Summary of complaint
We have received complaints that our聽article Family courts: Children forced into contact with fathers accused of abuse is unbalanced and doesn't consider fathers who also suffer abuse.
Our response
Shortly after publication a number of readers got in touch to complain that because this investigation focused exclusively on the use of "parental alienation" by fathers accused of abuse, they believe the article is unbalanced and biased against men or portrayed all fathers as abusers.
We discussed your complaints with the correspondent Ed Thomas and would first like to say that we readily appreciate that there are many stories and story areas concerning the family court and there is a compelling public interest in reporting many of them.聽
However, 成人论坛 journalists can and do investigate specific stories within a wider topic (in this case the use of the concept of聽parental alienation in family court cases) as enshrined in the 成人论坛鈥檚 Editorial Guidelines, notably those on Due impartiality which explain that:
We may produce content about any subject, at any point on the spectrum of debate, as long as there are good editorial reasons for doing so.
The same guidelines also provide that:
In applying due impartiality to news, we give due weight to events, opinion and the main strands of argument.
This is relevant to your complaint because it means that there will be occasions where 成人论坛 journalists identify and report stories which focus on the experiences of women or indeed men that are on a specific editorial subject, if that is where the evidence for a story leads.
As such this is an issue not of balance but of 鈥渄ue weight鈥 in consideration of the facts.
In this case, a peer reviewed study from the University of Manchester/SHERA research group spoke to 45 mothers of 77 children and found that all had reported abuse and all were accused or threatened with parental alienation.聽
The reporter Ed Thomas also identified cases where mothers who had suffered domestic abuse had died after parental alienation was raised in the family courts, and that a range of individuals and organisations with direct experience, including MPs, family court barristers, family court campaigners and the domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales and the UN Special Rapporteur, are very concerned about the ongoing use of this disputed concept in family court cases.
The article carefully reports these issues in context, although we appreciate that you may continue to disagree with the focus on this occasion for this particular story.
However, it鈥檚 important to reiterate that this is not an article about the wider operation of the family court and we think readers are well able to appreciate that a specific investigation of this nature is not making any wider comment about the many husbands and fathers involved in other family court cases, or the many different issues they face.
In closing, you will likely be aware that Family Court cases are heard in private and journalists have not been allowed to report on them.
However, since the launch of a landmark pilot scheme in January, 成人论坛 journalists have begun examining and reporting on the very important and sensitive work which goes on there, at a time when 鈥溾 there have been publicly-acknowledged miscarriages of justice and many more examples of parents claiming they have been unfairly treated.鈥
We will continue to do this throughout the 12 months of the pilot scheme and beyond, in line with our public purpose to provide journalism in the public interest.