CX (No 2) (Domestic abuse: No contact), Re

Facts

CX is a six-year-old girl whose parents, AZ and BY, separated in 2020. In original private law proceedings a district judge found that the parents' relationship had been characterised by extreme emotional and psychological abuse of the mother perpetrated by the father over many years. Following those findings the father completed a domestic abuse perpetrator programme requiring attendance at 24 sessions together with separate anger management intervention, and CAFCASS was directed to make recommendations. At a final hearing in September 2023 the district judge, declining the CAFCASS recommendation that supervision continue for two to three years, ordered a staged progression from supervised to supported and then to unsupervised contact rising from two to six hours, made no provision for overnight stays, and barred the father from making a further application without permission for two years. The mother's application for permission to appeal was refused. Mother then sought a variation of that order, and she and the children's guardian asked the court to order that CX have no contact, direct or indirect, with her father; he opposed the applications. Earlier in 2026 Mr Justice Garrido had made a reporting restrictions order and a transparency order in the case, publishing an open judgment. The welfare hearing proceeded without a fact-finding hearing, the father having largely admitted the facts alleged while disputing his motivation.