FD24P00534 - [2025] EWHC 717 (Fam)

The mother’s evidence

The mother’s evidence about the father was set out in the statement she filed in response to the application. She said that he repeatedly criticised her about how she looked, and the state of the home. She said that she was kept short of money and had no financial independence. Added to this, the father made it difficult for her to speak to her family, constantly interrupting her when she was on the phone to them. She gave considerable detail about sexual abuse and rape she says she suffered at his hands. She gives an account of a man who had no concern at all about whether or not she wanted to have sex, and who repeatedly used her for his own purposes and despite her protests. She gave examples of his looking at women in the street and telling her that she needed to be ready for sex that evening. She said he had raped her through her tights on one occasion and caused her to tear and bleed.

She said that the father would shout at the children and humiliate them, having no patience. She said that she became aware that the way he would insist on washing and cleaning the children’s privates was not normal and also very painful for them, causing them to scream. She said that she felt helpless and did not know what to do.

She said that he caused blood to come out of one of their ears, and that she believed that he pushed the older girls, because they had bruises on their legs and arms. Somewhat curiously, she said in her statement that they told her and ‘this is what they told me but I don’t know if this was because they fell’.

The mother also said in her statement that he would let the girls lie next to him in bed, and that he would rub up against them, and did not push their hands away if they were against his genitals. He would allow them to jump on his genital area and she saw he was responding sexually, something which one of the children described to her too.

The mother said that the father did not behave modestly and that his sexual abuse of her became worse. They attended therapy, but this did not help, and he did not want to cooperate. The mother said that the therapist was aware of what was happening and even said to her that she thought he was enjoying sleeping with the girls in bed, but because she was close to his family she could not be trusted.

It was in those circumstances that the mother left to go to Israel without the children and sought help from the rabbi there.

The mother began to give her oral evidence from the side of the court, where she could be partially hidden from the room, and in particular from the father. She spoke very quietly through an interpreter and it was difficult for me to see her. I therefore asked the parties if she could give evidence from the witness box but with the father hidden from her behind the curtain.

The mother continued to give her evidence very quietly, and I was concerned that it was difficult for her. Both parties come from a close community and it seemed to me that they had limited links with the outside world, making it difficult to speak in a large courtroom about sensitive matters to those they do not know. The mother’s affect was flat a lot of the time, and she seemed overwhelmed.

When answering questions about the children, her answers were vague and sometimes contradictory. One example of this is that she said she knew the father hurt the children but she had not seen it with her eyes, although she later said that she had been referring to him hitting the children, as opposed to pinching or shaking them. She found it difficult to give specific examples of several things, including sexual abuse, stating at one point that her brain ‘was foggy’ and later that she thought that something had happened that was erased from her brain.

She was plainly very suspicious of everyone including the father’s wider family, and the school. She believed the teachers to be on their side, and said that she thought they might be influencing the children as to what to say. She was also suspicious of the therapist, and said in evidence not only that she had told her about the sexual abuse of the children, but the psychiatrist in Israel too, and yet neither of them had mentioned or reported it to third parties.

She said that it was the interpreter who had suggested to the children that they did not like their father because their mother did not like him. She said that she had heard the interpreter say this whilst she (the mother) was standing behind the door.