O & J (Welfare Judgment), Re

Facts

The parties are the parents of two boys, O (nearly 8) and J (6). They remain married but separated at about the start of 2023, while still living together. The father was arrested and removed from the family home in late 2023. In April 2024 he was convicted of an assault on J and received a non-custodial sentence. In January 2024 the mother applied to regularise the child arrangements, and the father made his own application shortly afterwards. There was one supervised contact session in February 2024, and no direct contact since. At the first hearing in October 2024 the court ordered that the children live with the mother and made a one-year non-molestation order. In May 2025 a Deputy District Judge held a fact-finding hearing and made wide-ranging findings against the father. These covered physical assaults on the children, emotional harm, a sexual assault on the mother, physical assaults on her (including holding her head under bath water), coercive and controlling behaviour, financial abuse, and threats of suicide and of killing the family. The judge nonetheless directed supervised contact. After CAFCASS raised concerns, a full-time judge stayed that contact. A CAFCASS reporting officer later recommended an accredited domestic abuse programme with set features. The father instead completed a non-accredited, mainly online course. At the final welfare hearing he asked for progression to direct contact or, failing that, a further assessment. The mother asked for indirect contact only, together with prohibited steps and non-molestation orders.