicle, and describes that she went to a Polish bakery, and that the father who was at home later questioned her about the bakery.

The mother describes the father installing a tracking app on “our daughter’s phone” to allow him to track her whereabouts with the children. She says that she doesn’t know what else he can obtain from the phone, and is concerned that the father would ask the children to help him, not acting in their best interests, but to extend his control over her.

The mother says that the father installed several cameras in the home, and that such was the extent of his control over her that she didn’t think much of it at the time, and initially assumed they were for protection of the home. She says she never had access to the cameras, but due to things the father said to her, she realised he was watching her when she was at home, and even gave her instructions through the microphones on the cameras when the father was at work (I think she means the speakers). The mother says that when she told her friends about the cameras, one of them said it wasn’t appropriate, and that the father was more difficult with that friend thereafter. She says that one of her friends told her the positioning and number of cameras was clear domestic abuse and offered to help the mother. When the mother tried to take the cameras down, she says that the father told her if she damaged or removed the cameras she had to pay for a replacement.

The mother said that her domestic abuse worker was shocked about the cameras, and confirmed they were a form of domestic abuse as well as helping the mother remove them from the home.

The mother says that it was the father that made her work extremely long hours, including when pregnant with L, and that she also cared for the children during the following day. The mother says that the father would say they needed more money, and she had to go out and earn more money for the family, and that the father was in control of all the family finances. The mother describes not knowing where the money was going, and that she ended up when pregnant with L during the pandemic in 2020 working 40-50 hours per week which involved night shifts. The mother gives an account of the home responsibilities she had during the day after night shifts, including home schooling K and J at that time, and that she was exhausted from lack of sleep. She says that didn’t matter to the father who took money out of her account.

The mother says in the winter of 2020 the father started working weekends, which had been when she tried to catch up on sleep, and that meant she couldn’t rest at all. She says she was so exhausted that she couldn’t act on the advice of her domestic violence worker about removing the cameras, and that in January 2021 the father put more pressure on her to earn more money which he would then take from her account – she was working 70-80 hours by this point and says she was unrecognisable to anybody who knew her before, and was very ill. The mother says she struggled significantly with her mental health due to lack of sleep and the number of hours she was working, which caused her to lose her patience with the children more quickly than normal. Instead of helping her, the mother says that the father put more pressure on her, and controlled her more and more. She says she was trying to break her, later in her statement saying this happened in August 2022.

The mother says in terms that the father only cares about himself. She says that when working night shifts at the weekend when the father was off work, he would let the children disturb her sleep so that he could go on the computer. She says that she would take the children out to try and get some fresh air when she wasn’t getting any sleep. The mother thinks from what a neighbour has told her that the father was letting the children stay up late when she was at work so that her life would be harder the following morning.

The mother describes the father watching videos on his phone and computer about narcissists, and that he called her a narcissist and told her she was toxic. She said he would call her those things in front of the children, and watched the videos in front of the children albeit it wearing headphones. She says he watched the videos instead of reading the children a story for bed, which shows that he is “completely disinterested in being present with them.”

The mother also says that the father regularly insulted and humiliated her in front of the children, and that she became very ill because of his behaviour. She says she had panic attacks when she returned to him, would become extremely upset, and wet herself, saying that the father encouraged the children to insult her about that and that he laughed and pointed at her when she wet herself. She also says that the father called her made to undermine her, suggesting she has mental health problems; however does accept that she has suffered from mental health problems during the relationship, but she says because of the stress and fatigue the father caused her. She has provided a letter from a Polish doctor dated 7^th May 2024 which says she has a “mixed anxiety and depressive order as a result of violence suffered.” She asserts she is now a different person since being free of the father.

The mother also says that the father influenced the children against her, and that they said things to her that could only have come from their father, such as asking her whether she was seeing her friend (which the mother says means X), because she says that the father told the children that she wasn’t going to work and was going to see her friend X. When having a discussion with J after school, the mother says that when J spoke about boys and girls being friends the father said that wasn’t true and “look at what mummy did.”

The mother says that the father threatened to remove the children to Poland, and to remove the children from her care, as a way of controlling her and to stop her leaving him. She says that in August 2022 whilst in Poland he told her if the mother left him, he will “destroy me, break me and take our children from my care”, going on to describe that the father has set out to achieve that. She alleges that the school are concerned about the father’s behaviour.

The mother describes that in March 2024 the father had no need for the children’s passports when he asked for them unless he was planning to take the children abroad, and says she had replied to say she was not at home because she had just gone to work, she says that the father got angry and threatened to damage the family home and remove her property because he knew the passports were in the home. She called the police and informed them of the father’s alleged threats, and says it caused her a great deal of distress.

The mother describes the father as being “removed from the property” and says since they he was calling the children several times a day which she considered to be excessive. She says he called or messaged them after 9pm.

The mother says that she has heard conversations between the children and the father since he was no longer living at home, and that she heard him tell the children they will be back in his care, that he would take care of them, and that they would start a new life together. The mother says that the father told the children about going to Poland with him, and provided a message from the father about returning to Poland.

The mother says that her domestic abuse worker recommended that she change internet provider because of the father’s surveillance of her in the home, and that when she did, she overheard a call between the father and the children in April / May 2024 in which she says the father asked the children to provide him with information and passwords related to the new internet provider. She says this meant he knew the internet had been cancelled, and that it was likely that he was monitoring in her home in some way at that time, as well as showing that the father tries to engage the children in his control of her.

The mother describes the father using the friend who was helping them communicate about contact with the children to send messages to her and put pressure on her, questioning why she wasn’t letting him see the children. The mother believes those are breaches of the father’s bail conditions, and says she reported them to the police. She says this shows the father doesn’t have any insight into the impact of his behaviours on her or others around him.

The mother also alleges that the father tried to control the children by separating them so that they didn’t have the safety of each other when having supervised contact with him. The mother thinks that they are vulnerable and can be influenced by the father even in supervised contact is they are not together. She also thinks that is why the father allegedly wanted to speak Polish to the girls in contact, so that he could secretly communicate with them without the supervisor knowing what was said. She also thinks that he wanted to see the children separately so that he could control what she herself could do because she would have to be in the locality of the contact centre for 3 hours (i.e. 1 hour contact per child).

The mother also says that the father stalked the girls to school and waited for them. She did not witness this, but was notified by the school and her domestic abuse worker.

When responding to the father’s allegations, the mother says they rely on recordings made without her consent including allegedly when the father had said he had removed the cameras, and that all the recordings are when the father had waited until she was completely exhausted to provoke her and produce this evidence. She says that his pattern of behaviour has been ongoing for years.

The mother denies the assaults alleged in 2014, and says they are too long ago to be relevant.

The mother denies making allegations that are false against the father, and gives an example of what she says is evidence of the father being more concerned with continuing his abuse towards her than the children’s welfare, which is when he stopped paying their utility bills. The mother says the father didn’t pay child maintenance for 2 months.

The mother provided a letter from her mental health nurse from 2022 which say that the mother is questioning her own reality, and that the concept of gaslighting was discussed with her. The mother says that shows how long she has been exposed to the father’s abuse.

The mother says that on the 19^th May 2022 she had again come back from a night shift, and that the father didn’t come back from work on time, so she had to take the children to K’s swimming lesson. She says that once again this all comes down to the abuse she has received from the father.

The mother says on 1^st December 2022 she returned home from a very dramatic night shift and was exhausted. She says that the girls were arguing in front of L. The mother denies threatening to kill herself, saying that she was telling the father if he kept behaving that way she would end up very ill and already was very ill. She says that is exactly what he wanted, and that he wanted to capture it on camera. The mother says she spoke to her friends and the school about the incident.

The mother says that her threats to kill herself are clear evidence of the physical and emotional strain the father put her under. She regrets the children heard the conversation, if they did, but says she was at breaking point. She says the covert recordings are evidence of the father’s controlling nature.

The mother denies the incident on 16^th July 2023, saying that she did not push the father down the stairs or cause any injuries. She says that the injuries are pre-existing. The mother agrees she told the father not to touch her phone and that she had asked J to pass it to her. The mother says she expressed her concern that the father was tracking her phone, probably her car, and watching her on cameras which is why she didn’t want him touching her belongings. She says that the father threatened to destroy her.

The mother denies the incident on 25^th July 2023, saying that she was concerned that the father would do into K’s room or sleep in or next to her bed, because she is old enough to sleep alone. She says that a father sleeping in the bed of a 9 year old daughter, who kept a camera in her room, worried her and was not appropriate.

Contrary to what she said in her initial statement (where she said he wore headphones), the mother said when responding to the father’s allegations in a later statement that the children could hear and see what the father was watching when he fell asleep with his phone playing a video.

The mother says she does not fully recall the incident on 13^th August 2023, but remembers the children arguing with each other downstairs. She says the father took a photograph a few days later for evidence, and alleges that the transcript shows the extent of the father’s recording, and is clear evidence, says the mother, of his controlling and coercive behaviour and of the emotional and psychological abuse she says she was exposed to during the relationship.

The mother says that on 10^th November 2023 (now clarified to be 13^th October 2023) K refused to clean her room, saying it was the mother’s job. The mother says there are no marks in the photograph, and that the transcript does not support the allegation.

The mother says that it is extremely disturbing that the father records conversations with the children, and that the father used the threat of cameras in the home and his recordings to blackmail her into staying in a relationship with him.

The mother says the incident on 10^th December 2023 did occur, but it is in the context of her being the victim of abuse and at breaking point. She says she was physically and mentally unwell, and that she was repeatedly provoked by the father calling her a narcissist and toxic. The mother agrees her behaviour was not acceptable.

The mother accepts she swears, but says she does not swear at the children. The mother says that by 23^rd February 2024 she had been without sleep for 6 nights in a row, and was exhausted, and that 10 days before the incident she had called an ambulance due to her ill health. She says that the ambulance staff were told of her situation and advised her to contact her domestic abuse worker and report the father’s abuse to the police.

When dealing with her physical abuse of the children, the mother says it broke her heart to see the images, and that it was not her at the time, “I was an animal kept in a cage in the presence of cameras 24/7. I was behaving irrationally, and I was provoked.” She says that she was deprived of sleep or a normal existence, was humiliated by the father, and he had “taken my personal dignity.” She says she was suffering panic attacks and urinary incontinence.

The mother says in terms, “I am glad that on the 5^th March 2024, I decided to no longer be afraid and to remove the [father] from my life.”

The mother says she was following advice from her domestic abuse worker, the supervised contact centre, the Police, and the children’s schools and nursery that the father’s contact should be supervised. She says that Cafcass also have concerns about the father, which is why face to face contact was not supported in their safeguarding letter (the letter actually says that until a decision about a fact finding hearing has been made they are unable to support direct contact, but are significantly concerned about the allegations of coercive and controlling behaviour and the court needs more information about that prior to direct contact being considered). The mother says that Cafcass say in the safeguarding letter that the father communicated to the school that he intended to remove the children from her care (what the letter actually says is that the school made a referral after the father said he was going to pick them up from school, and as the mother didn’t agree to that she collected the children early). She points out he has the children’s ID cards, and can return with them to Poland. The mother says that the school implemented safeguarding measures for the children against the father, which was reported to the police.

The mother describes that the father “bombarded” the mutual friend with messages about the children, which the mother reported to the police because she says they violated the bail conditions.

The mother says that the birthday contact on J’s birthday didn’t happen because both the school and domestic abuse worker advised against it.

The mother says that since the father is not at home the children are much happier, and gives the example of J no longer suffering from panic attacks. She says the children are undergoing counselling with the a local organisation.

In her 3^rd statement, the mother exhibited financial spreadsheets she said she had been able to obtain from the father, which she says show his controlling behaviour by listing individual items that were purchased so that he knew exactly what she had spent money on.

The mother says that the video of 29^th May 2024 is not a true representation of the day, saying that K’s friend stayed over, and that K and her friend argued about a plan to go out the following day. The mother says K was very rude to her friend, and was told off, which is why she didn’t get a lollipop later in the day. The mother says this upset K, and that “the issue seemed to stem from the [father]’s interference”. The mother says she reported the incident to the police because “it involved manipulation by the [father] which affected K’s wellbeing. [My domestic abuse workers] were also notified.”

The mother denies injuring K’s nose on 27^th June 2024, and says that the father contacting the school about the red mark is evidence of his controlling behaviour.

The mother admits taking the children to Poland without the father’s consent, but says that the school, nursery, her domestic abuse worker, and the police were aware.

For the first time in these proceedings, in her 3^rd statement, on 29^th November 2024, the mother made an allegation of sexual abuse against the father, saying he sexually abused her when the children were in the home. The mother describes what she says happened, with the father allegedly grabbing her on the stairs and trying to pressure her to have sex with him. She says that the father told her she had a duty to have sex with him, and that she reported the incident to the police and her domestic abuse worker, and only now felt able to pursue it now she felt she was in a much stronger position. She does not allege the rapes that she described to the police, or the digital penetration that she told the police about in graphic detail in any of her statements.

The mother says that there were 2 occasions when the father had been seen by her and the children driving past the house or at the swimming pool. She says that there is no reason for the father to drive in either location; and that he is stalking her. She says when the father drove past the house, that K ran to the window and was concerned that her father was there because his presence made K and J anxious. The mother said that she notified the police.

The mother says that the father following one of her friends on Instagram shows his controlling and stalking behaviours.

The mother provided messages she says support her assertion that the father is trying to gain control by getting the tablets and Wi-Fi code. Having read that message, it shows that the father is asking for the details so that he can set up the children’s tablets and Wi-Fi settings on them, so that he can have contact with the children, explaining he has not been able to do so for a while because of lack of internet access on their tablets.

In her 3^rd statement, once she was able to view all the video and audio evidence, the mother explains that in the October half term 2023 she was extremely sleep deprived, and that there had been an argument between the girls which left the mother disappointed in them because they were setting a bad example for L. She agrees she did talk about leaving with L, but was not being serious. She says that the father suggesting she go to the gym was gaslighting her because he knew she hadn’t slept for 24 hours and that she needed to go to work.

The mother says that she told the father she would need to tell the school and social services about their situation to get help, and because she was struggling to cope with the demands being placed on her. The mother says that rather than reassuring J who overheard that, he made things worse, trying to scare her. The mother says that he was doing that, knowing he was recording the conversation, to make things sound better for the father.

The mother also points out that in the recording she can hear J pick up knife, and that she is concerned that the father does nothing about it.

The mother says that audio footage is evidence of the father’s coercive and controlling behaviour, and is an example of how he would try and break her down and destroy her. She says that the father orchestrated the situation by returning home later than expected, with his phone recording in his pocket, and steered the conversation away from concerning behaviour of the children, to only reinforce the points he wanted.

The mother says she threw a remote control to K to catch, rather than throwing it at her. She said that K didn’t catch it and it hit her on the nose. She denies that the photograph shows injury to K.

In response to the allegation about J saying she wanted to kill herself, the mother describes the father rushing to work, and orchestrating a situation where the girls were in conflict over a school tie. The mother denies pushing J, and says that the father doesn’t care about the wellbeing of the children. She says that the father creates an environment where the children are at risk of suffering harm through his abuse of her, and that, “The [father] is simply not someone that can be trusted to have the children’s best interests at heart.”

The mother gave her evidence over the course of 2 days, with breaks as needed. She came across most of the time as a likeable person, but at times became rather brittle and insistent in her answers even when they were inconsistent with other evidence such as video recordings of her behaviour. A consistent theme of the mother’s oral evidence was her desire to distance herself from her abusive behaviour towards her children, and to explain that behaviour as being a consequence of the circumstances she was living in at that time, and blaming the father for it happening at all. Very little was actually the mother’s fault in her eyes. She described the father in her words “torturing” her with lack of sleep. I found her answers lacking in detail on key issues, in a similar way to her written evidence, and to be inconsistent. I found her overall to be an unsatisfactory witness.

An example of how the mother could be superficially convincing was in respect of kicking K, when the mother told me in her oral evidence that whilst it looks like a kick, all she was doing was holding K in place between both of her legs. She said so in a convincing way, and with conviction, despite what the video clearly shows which contradicts her. Had I not seen the video I may well have believed her because she was so likeable and convincing in her lie.

I found the mother’s obvious love for her children to be entirely genuine, as was her wish to do better for them in the future. There were moments when she could accept that she had acted very badly towards the children, but these were not maintained, and the mother swiftly reverted to blaming the father for her actions. I found her description of being very upset after hurting her children because she realised what she had done to them compelling.

In December 2022, K said that her mother swears and calls her a brat. She said that the mother says “fuck” to her. K said that her father is “so kind and never shouts” and that her father mostly gets them ready for school and takes them to school. She spoke several times about how kind her father was and that he did her hair. K spoke about her mother wanting to remain in the UK, but her father wanting them to go back to Poland.

In May 2023, K was overheard saying to a friend about her mother pushing her into a dolls house and it hurting her hip. She had also been overheard saying “slapped at home.” K was heard saying she feels safe with her Dad, and that Mum loves her older sister a lot. K had a meeting arising out of that and said to her teacher and a SENCO that her mother only cares about J, and that her mother was rude to her and says rude things in Polish. K said she is told by her mother that she is such a smelly girl, is told to be quiet, and that her mother sometimes pushes her away. K explained with appropriate context when her mother called her a smelly girl. She said her mother pushes her lots of times, including “yesterday and last Thursday and Monday”. She gave details about playing with L, her mother saying not to play with him, and pushing K away, which caused her to fall into a dolls house and hurt her arm. She cried and said she went to tell her father.

K described her father as very calm and very nice, saying that he isn’t bothered by some things but sometimes he tells her Mum off. She said that sometimes her father can get cross “up to 10” but he’s really calm, and then said about X, saying that her father thinks that her mother and X are more than friends. She said that “Dad shouts at mum and say she should not go and help X anymore.”

K thought that her mother treats J differently, and thinks that J is a good girl.

On 17^th November 2023 J wanted to talk to her ELSA, but when told that it could not be promised by the worker not to tell anyone what she said, responded “oh I can’t tell you then.”

On 7^th March 2024, both girls are recorded as having said they miss their father by their school. K was asking when her father would be back home.

On 28^th June 2024 K was spoken to at school about the injury to her nose, and initially said she didn’t know what happened, and that when her father asked her she had said that she hit her nose on the kitchen table. K then described being naughty at home with L, and that her mother had become cross because they wouldn’t behave. She said that her mother put her hand over her mouth because K was shouting, and “she kind of twisted the end of my nose. It didn’t hurt and I didn’t see a mark”. The school mentioned that the mark on K’s nose was very tiny and was a slight red mark that you wouldn’t notice unless you knew it was there. The school did not inform the father of what K had said when responding to the email he sent asking about this incident.

K shared she wanted to see her father together with J and L last Saturday (when the contact face to face was supposed to happen for the first time since his arrest), and that because her father refused contact did not happen. I am concerned about what messages K was being given by her mother about why contact didn’t happen for her to know this.

In April 2024, J shared with the youth counselling organisation that the breakup of the family was her father’s fault because he had cameras in the house everywhere.

On 5^th June 2024, J told her school that she was scared because her father had told her that he would be moving back home tomorrow, and she was worried that Mum and Dad would shout at each other again. J said things had been a lot calmer since the father was no longer at home.

On 7^th June 2024, J told the school that her father’s bail had been extended for a further 3 months until September. This is too much information for her to know. J shared that she was upset that she couldn’t see her father unless there was a third party there, and “we don’t really know where he is and stuff.” J said that she had been told she had to stop talking to her father “as the police have said it would be breaking his bail conditions and she didn’t want to get him into trouble.”

On 14^th June 2024, J told her school that she was worried about K telephoning her father saying that their mother was hitting her when that was untrue. J said that K was being nasty to their Mum, and shared that their mother had given her phone through the parents’ friend to the father to repair, but she hasn’t got it back yet. J said when she gets it back, she will check to make sure there is no tracking software on it.

On 17^th June 2024 the mother met with the school, wanting the school to be present when the children speak to Cafcass. The school agreed. The mother again told the school that over the years the father has threatened to ruin her and take the children if she divorced him.

That same day, J spoke to her school, very tearful, about adult issues related to tickets to a festival. J’s description of what she thought her father would do to her phone, by this stage matched the mother’s concerns. J talked about her father messaging her which breaches his bail conditions because he is supposed to go through a third party (in my judgment it does not breach those conditions, a view also taken by the police) and said she feels guilty because her mother is going to contact the police to get him to stop. J said that she doesn’t want her parents to have shared custody (as she described it), but wants to live with her mother and see her father every other weekend. She knew the father was having to pay £90 for each child to see them at the contact centre, and J said she was angry with him. I am very concerned about where J was getting all of this adult information.

On 25^th September 2024 J was spoken to by the police, and told them she was scared when she was in the lounge and her father drove past, because she did not know what he would do. She said she misses him sometimes, and talked about the camera in her room being pointed at her bed. She said that she wishes her father didn’t scare her and her Mum because it makes her mother panic. I note that by this stage J had been in the mother’s sole care for a considerable time.

The mother’s overarching allegation, which she says explains her behaviour towards her children, is that the father was coercively controlling of her. It is said to be illustrated by the totality of the behaviour of the father of which she complains.

In this case, the surrounding evidence does not support the mother’s account of coercive control, including being isolated from her friends, having a tracking device on her car, having her money controlled by the father, or being forced to work long hours.

The mother first spoke to the police about the father on 14^th February 2024 when giving a statement in an unrelated matter, and told them about trying to get a divorce. She did not want the police to take any action. She felt safe at home, and repeated that he was not frightened of the father and feels safe when speaking to the police on 20^th February 2024. The statement she gave to the police on 5^th March 2024 is inconsistent in key aspects with her evidence in this case, and she says in terms in it that she wants the father out of her life. Like her evidence in this case, it lacked detail and did not explain how she says the father coerced her, merely that she says he did.

The mother told the police that she had access to her own money, and was able to see friends and come and go as she pleased. The father’s evidence demonstrates that the mother was able to go out for fun times with her friends and did so, including abroad without him. When the father did not want the mother working for X, she ignored the father and recommenced that friendship and recommenced working for him.

The spreadsheets both the mother and father exhibited to their statements show that all the household expenditure was detailed item by item, not just that of the mother. She could see, as could the father, what each of them were spending. The evidence shows that the spreadsheets were emailed to the mother at the time. I accept the father’s explanation that this was household budget management and not a form of controlling the mother. The mother was involved in the monthly budgeting discussions. The mother evidence is contradicted by the documentary evidence about the spreadsheets, and when she described to me in her oral evidence how the father pressured her to work, what this amounted to was the father explaining that his wage was not sufficient to pay all the bills, and saying if that if the mother left her job they wouldn’t have enough money to pay their outgoings. She accepted in her oral evidence that she had money she saved from her private job sufficient for her to go on holiday. I have no evidence beyond the mother’s assertion that the father withdrew money from her account without her consent, and the mother’s evidence that the father took all of her money each month is contradicted by what she told the police.

The mother’s account of being forced to work long hours lacks any explanation of how the father forced her to do so. She makes the bald assertion that it was because of his coercive control of her, but doesn’t say what he did to coerce her to work those hours, or how he controlled her to do so. The mother’s evidence is very substantially undermined by what she told the police in her statement of 5^th March 2024: that the main reason she worked so many hours was because her support network was at work, and it was the only break she could get from what she said were the isolated conditions of the household with her husband.

The mother accepts that no tracking devices were found on her car. There is no evidence at all, other than her bald assertion, that such a device ever existed.

There is no evidence, other than that related to X, that the father interrupted the mother’s relationships or ability to speak with her mother. The mother can clearly be heard in recordings feeling able to remonstrate with her mother, and be aggressive with her. The evidence related to X suggests that the father was concerned about what the mother told him about her feelings for X, and I accept his account of what the mother said given the mother’s inconsistent and unreliable evidence about so many issues. I preferred his evidence about that issue. The father did interfere in that relationship for a period of time, for what I accept he thought were good reasons for the sake of the family, but the mother then ignored him and resumed the friendship. That points away from her being coerced or controlled by the father, and showed she had autonomy.

The father’s mobile phone, when examined by the police, showed no evidence that supported contentions of being controlling of the mother or coercive of her. It did, however, contain the video evidence of the mother being the aggressor.

Whilst the mother had spoken to her GP on 18^th May 2022 to complain of domestic abuse, alleging a controlling partner and stress at home, and going on to describe that there were cameras in the home and the father was restricting her from enjoying her friendship groups, I have not been provided with the underlying detail in the medical records. I only have a summary, and that summary is contradicted in respect of the friendship groups being restricted by the evidence I accept showing the mother having a social life on her own, and the mother’s own acceptance to the police about being able to see her friends. The mother’s mental health nurse records are, similarly, brief entries without detail. They show that the mother started talking about stress at home and having a difficult marriage in September 2022, and over 3 sessions until December 2022 described the types of abuse she told me about in her evidence with those same details. In December 2022 the mother was planning to get another phone and clearly felt able to do so. By 5^th February 2024 the mother was said to be planning a divorce.

The mother’s account of being coerced and controlled is also not supported by her own evidence. The mother accepted in her oral evidence that she had voluntarily given the father access to all of her social media and other online accounts when she trusted him, and he did not object to her changing those passwords when she decided to do so with the help of her friend when shopping. All the father did was ask the mother when she was coming home when the shopping trip was longer than expected.

When considering the mother’s allegation of undermining her by calling her mad and similar names to the children, I thought it was notable, with all the children did say to third parties, that they never said that their father was nasty about their mother to them. Indeed, J remonstrated with her mother, asking how she would feel if the father spoke about her that way when the mother said nasty things about the father to J in one of the recordings I have heard. This suggests that the mother was the one being nasty about the father and not the other way around and I place weight on that evidence.

I found the recordings provided by the father instructive. All the recordings had been admitted into the proceedings by orders of the previous judges who dealt with this case. I therefore do not need to consider issues of admissibility, and the issue is the weight I should attach to each recording as hearsay evidence. In this case, I have considered those recordings in the context of all the other evidence, and have not considered them in isolation.

I have considered whether each recording with which I have been provided is or is not a covert recording. I note that the cameras in the home were not hidden, and were known to be recording by the mother. I consider that the footage from the cameras in the home are not covert recordings, because both parents knew the devices were there and that they were each being recorded when in view of the cameras and in range of their microphones.

There are also recordings the father made covertly of the mother, or of the children. I have reflected carefully that he knew he was recording, and that the other people in the recordings did not know they were being recorded. I have considered whether the father modified his behaviour, and whether the making of the recordings was itself a form of surveillance, harassment, or is controlling or coercive.

None of the camera recordings from the home that I have seen or heard show a mother that presents as a person that is controlled, subservient, or apparently afraid of the father. She is the one with agency, and is the aggressor both towards the father and her children. The mother knew that she was being recorded by the cameras in the home, but still behaved in this way. I am satisfied that the recordings that I have seen are representative of what was happening in the family home, and are recordings on which I can place significant weight.

Having seen and heard all the recordings, and considered them in the context of the rest of the evidence, I accept the father’s account of the mother being a person who presents very differently behind closed doors (i.e. at home) and to other people outside the home.

The overt recordings are consistent with the behaviour of the parents I can observe or hear in the covert recordings. I am consequently satisfied that I can, and should, consider the covert recordings as also being representative of what was happening in the family home, and place significant weight on them. I accept the father’s account of how and why they were put up in the home, and accept the evidence in those recordings.

The overt recordings in the home show me that the mother has lied to me about a number of matters. She did so in an apparently convincing manner during her oral evidence, and were it not for the video evidence, I may have believed her. The lies were that she did not kick K when K was on the floor, which I can clearly see her do in the video as I have already described. She also lied about trying to hug the father and him rebuffing her causing her to assault him. The mother also denies swearing at the children (rather than around them), when I can clearly hear her doing so. The mother appeared to accept in her oral evidence this is what it looked like she was doing, but claimed that wasn’t her intention. I do not know why the mother told such obvious lies, and think it is probably to minimise her culpability and because she has probably convinced herself that is the truth despite all evidence to the contrary.

The mother initially told the police that she was not a violent person; however the mother has since admitted to the police to assaulting the father in December 2023, but only after being pressed by the police after her initial response to the allegation was to deflect and accuse the father of being controlling and recording everything in the house. She admitted that she punched him in the back of the head, scratched him, and ripped his t-shirt, which is what the father alleges. She said she did that because she was very tired, having slept only a little, and due to being overworked and stressed. It is for this assault that the mother was cautioned. The police, and I, note that what the mother admitted to is consistent with what the father described in his statement to the police and to me.

In respect of the December 2023 assault, the mother accepted a conditional caution for assault by beating, with the condition to attend a JUNO course (a rehabilitative intervention designed for women who have entered the criminal justice system for lower-level offences and accepted a conditional caution, which includes trauma informed work and building skills in emotional management). I note that the father did not want her prosecuted and supported the conditional caution being offered to the mother.

Whilst the mother did not pursue her allegation of sexual assault, I note that what she says in her statement is inconsistent with what she told the police in April 2024 when she said in terms that there had not been sexual assaults. She was also clear that if she didn’t want to have sex she said no and didn’t give in when the father asked her to have sex. She said that if he tried, she would push him away.

The remainder of the police involvement with the father shows me that the mother’s position hardened over time, it seems to me with the encouragement of her domestic abuse worker, to reach the point that she now puts before the court. The mother’s demeanour with the school, domestic abuse worker, and police becomes increasingly distressed when talking about the father, and increasingly hostile to him. She started by shortly after the father’s arrest wanting contact arrangements to be fair, and for him to be able to pick up the children from school. The police records show that after involvement from her domestic abuse worker and the school, the mother started to say she was under pressure from the father to agree arrangements for contact, and the police were advising the school and the mother that what the father was doing (using the friend to arrange contact, and turning up at the school) were not breaches of his bail conditions. The mother was also advised (including in writing) that the father was allowed to speak to the children on their own devices without it being a breach of the bail conditions, but apparently chose to ignore that advice and give the children a different message. She wanted one of the girls, who I think from the records is probably J, to be present when the police came to discuss the father speaking to the children directly. The mother was repeatedly advised by the police that the father seeking to see his children, through the messages sent via their friend, was not a breach of his bail conditions, but she did not listen and kept reporting him to the police for breaching his bail conditions. Messages the mother sent to the police which the father had sent, and which she alleged were malicious, were reviewed by the police who confirmed they neither breached bail conditions, nor were malicious in nature. The police records demonstrate clearly that the mother simply would not stop, or listen to the police, if what they were saying did not accord with what she wanted to happen.

I note that the mother, when speaking to the police in May 2024 said that the father’s account of her physical abuse of the children was false. This is of course not the case, and is another example of the mother lying.

I have also noted that the police, when the mother alleged tracking apps were on the children’s devices, explained to her that this wasn’t unusual for safety.

Having told the police initially that the father had not been physically violent to her, as part of the ramping up of the mother’s allegations after the father was arrested, she alleged towards the end of May 2024 that the father had pushed her around on New Year Eve, but gave no details. She also said that he had pushed her in February 2024, and implied she had sexual duties because she was his wife. This was not said in her statement to the police.

I accept that the mother may have been given the wrong information by the police about needing the father’s permission to remove the children from the jurisdiction when they shared parental responsibility and there were no orders in force about the children. The police advised the father that she did not have to ask for permission which is wrong as a matter of law.

By June 2024, when the mother was not getting the answers she wanted from the police to stop the father communicating with the girls, she alleged that he had installed a tracking application on the children’s devices, and was stalking her because he had turned up at the gym when they were at the swimming pool. This is a public leisure centre, and where the father had been attending for some time. I accept the father’s evidence that this was a coincidence, and note that it was not a repeated issue.

I have seen how heavily the mother involved the children’s nursery and school in her accounts of how she said the father behaved towards her. She told them repeatedly about what she said the father did to her, and her accounts to them were consistent with what she said in he evidence to me. Worryingly, the school in January 2023 told the mother not to worry “as we are all on her side” (simply based on the mother’s self-reporting and nothing more) and that approach prevailed until today. The approach of the school and domestic violence worker may need consideration in the welfare stage of this case, but examples of the extent to which they uncritically adopted the mother’s narrative about the father can be found in the school’s response to the father raising (what I find to be accurate) allegations of the mother’s behaviour towards the children, which the school dismissed as provided evidence of the father’s “attempt to discredit the mother’s parenting ability amongst professionals (defamation) and within the immediate support circle surrounding the family.” I have also noted the school’s willingness to lie to or mislead the father about his children, their failure to tell him when K explained about her mother hurting her nose, and the domestic abuse worker’s advice to the mother that if she gave the father the contact she was proposing then she would be less likely to get the “prohibition order” (whatever that is) that she was seeking.

After the police took no further action against the father, noting problems in the mother’s evidence similar to those I have identified in this judgment, the mother called the police to say she was terrified, and was upset when told by the police of the reasons for their decision. She asserted the children didn’t want him to be able to come home (this is different to what K was telling third parties since her father’s arrest).

I have considered the father’s actions on 4^th September 2024, the day his bail conditions ended, and he went to the school to see his children. The school explained to him, a person representing himself, that the prohibited steps order remains in place and he then promptly and without difficulties left the premises. I don’t consider that I should hold this against the father, and even the teacher thought the father may be confused about the bail conditions and the prohibited steps order. I accept that he was misguided but confused when he went to the school asking to see his children that day, noting this is in the context of the way the school and domestic abuse worker had excluded him through their work together from information about his children since his arrest, such as when the children were unlawfully removed to Poland by their mother.

I have also considered the mother’s actions after the police ended their investigation. After the police told her that they were taking no action against the father, on 23^rd September 2024 she reported to them that he had raped her between September and December 2023, and made new allegations of stalking, being that the father had driven past the home on 22^nd September slowly and had been seen on 19^th September outside the school. She claimed the father may have covert cameras in the home (no evidence of such cameras was found by the police).

The mother accepts that the police’s description of how K reacted to her father being seen driving past their home (when there were no bail conditions to present it) contradicts the mother’s account of K being scared. She can’t account for that discrepancy, and maintained her evidence about it.

The mother, after the police took no action on her original allegations, gave a graphic account of the alleged rape to the police which involved digital penetration and vaginal penetration whilst physically restrained by the father, and I note that is entirely different to what she says in her statement to me. She alleged that she was digitally penetrated by the father 1-2 times per month between September and December 2023; again something entirely different to what she originally told the police or says in her evidence to me. The mother declined to give a statement or conduct a video interview, saying she didn’t have the strength. The father wasn’t told about the rape allegation by the police, but is now aware of it through the police disclosure into this case. It has not formed part of the allegations the mother seeks to have determined against the father, but is an example of how the mother’s evidence is inconsistent.

The police spoke with the father, after having proactively engaged with the police when he became aware whilst on holiday abroad that they wanted to speak to him. The police reviewed the communications that the mother said were harassing of her, noting there is 1 call per week to arrange contact at the supervised contact centre, and had been a total of 3 emails about matters such as life insurance. They do not consider them harassing. The police again concluded that they should take no further action.

In November 2024 she made allegation to the police that amounted to the father having a sexual interest in J, going into the bathroom to look at her naked, and having the camera in her room at home. She also raised concerns about K missing her father’s smell. The police did not consider any crimes had been committed, and in my judgment this represents a ramping up of the mother’s allegations against the father to further her own agenda. Had she really had these concerns she would have raised them at the start and with social services.

K has mainly been consistent about how her mother has treated her, and I consider I can place significant weight on what she says because it is also consistent with what I have observed and heard in the recordings with which I have been provided.

The exception to her consistency in what she has said about is the red mark on her nose incident. L is consistent throughout that it was the mother who caused the mark. I have noted that when K was talking to her father about the red mark on her nose and denied her mother caused it, it was at a time that the mother was present and watching her conversation, but later when on her own in school, away from the eyes of her mother, K said that her mother had hurt her nose by twisting the end of it after putting her hand over K’s mouth when K was shouting. The mother told me in her oral evidence that on this occasion the children were arguing and fighting with each other. What K describes to the school as a response to behaviour her mother doesn’t like is consistent with the type of aggressive behaviour towards K that I have seen on videos which the mother displays when frustrated with K’s behaviour or with K not doing what the mother wants. I do not accept the mother’s explanation that K said this because she missed her father, and found the mother’s denials of this incident in her oral evidence unconvincing. I have considered whether K’s changes to her account undermine her ultimate account, and consider they do not in the totality of the evidence I have about how the mother is willing to physically abuse K on the occasions I have seen on video, which are unpleasant to watch.

I accept K’s description of the television remote being thrown at her (rather than to her). It must have been thrown with sufficient force to cause the batteries to fall out of it after impact, and K had a cut on her nose which was bleeding. That is not in my judgment consistent with the description given by the mother of just tossing the remote control to K to catch. I have noted K’s consistency in describing what happened to her, and the mother’s dysregulation at the time it occurred as seen on the recording, as well as the mother’s disregard for K’s pain or upset. This is very similar to how the mother reacted after purposefully kicking K, and the mother lying about it is also similar to how she responded to (and continues to respond to) that kick.

I accept K’s description of being pulled by her arm, dragged to the floor, and pushed by her mother on 29^th May 2024. I have decided that I do not need to deal with whether she was belittled or not, because I do not consider it adds to this allegation. What K describes is consistent with her mother’s behaviour towards her on other occasions including those that have been recorded. The mother’s evidence is of a difficult situation with K (which is when the mother has previously assaulted K on camera), and I found the mother’s account in her oral evidence of K picking a moment when the mother was busy to call the father to say what happened telling because it shows she wanted to speak to her father when her mother was not there. I also found telling the mother’s denial of ever having used physical force on K for discipline. I have seen the mother do exactly that in the videos, and this is another example of the mother being willing to lie to me, apparently convincingly, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary.

K’s description of her mother using her finger to bruise her leg on 13^th October 2023 is vivid in the recording I have heard. K was clear in what she was describing, and this type of abuse, whilst using a different body part to inflict pain, is similar in type to what I have seen on the video of the mother pausing before deliberately and swiftly kicking K between the buttocks (something that the mother continues to deny doing despite the footage). The mother’s oral evidence is that she can’t remember when asked if she denied causing physical harm to K on this occasion. She could not explain why K might have fabricated such an allegation when she did have a bruise. She maintains K is lying. I do not accept the mother’s evidence about this incident, and preferred the evidence presented by the father.

K’s voice in the proceedings has also been clear throughout about her feelings about her father. She told social services in March 2024 that in her house of dreams she wanted her father to come home. This was at the time that the mother was telling the social worker that she didn’t believe the father to be a risk to the children, she did not believe he had put a listening device on her phone, and did not believe that the father would kidnap the children out of the country. The mother told the social worker that the father was a good Dad who loves his children and they love him. The mother told the social worker that she feels the situation has been blown out of all proportion, and made worse, and she feels she has no control as professionals are making decisions for her. This is a stark contrast to how the mother now puts her case, and has done throughout these proceedings, where she says in terms that the father creates an environment where the children are at risk of suffering harm through his abuse of her, and that, “The [father] is simply not someone that can be trusted to have the children’s best interests at heart.”

In respect of the allegation that the mother kicked J, the mother accepts that the children said that she kicked J. She denies doing so, saying the children are not telling the truth. This is on a day that the mother was so heightened that she said the father could have the girls, and she would keep L, in J’s earshot. The children have been truthful on other occasions about what their mother has done to them, but on this occasion there is no recording to tell me what happened. Considering the mother’s other lies about her treatment of the children, and this allegation being consistent with the type of behaviour I can see the mother is willing to resort to when unhappy with her children, in the context of what I have decided is the mother’s lack of credibility and reliability, I prefer the account of the children that J had been kicked. I find it notable that J, who otherwise appears to be aligned with her mother in her accounts, also told the father that it was the mother who kicked her and place weight on that account from the child. I also find it notable that the mother’s oral evidence was that this incident occurred in the context of her being tired, and the children not listening to her, a situation that had previously demonstrably caused her to be physically abusive to one of her children.

Turning to the father’s behaviour, the contact centre say in an email to the mother’s solicitor that the father has been aggressive towards staff on the phone, it seems about the 22^nd June 2024 failed contact. That is the only entry of inappropriate behaviour by the father towards contact staff. I do not place weight on this one-line in the email, particularly when I don’t know what was sent to the centre by the mother’s solicitors requesting the email because the email chain is truncated.

I have read the contact notes, which are positive and show a loving relationship between the children and their father. The children ran and jumped into their father’s arms. The children tell their father freely that they love him, and are obviously very happy to see him and spend time with him. They also show the father working consistently in a polite and engaging manner with the contact supervisors. I have considered why L was initially reticent to attend contact, and having seen how his father related to him and how L related to his father once he was with him, have concluded this is most likely a combination of living with his mother who L will have known disliked his father, and is probably related to his age and the length of time for which he had not seen his father before direct contact was reintroduced. It is likely the children were told negative things by their mother about their father and his contact with them given what J has told third parties. I think reticence to attend video contact is most likely due to his age and not due to any fear or dislike of his father given how he reacted to his father over the course of the contact sessions I have read. I was concerned to read that in July 2025 K said at contact that she hates home (with her mother) and her life is terrible. She wished her father was at home.

The father’s evidence, in contrast to the mother’s evidence, was mainly consistent within itself and with the contemporaneous documentary evidence, including his police interviews and statements, statements in this case, and oral evidence. I accept his evidence and found it credible and reliable.

I accept the father’s explanation that he, being Catholic, did not want his marriage to end, and that is why he put up with the mother’s behaviour towards him and the children. I have not been asked to make a finding that he failed to protect the children, but the extent to which he exposed the children to risk from the mother and failed to protect them may need to be considered at the welfare stage of this case.

I also accept the father’s evidence of why he telephoned the maternal grandmother after his arrest. It fits with all else that I know from him and the mother about the type of close relationship he had with the grandmother, and how she was involved in family life and problems between the parents. Given all the difficulties I have identified with the mother’s credibility and reliability, I preferred the father’s evidence about this.

Miss Mifsud invites me to accept the mother’s admissions that she made on the first day of this hearing, and not to go further and determine the rest of the father’s allegations. Miss Mifsud also submits that it is unnecessary to consider the differences between the father’s account and the mother’s admissions. She submits that doing so would not add anything to the case at the welfare stage. I disagree, and consider having heard all the evidence that determination of the full allegations is needed for the risk and welfare assessments that will be needed to determine the applications the parents have both made. In my judgment mother’s admissions are sadly a minimisation of her behaviours.

Miss Mifsud made helpful submissions about how to deal with the changes of some dates in the mother’s allegations. I agree that I should not take those changes into account, and have not done so.

I found the mother to be a witness that was neither credible nor reliable. When I zoom out and consider the evidence overall, I do not find, on the balance of probabilities, any of the allegations made by the mother against the father to be proved. I find it most likely that they were initially made to professionals in an effort to support the mother’s wish not to return to Poland with the children, in the context of a marriage that had become unhappy, and have then escalated over time as the mother became more and more determined to get her own way and exclude the father from the children’s lives in any meaningful way. I find that the mother has likely re-evaluated the father’s behaviour towards her and the children in a sinister light, and very significantly exaggerated or twisted past events to paint the father in a very negative light with those involved with him and the children. I find that the mother, deliberately, set out to garner professional support for the negative view of the father that she wished professionals to have of him.

I have considered, as invited to by Miss Mifsud, whether the presence of the cameras in the home was abusive in and of itself. In this case, with all that was known to the father about the mother, her behaviours, and how apparently credible she is when lying, I find that the father was justified in having the cameras in the home, particularly after being on notice since 2021 that the mother was willing to lie about him to her own mother. The father knew he was likely not to be believed by professionals, and this has occurred for a substantial period of time even with the recordings. I accept the father’s motivation for not sharing the videos at the time was his abiding desire to keep his family together in line with his faith.

I find, having read the contact notes, and considered the rest of the evidence, that the children are not scared of their father and never have been. Their reactions and interactions with their father are also not those of children whose father has been uninterested or disengaged in the way the mother alleges. I find her suggestions that the father does not care about them, that he is uninterested in them or disengaged from them to be things the mother has made up, knowing them to be false, to bolster her case against the father.

I also reject the mother’s allegation that the father sought to separate the children initially when direct contact started or wanted to speak Polish during contact to be able to influence the children against her. There is no evidential support for those contentions, and no surrounding reliable evidence that the father would or has treated his children in that manner.

Whilst the father no doubt needs to take his share of responsibility for the failure of the relationship, which became unhappy and fraught for the parents, and involved arguments in which both parents said very unkind things to each other, having considered carefully the evidence before me, I am clear that his behaviour does not cross the line to amount to coercive control or domestic abuse.

Again considering all of the evidence overall, I find each of the father’s allegations proved as follows: I find that the mother did hurt K’s nose by twisting it on 27^th June 2024 causing a small bruise; did pull K’s arm and dragged her to the floor and pushed her on 29^th May 2024; did intentionally bruise K’s leg to punish her on 13^th October 2023; did kick J in October 2023, and reacted in the way the father describes when challenged about it; did intentionally throw a remote control at K on 13^th August 2023 causing her a cut nose; acted in the way described by the father on 1^st December 2022 save that I am not satisfied she pushed J during that incident; behaved as described by the father on 19^th August 2022 when she assaulted J; assaulted the father as described on 22^nd January 2022; behaved as described on 24^th October 2021 when she was aggressive and damaged the father’s belongings; and kicked K and behaved as the father described towards her on 19^th January 2021. I also find that the mother has been domestically abusive towards the father, including by assaulting him on multiple occasions (those occasions including 22^nd January 2022 and when she assaulted him in December 2023). I entirely reject her assertion that she behaved towards the father and children in an abusive way before of being a victim of domestic abuse.

I have considered carefully whether the mother has taken responsibility for her actions towards the children as she says. I find that she has not. The mother throughout her working with social services has deflected responsibility onto the father, and did the same through her evidence to me. She has not yet been able to accept that she behaved in the way she did, or what that means for the risks she may pose to the children.

I have considered what to make of the mother’s unlawful removal of the children for a holiday, when she was alleging the father would act in that way, but in light of the erroneous advice the police gave the father about the situation, whilst I accept that the father had previously told the mother she may be committing an offence were she to behave in that way, I consider there is a real possibility that the mother did receive wrong advice from the police and other agencies and do not take any account of her actions when reaching my conclusions on the allegations. I will consider what orders may be required to prevent recurrence of this removal at the next hearing.

I will hear submissions upon handing this judgment down on the steps to be taken to resolve the remaining welfare issues, and on what interim arrangements should be put in place for the children in light of these findings.

I will also hear submissions on the disclosure of this judgment to the school and social services, as well as any therapist working with the children. I am satisfied the children have suffered significant harm in their mother’s care, and this will need proper and full assessment during the welfare stage.

Finally, I urge both parties to reflect carefully on these findings and consider what they can do to resolve the issues between them amicably. I invite them to consider a form of non-court dispute resolution that could proceed alongside the directions that will be made at the next hearing to progress this matter without any unnecessary delay to a welfare hearing.