Patrick v Patrick and Re A letter to a Young Person : Judicial Letters to Children – an Unannounced, but not an Unwelcome, Development

“A letter”, Nietzsche once wrote, “is an unannounced visit, the postman the agent of rude surprises”.¹ Given the extremely personal nature of many family law judgments, it is rare and rather surprising when parties, their children² or, indeed, the judiciary set out their views in the form of a published letter. Two recent cases in which courts have communicated their decision by letter (Patrick v Patrick ³ and Re A letter to a Young Person ⁴) are therefore worthy of note. In each case, the letter was addressed to the children in respect of whom orders were sought. The children ranged in age from six to fourteen years.

Patrick, a decision of Sheriff Anwar at Glasgow, concerned a “bitter and acrimonious dispute” regarding whether a father should be entitled to “contact, in any form” with his three children described as being “aged between 12 and 6 years”.⁵ In Re A letter to a Young Person, Mr Justice Peter Jackson determined a relocation dispute involving a fourteen year-old boy who had been the subject of repeat family court orders since he was one year old.⁶ Both judicial letters received publicity, with excerpts from each being published in national newspapers.⁷

The three children at the centre of the action lived with their mother and had, historically, “enjoyed extensive residential and holiday contact”⁸ with their father who was the pursuer. However, in a turn of events depressingly familiar to family lawyers, when relations between the adult parties had descended into “ill-will” and “bitter reprisals”,⁹ relations between the children and their father had similarly soured. Allegations of sexual abuse were made against the pursuer, which the court ultimately did not find established. From November 2015, the children had no contact with him.

Proceedings culminated in a particularly lengthy proof¹⁰ where evidence was heard from many quarters, including the Detective Constable who interviewed the children and Dr Khan, the clinical psychologist appointed to take their views. Sheriff Anwar made an order for indirect contact in the first instance, while noting that “a great deal of preparatory work would be necessary with both parties and with the children, before any form of contact could take place”.¹¹

Her letter to the children, dated 20 March 2017, followed a lengthy ex tempore decision of 1 March 2017 setting out her rationale. The Sheriff also produced a summary of the case background, which precedes the letter in her published judgment. In that summary, it was explained that Dr Khan would arrange a meeting with the children to read the Sheriff's letter to them.¹² The psychologist was invited to exercise her professional judgment as to whether she included the youngest child, aged six, in that meeting.

By the time the Sheriff handed down her letter to the children, their parents had agreed “to meet with family therapists, attend mediation and to instruct a psychologist to work with the children”.¹³ The pursuer had also promised to attend a parenting course. Sheriff Anwar's candid letter aptly demonstrated that she had considered everything “very carefully… especially” the children's feelings. She was, she wrote, aware that they did not “want to see… dad”, but had nonetheless decided, after listening “carefully to… everyone”, that:

[I]t is better for you to get to know your dad again and to give him a chance to make things better… I have decided that your dad should write to you once a month, so that you can start to get to know each other again. I hope that you will feel able to write back to him.¹⁴

The court's ruling...