Sir, As a solicitor with the Sally Clark team I can testify to the way in which the justice system can be perverted to convict the innocent and destroy their families. It can prove fatal. Sally Clark died in March 2007, aged 43.

Criminal cases are conducted openly; the standard of proof is guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The public know the identity of those charged, the details of the crime, whether guilt or innocence is the result and the length of any prison term. Possible miscarriages of justice can be fully investigated and victims can voice their complaints to anybody. None of these protections of openness exist in the family courts.

Child abuse is abhorrent and children must be removed from homes where they are abused. But in family courts accusations need only be proved on the balance of probabilities and the proceedings are conducted in secret. Injustice can be caused by experts with invalid theories, social workers abusing their power and pro-prosecution courts. Secrecy guarantees that this will be allowed to continue indefinitely. Successful appeals are extremely rare. There is no legal or moral justification for secrecy. Family court appeal cases can be publicly reported and the anonymity of children — the justification for secrecy — is preserved by the use of initials. Their use at the original hearing would abolish the need for secrecy.

As Camilla Cavendish says in times2 (reports, July 7-9), child abuse takes two forms: adults harming children and the State wrongly taking children from loving homes. As with criminal convictions, jail is also the sentence when abuse is by servants of the State, but it is the victims — innocent parents — who are sent to jail if they breach the secrecy, not the perpetrators of the abuse. It is called contempt of court. This is a misnomer; it is contempt for loving mothers and fathers and contempt for the suffering of their children. No humane society should allow it to continue.

John Batt
Solicitor, Batt Broadbent
Mickleham, Surrey

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