Christopher Booker - Family Courts Controversy

Family Courts Controversy

Christopher Booker has written a number of articles raising concerns about the Family Court system in England and Wales. But his writings on this issue have also drawn criticism from the judiciary for alleged inaccuracy. In a High Court judgement in April 2011, Judge Bellamy stated that: "Mr Booker's articles contain significant factual errors and omissions", and took issue with Booker on two cases he had covered:

"In the first article Mr Booker gives the impression that it was 'faint bruising' which prompted the parents to take L to hospital and which gave rise to what he clearly regards as the over-zealous and unjustified actions of social workers working for the same local authority so recently criticised by me in Re X, Y and Z (Children). As he will come to understand when he reads this judgment, it was in fact L's floppy arm which prompted his parents to take him to hospital. That floppy arm was the result of a spiral fracture of his left humerus. X-rays showed that he also had six metaphyseal fractures. In his first article Mr Booker makes no mention of any of those fractures. It was those fractures which led to the safeguarding measures taken – and in my judgment appropriately taken – by this hospital and by this local authority...

In his second article Mr Booker asserts as fact that in this case 'the council has depended, in its campaign to seize this baby, on the same controversial paediatrician about whom the judge was so excoriatory'... I shall refer to that doctor, as I did in Re X, Y and Z (Children), as Dr M. At no time has Dr M had any involvement at all in the case I am now concerned with. Indeed, to the best of my recollection his name has never even been suggested as a possible expert to be used in this case."