Background
FAZ (father) and MAZ (mother) are divorced parents of AZ, a girl now aged 14. They had been in a relationship for 18 years, marrying in 2008 and separating acrimoniously in 2015. A consent order from September 2016 provided that AZ live with her mother and spend regular time with her father, arrangements that functioned for over seven years despite ongoing distrust between the parties. In December 2023, shortly after an apparently happy visit with her father, AZ began reporting suicidal ideation, expressed fear of her father, and was withdrawn from all contact with him. In January 2024 — following reports to MASH and a police visit — AZ alleged that during overnight stays her father had entered her bed and touched her bottom. A formal police interview in February 2024 extended those allegations to include two occasions of genital touching over her pyjamas. The police took no further action in July 2024.
MAZ brought proceedings seeking to extinguish contact and obtain a section 91(14) order barring further applications by FAZ. FAZ counter-applied to reinstate contact. The court ordered a finding-of-fact hearing on the three sexual abuse allegations MAZ had filed: (1) that FAZ sniffed AZ’s underwear; (2) that he entered AZ’s bed in boxer shorts and touched her bottom; and (3) that he placed his hand over her genitals. At the outset of the hearing MAZ withdrew the first allegation, accepting the father had merely been sorting laundry. Midway through the hearing — after MAZ had given oral evidence and FAZ was part-way through his — MAZ abandoned the remaining allegations. Mr Justice Poole ruled that findings of fact remained for the court and proceeded to judgment.
The background history was significant. In 2015, immediately following the parties’ separation, MAZ had made a series of safeguarding reports against FAZ — including an allegation of sexual assault arising from a nursery drawing — all of which were investigated and closed with no further action. Social workers at the time recorded concern about MAZ’s escalating allegations and her behaviour. A further allegation, that FAZ had struck AZ when she was aged two, was raised for the first time in 2025, some eleven years after the alleged event. Throughout the period 2016–2023, by contrast, AZ maintained a close relationship with her father and his partner GH, and the evidence showed AZ to have been warm and affectionate toward both of them as recently as 8 December 2023.
The Court’s Holding
Mr Justice Poole found that neither of the remaining allegations was proved on the balance of probabilities. On the second allegation, the father did not dispute that he occasionally got into AZ’s bed at her invitation to help her settle and sleep, and that he would remove clothing because the room was warm. The judge found that FAZ did not intentionally touch AZ’s bottom, and that any contact while he was asleep did not constitute sexual abuse. On the third allegation — genital touching — the court found it not proved. The judge applied the standard framework for family fact-finding: the civil standard of balance of probabilities (Re B [2008] UKHL 35), the requirement that findings rest on evidence rather than suspicion or speculation (Re A [2011] EWCA Civ 12), the need to assess all evidence in the round rather than in separate compartments (Re T [2004] EWCA Civ 558), and the warnings about children’s evidence set out comprehensively in Re P [2019] EWFC 27.
The court was required, even in the absence of the mother’s continued pursuit of the allegations, to consider how and why the allegations came to be made. The judge observed that the 2015 history — in which escalating and ultimately unsubstantiated allegations had been made against FAZ within weeks of the separation — was relevant context. The pattern of AZ’s disclosures, the timing in December 2023 when AZ had been experiencing multiple stressors (secondary school transition, bereavement, questions about her sexuality, her mother’s new demanding role), and the manner in which allegations escalated and expanded between January and February 2024 all bore on the court’s assessment. The mother’s own anxiety and her unquestioning acceptance of each successive account, as well as the failure of the police interview process to follow ABE guidance in material respects, further undermined the evidential foundation of the allegations.
The deeply troubling consequence, as the judge expressly noted, is that AZ has had no contact with her father, his partner, or her paternal grandmother for over two years, and has been receiving extensive therapy for complex PTSD on the false premise that she suffered sexual abuse. The judge described the damage as difficult to fully repair and the outcome as profoundly harmful to all parties, necessitating clear findings to inform the reparative work now required.
Key Takeaways
- A party’s withdrawal of allegations during a fact-finding hearing does not end the court’s obligation to make findings; the court retains an independent duty to determine the truth of disputed allegations where doing so is necessary for the welfare of the child.
- Allegations of child sexual abuse that are not proved can themselves cause devastating, long-term harm — including cessation of contact, therapeutic intervention on a false basis, and lasting damage to the parent-child relationship — before any court determination is made.
- A history of prior unsubstantiated allegations by the same parent, and evidence of escalating disclosures in the context of significant life stressors, are properly weighed in assessing the credibility of later allegations.
- The ABE guidance on interviewing child witnesses exists to protect the accuracy and reliability of evidence; departures from it — including using an interview to have a child repeat allegations rather than give a free account — can fatally undermine evidential weight.
- The binary standard of proof (balance of probabilities) applies equally in sexual abuse cases; there is no heightened standard for serious allegations (Re B [2008] UKHL 35).
Why It Matters
This judgment is a stark illustration of the competing harms the family court must navigate in private law proceedings involving allegations of child sexual abuse. Where allegations are found unproved, the court has identified a systemic risk: the mere making of allegations — and the safeguarding response they trigger — can sever a parent-child relationship and shape a child’s therapeutic narrative for years before any judicial determination. Mr Justice Poole’s candid account of the irreparable damage caused here is a pointed reminder to practitioners, local authorities, and CAMHS services that early interventions premised on unproven allegations must be proportionate and must not close off the possibility that those allegations may ultimately not be established.
The case also reinforces the courts’ vigilance around the genesis of allegations in high-conflict private law proceedings. Where there is a documented history of safeguarding reports by one party that were previously unsubstantiated, and where allegations emerge and escalate in a compressed period of obvious family stress, the court will scrutinise the evidential trail with care — including the role of the non-abusing parent in receiving, interpreting, and relaying a child’s disclosures. The judgment provides a thorough restatement of applicable legal principles and will be useful to practitioners handling fact-finding hearings in private law proceedings.