QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Gill did not respond to our request for comment for the article but says she has undertaken specialist training in “attachment science” and neuroscience during a career spanning 15 years as an expert witness. During a 2023 case she said: “I have been challenged and questioned on my qualifications in every single private law case I have ever undertaken and I have never been criticised.”
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SECOND QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Lawyers representing the boy, who turns 16 in a few months, said his wishes have been “systematically sidelined” since Gill gave her evidence in 2019 and his mother had been “excised from his life” as a result. They said he had a “strong and unwavering preference to live with his mother” and that, given his age, his view should be given “substantial weight”.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Gill is one of a number of psychologists who specialises in “parental alienation” – which is when a child has been manipulated by one parent to reject the other and has been discredited as a diagnosable syndrome. Court guidance says that the only psychologists with the skills to assess and diagnose are those registered with the regulator, which hold professionals to account for bad practice. But ultimately it is at the discretion of a judge which experts they use – and that can include those, like Gill, who are unregulated. (A rule-change proposed this year, on which a decision is due soon, would ban unregulated experts altogether.)"
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STORY: "Mother and son reunited for Christmas six years after 'draconian' court order," by Hannah Summers, published by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, on December 18, 2025. (Hannah Summers reports on the family courts for Bureau Local under the Family Court Files project. She has a background in covering social affairs, women’s rights and the law. As a freelance journalist her stories have been published in newspapers including the Observer, the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph, the Daily Mirror, the Mail on Sunday and the Independent. Prior to that she was a staff reporter for the Sunday Times. She won the news and investigations category in the Freelance Writing Awards 2021 for her coverage of violence against women and girls, and was shortlisted for freelance journalist of the year in the 2022 Media Freedom Awards for coverage including the treatment of pregnant women in prison and the NHS charging migrant women for maternity care. In 2023 she was named best specialist journalist in the Freelance Journalism Awards for her reporting on the family courts and was shortlisted for the Paul Foot Award for her investigation into mothers having their children removed following the evidence of unregulated experts appointed in child custody cases)...TBIJ co-publishes its stories with major media outlets around the world so they reach as many people as possible."
SUB-HEADING: "Boy was taken from his mother's care as nine-year-old on advice of unregulated expert Melanie Gill."
GIST: "A boy who was taken away from his mother on the recommendation of an unregulated psychologist has won the right to spend Christmas with her for the first time in six years.
The 15-year-old was removed from his mother’s care at the age of nine – along with his sister – after a report by Melanie Gill advised the court she had turned the children against their father.
They were sent to live with their dad in 2019 before a family court judge went on to ban any further contact with their mother – an order she describes as “unthinkably draconian”.
Now, following the son’s legal bid to the high court, he will see his mum, Erin*, on Christmas Day.
She has separately applied to re-open the findings from her original case based on new guidance for judges on how to deal with claims of parental alienation. Her application will be heard next month by the president of the Family Division, the most senior family court judge in England and Wales.
Gill, who claims to have given evidence in up to 200 cases, has been the subject of growing concerns about her biases and diagnoses following our investigation with Tortoise Media this year exposing her views.
Last month, a different mother won a landmark legal battle to overturn evidence given by Gill. The Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales has since called for an urgent review of every case of Gill’s where children were taken from a parent.
Erin's lawyer described the family court’s reliance on advice from unregulated experts like Gill as “a developing national scandal”. He said he could not think of another instance of such severe contact restrictions – “even in cases involving child abuse and physical abuse”.
Six years apart
The mother was visited briefly by her son last month after he ran away from his father’s home and hired his own lawyer. It was the first time they had seen each other in nearly six years.
“Seeing him again was amazing,” Erin told TBIJ. “He was very clingy and kept saying, ‘I love you and I’ve missed you’. It was very moving.
“He went away as a little boy and he’s come back as this big strapping lad with this deep voice.”
Police removed him from her property at 4am that night in light of the pre-existing no-contact order and, refusing to return to his father, he was placed in emergency foster care.
The last time Erin had seen her son was when he was removed from her care without warning six years ago today. She remembers dropping him at a friend’s house that morning before attending a court hearing, where it was ordered he should move to live with his father.
“All his presents were wrapped up under the Christmas tree but he never got to open them,” she recalled. “We didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye.”
Prior to the children’s removal they had been having some contact with the father while their mother was their primary carer.
Erin said she did not see or speak to either of her children until her daughter arrived on her doorstep in January this year. She stayed for a few months before moving to take a job abroad and then returning to live with her father.
At an urgent hearing last month, a senior judge ruled Erin’s son should be moved from foster care and placed with a family friend. It was decided contact with his mother should initially be supervised with the first unsupervised visit planned for Christmas Day.
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This has been a huge failure of the family justice system – the worst I have seen in 30 years
Barrister for Erin
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Lawyers representing the boy, who turns 16 in a few months, said his wishes have been “systematically sidelined” since Gill gave her evidence in 2019 and his mother had been “excised from his life” as a result. They said he had a “strong and unwavering preference to live with his mother” and that, given his age, his view should be given “substantial weight”.
‘An articulate young man’
At the 27 November hearing Mrs Justice Lieven said she had “limited interest” in what happened six years ago or in Gill’s report. Instead, with the boy in emergency foster care, her focus was on his immediate welfare.
Representing the teenager, Jo Delahunty said her client was an “intelligent articulate young man” who had left his father’s care feeling “defeated” and “hopeless”.
Remaining in foster care was not a viable option for the teenager, who had been assessed by a social worker, she told the court. She said he had become withdrawn and was not engaging with teachers, school friends or his paternal family.
The father initially opposed his son having any contact with his mother and asked that he remain in foster care.
The teenager “predicted” his father would try to stop him seeing Erin, the court heard. He told his lawyer that his father had told him he was psychologically unstable and that his mother was mentally ill.
The boy claimed his own memories from before his parents’ separation had been dismissed as “brainwashing” by his father, who told him he had “Stockholm syndrome” when he had asked to see his mother.
As a younger child the boy had refused to engage in “reunification therapy” recommended by Gill, the court was told.
The father, who alleged Erin had breached court orders by communicating with their son earlier this year, claimed the teenager had been influenced by his mother and his views may not be his own. The boy’s lawyers insisted he has “his own worldview” and had felt “deeply isolated” in his father’s care.
The mother’s case
Separately to her son’s application, Erin applied to the court in April to re-open the findings of her case based on new guidance around allegations of “parental alienation”.
In May 2020, district judge Smith found Erin had caused her children “significant emotional harm” and had “actively alienated” them from their father.
He made an order stating she should have no contact with them “until or unless the mother has engaged in a specific schema therapy that has been recommended by Melanie Gill”.
Both parents had said they had been victims of domestic abuse but on the basis of Gill’s evidence Smith decided there was no need to formally examine the claims.
But that approach is at odds with new guidance for judges that says experts should not be used to look for “parental alienation” and any allegations of domestic abuse should be given more weight.
Erin’s barrister, Justin Ageros, told Lieven he did not accept the suggestion that his client “has been responsible for the harm caused to [her son]”. He added: “It’s been a huge failure of the family justice system – the worst that I have seen in 30 years of practice.”
Gill is one of a number of psychologists who specialises in “parental alienation” – which is when a child has been manipulated by one parent to reject the other and has been discredited as a diagnosable syndrome.
Court guidance says that the only psychologists with the skills to assess and diagnose are those registered with the regulator, which hold professionals to account for bad practice. But ultimately it is at the discretion of a judge which experts they use – and that can include those, like Gill, who are unregulated. (A rule-change proposed this year, on which a decision is due soon, would ban unregulated experts altogether.)
Gill did not respond to our request for comment for the article but says she has undertaken specialist training in “attachment science” and neuroscience during a career spanning 15 years as an expert witness. During a 2023 case she said: “I have been challenged and questioned on my qualifications in every single private law case I have ever undertaken and I have never been criticised.”
In her written judgment, Lieven said Smith’s order had clearly been “very heavily based” on Gill’s evidence rather than on any other risks posed by the mother.
Papers filed on behalf of the mother said the terms of that order “were unthinkably draconian and reflected entirely the Melanie Gill findings as endorsed uncritically by the court”.
The local authority initially recommended the teenager should remain in its care but during the hearing shifted its position – along with the father – to accept that a family friend they had assessed was a suitable alternative.
It came after the social worker wrote in her report that the boy “repeatedly stated, after sharing a view, that no one will believe him and that his views will be dismissed as being influenced by his mother.”
However, she then went on to write that “the parental alienation remains live and is already hindering [his] relationships and worldview”.
‘Over the moon’
Lieven, who held a video call with the teenager to obtain his views during the lunchtime adjournment, said she was “horrified” that he had not seen his mother for so long.
She did not want him in foster care “for no good reason” and said he should move to the home of the family friend the next day and resume contact with his mother.
It was lovely when he visited for the first time. He was thrilled to see he wasn’t this forgotten child
Erin
The teenager should be encouraged to have a relationship with his father, she said, adding: “The father needs to start respecting [his son]. His views are his views.”
With the teenager adamant about not returning to his father, she said, it would be wrong to make him do so. However, she also had concerns about him living with his mother.
In her ruling published this week she referenced a series of allegations detailed in the social work report made against Erin by her daughter, which Erin denies. In particular Lieven makes reference to the daughter, who is now 18, having said that Erin lives “purely for the court case and trying to prove everyone wrong”.
The judge said that Erin is “unsurprisingly, extremely emotionally engaged” with Gill’s report and, even with the best of intentions, it would be very difficult for her not to draw her son into her narrative and perception of the past.
Lieven said the boy had been harmed by years of parental conflict and needed emotional distance from both parents. Staying with the family friend would, she hoped, enable his relationship with his mother to develop on a “secure footing”.
His living arrangements will be revisited at the January hearing when the mother’s application is heard. But in the meantime, several supervised visits between her and her son have taken place.
Erin told TBIJ: “It was lovely when he visited my home for the first time knowing nobody was going to turn up and take him away. I made his favourite fish pie and we decorated the Christmas tree.”
He was “over the moon”, she said, to find she’d kept all his old belongings and to see pictures he had drawn years ago decorating the walls. “He was thrilled to see he wasn’t this forgotten child,” she explained.
She was also able to share with him that she had kept his Christmas presents from 2019 – and from following years. “I brought them from the loft and urged him to open them but he said, ‘No mum, I want to open them when I’m here this Christmas Day.’”
* Name has been changed
The entire story can be read at:
.https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2025-12-18/mother-and-son-reunited-for-christmas-six-years-after-draconian-court-order
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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