Hemming's Law II

A while back, I wrote about a case in Doncaster where John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to raise a very difficult family law case. As I wrote at the time, this was a very difficult case involving allegations of child abuse made against a father by his former wife. The case reared up again this week, as the President of the Family Division took a rare decision to name all the adults involved because of the lengths that the mother and her unqualified 'investigator' went to to put these 'scandalous' allegations into the public domain, in clear breach of court orders. He wanted it to be clear that there was absolutely no credibility to the allegations about the father, having reviewed the evidence - the third judge to do so and the third to find no evidence against the father. Indeed, it was felt that the mother's behaviour in coaching the daughter to repeat the allegations against the father actually caused significant harm to the child.

"These proceedings have had a serious effect on the life of the father and have threatened the stability of the child. Her mother's actions are wholly contrary to her interests. The father is entitled to tell the world, and the world is entitled to know, that he is not a paedophile, that he has not sexually abused his daughter and that the allegations made against him are false."

The 'investigator' and 'child psychologist' Elizabeth Watson apparently referred to herself as 'Elizabeth of the Watson family' - an indicator that she may adhere to the delusion of the 'freeman on the land' brigade, who decline to accept jurisdiction of the law courts on anything other than their own terms, which are needless to say, entirely at odds with centuries of public jurisprudence and based on rather peculiar interpretations. This may go some way towards explaining why the judge lost patience with her and jailed her for 9 months for contempt of court - that and her insistence on breaching court orders. Indeed, the judge nearly ruled her to be mentally ill.

John Mann, the redoubtable Labour MP for Bassetlaw - and whose constituent Vicky Haigh was at the time - is furious and has called for Hemming to resign as he is unfit to hold office following his abuse of parliamentary privilege.