Family

Pursuant to s 1(1) of the Children Act 1989, the child’s welfare had to be the court’s paramount consideration. When considering an application for contact by a parent who had been violent towards the other parent, the starting point was that there should not be any presumption that, on proof of domestic violence, the offending parent had to surmount a prima facie barrier of no contact.

As a matter of principle, neither domestic violence of itself, nor murder, could constitute a bar to contact. Murder or domestic violence were one of the factors in the difficult and delicate balancing exercise of discretion. That exercise had to begin with a welfare checklist analysis.

In cases of proved domestic violence, as in cases of other proved harm or risk of harm to the child, the court had the task of weighing in the balance the seriousness of the domestic violence, the risks involved and the impact on the child against the positive factors (if