PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "Meanwhile, Gill maintains she is the target of a witch hunt orchestrated by aggrieved mothers, feminist campaigners, journalists and psychologists. But this is a scandal far bigger than one woman. The real issue is about the influence of those who advise our judges in a system without proper checks and balances. Gill just happens to be one of the more egregious examples. How could our family justice system allow someone like Gill unfettered access to and power over the lives of hundreds of vulnerable children? Gill once said under oath that she had been challenged and questioned about her qualifications in every single private law case she’d undertaken – but that she had never been criticised.If that’s true, then it is a damning reflection of our family justice system."
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GIST: "It is vanishingly rare for children to attend the family court hearings where life-changing decisions are made about their futures. So it was striking to see 15-year-old Dylan* appear at the Royal Courts of Justice in January, where his legal team described the devastating impact an “expert” witness had on his life.
It had been six years since Dylan and his older sister were separated from their mother, Erin*, after a ruling based on the evidence of Melanie Gill, an unregulated psychologist. In a landmark judgment handed down last month, the most senior family court judge in England and Wales ruled that decision had been “fundamentally flawed”.
Years earlier Erin had alleged that the children’s father had abused and raped her – allegations the court declined to investigate. Instead, her ex was granted sole custody of the kids.
Dylan was nine when he was taken along with his sister, just days before Christmas 2019 and without the chance to say goodbye; their gifts left unopened under the tree.
He says his childhood was stolen by Gill. And he is not the only one.
Gill, a former music promoter turned expert witness, claims to have given evidence in up to 200 family court cases. There is no way of verifying that figure because the courts don’t keep the right records. One thing is certain though – Gill’s days of advising family judges are over.
Sir Andrew McFarlane’s judgment (Re Y: Experts and Alienating behaviour: The Modern Approach) delivers on two important fronts. First, the president of the family division issues “firm guidance” saying the family courts should not use unregulated psychologists.
Second, he throws his support behind the creation of a faster, more affordable legal route for other parents, like Erin, who believe they have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
It followed proposals put forward by Dylan’s own legal team at the hearing. After years of having his wishes and feelings dismissed – his voice silenced by the very professionals tasked with protecting him – this was Dylan’s moment; his chance to be heard.
He is “very clear that he is not the only child caught in this situation”, his barrister said. Other children could well have had their lives ruined by so-called experts like Gill.
McFarlane’s commitment to finding a more efficient way of bringing those cases back to court will provide much needed hope for parents who have lost their children following flawed expert evidence.
But there is one conspicuous omission in McFarlane’s judgment. There’s no explicit acknowledgment of the human cost and suffering endured by Erin and her children – suffering that came about not only because of Gill but, as we now know, due to every agency involved in the original case.
Not only did Erin lose her children, she was effectively stripped of all parental responsibility. During their years of separation, not even one photo of her kids was shared with her.
You’d be forgiven for presuming she must have done something truly terrible to her children.
But the first court’s findings were not about what Erin had done. The evidence Gill gave, and which the court adopted as its own findings, was based on psychological profiling.
Gill refused to accept that Erin could have experienced any trauma from the alleged abuse. Instead, she found, Erin was traumatised from her childhood and as a result was alienating her children from their father.
There’s a stark irony in how the court decided to “fix” that alienation. The children were instead denied any contact with their mother, alienated in every sense from the woman who’d been their primary carer up to that point.
McFarlane’s judgment points out that Erin did the right thing at every stage to challenge Gill’s evidence. Yet at each step she was thwarted. Not everyone would have the fortitude to keep fighting.
Indeed, McFarlane makes reference to Erin’s “tenacious quest” to get her children back. But there is no acknowledgment of the impact of the brutal separation, or the toll of that broken bond that left two children without a mother for five years.
Erin did the right thing at every stage to challenge Gill’s evidence. Yet at each step she was thwarted.
The children were also forced into therapy with an associate of Gill’s. During those sessions they were fed Gill’s narrative: your mother is the abuser.
In his 40-page ruling McFarlane said Gill should never have been instructed by the courts. For the president, who retires at the end of this month, this was a matter of unfinished business. Three years ago he had overseen the appeal of another mother who had had her children removed after Gill’s evidence.
In that judgment, Re C, McFarlane described Gill’s CV as “diffuse” and “confusing”, but he said it was not fair to determine her fitness to practice in the context of the appeal. It wasn’t possible to say Gill should never have been appointed, he said, because anyone can call themselves a psychologist and regulation isn’t compulsory.
Now, three years on, he’s “sufficiently concerned” to go further, issuing firm guidance on unregulated experts – even though Gill’s qualifications have not changed.
However, the crux of Erin’s successful legal bid, and a similar case involving another mother last year, didn’t rest on the fact Gill wasn’t registered with a regulator. Instead, it was the lower court’s error in effectively allowing Gill – rather than the judge – to decide that there had been parental alienation. Crucially, courts have relied on many regulated experts in exactly the same way, in cases that have also led to children being removed from their parents.
We still don’t know how this ruling could affect other parents who lost their children to the courts in similar circumstances. For Erin at least there is vindication. But it is a hollow victory.
She will never get back the lost time with her children. It’s not surprising she’s still demanding accountability.
Meanwhile, Gill maintains she is the target of a witch hunt orchestrated by aggrieved mothers, feminist campaigners, journalists and psychologists.
But this is a scandal far bigger than one woman. The real issue is about the influence of those who advise our judges in a system without proper checks and balances. Gill just happens to be one of the more egregious examples.
How could our family justice system allow someone like Gill unfettered access to and power over the lives of hundreds of vulnerable children?
Gill once said under oath that she had been challenged and questioned about her qualifications in every single private law case she’d undertaken – but that she had never been criticised.
If that’s true, then it is a damning reflection of our family justice system.""
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026-03-13/a-scandal-far-bigger-than-one-woman
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. 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.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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;
