‘We owe it to them, her children’: Jade’s law in an era of so-called ‘parental alienation’ – how parental responsibility and the presumption of parental involvement entrap women and children to perpetrators of domestic abuse – Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law
‘In 2023, the UK Government supported Jade’s Law, the suspension of parental responsibility (PR) after a parent murders the other parent. The law was born out of Jade’s parents’ plea for legal autonomy while caring for their four grandchildren as their father exerted control from behind prison walls. PR termination by family courts in England and Wales has, throughout the Children Act 1989, been a rare phenomenon, while PR acquisitions are common. This article poses the hypothesis that the relationship between the presumption of parental involvement, PR, and more recently so-called ‘parental alienation’ feed into the courts’ resistance to terminate PR. Even after serious criminal convictions or extended parental abandonment, this hesitance remains. Seven PR termination cases and two of PR restriction involving domestic abuse were analysed between 1995 and 2023. Mothers were sometimes penalised for obstructing parental involvement and silenced with ‘alienation’ counter-allegations. PR operates within an ‘at all costs’ culture that was reinforced by the presumption under Section 1(2A). Protective mothers’ and children’s resistance to the involvement of perpetrators is framed as ‘alienating’ behaviours. It creates a dangerous power tool that legally entraps women and children in endless patriarchal cycles of violence and control.’
Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 17th August 2026
Source: www.tandfonline.com
