Father v Mother (Welfare: DARVO), Re

Facts

These private law proceedings concern B, a boy born in late summer 2021, who lives in County X with his mother, her partner D and the mother's eldest child. The father lives in County Y and has represented himself since a fact-finding hearing in July 2025. Proceedings were first issued in County Y in January 2022, and a final order of 12 October 2023 granted the mother permission to relocate to County X and made B subject to a shared 'lives with' order recording joint and equal parental responsibility and a duty to consult. Following the mother's successful appeal and the discharge of previous orders, His Honour Judge Newport conducted a fact-finding hearing in July 2025, reported as Father v Mother (Fact Finding DARVO) [2025] EWFC 284 (B), rejecting all of the father's allegations and making extensive findings against him of controlling and coercive behaviour, lawfare, impact on the mother and harm to B. A forensic psychologist and Cafcass then reported, contact was supervised, and direct contact was suspended on 6 February 2026. At the final welfare hearing the father sought a change of residence, alternatively meaningful contact, and pursued his own schedule of allegations; the mother sought findings, a lives-with order, no contact, termination of the father's parental responsibility, an order under section 91(14) of the Children Act 1989 and a non-molestation order under section 42 of the Family Law Act 1996.