Family Court sets aside 2019 findings that a mother alienated her children

The Family Court, in Re Y [2026] EWFC 38, set aside key findings made in 2019 and 2020 that a mother had alienated her two children from their father, and gave its reasons on 20 February 2026.

Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division, gave the judgment. The case is anonymised and the children are referred to as X and Y.

Background

The parents separated in December 2014 and later divorced. In 2018 the father applied for the children to live with him. Each parent made allegations of abusive behaviour against the other. At a hearing in October 2019 the court heard evidence from a psychologist, Ms Melanie Gill. At the end of her evidence, and without hearing from any other witness, the judge found that the children had been alienated from their father as a result of the mother's highly negative attitude towards him.

In December 2019 the court ordered the children, then aged 12 and 9, to move immediately to live with their father, before the mother's application for permission to appeal had been determined. From the end of 2019 until 2025 the children had no contact of any sort with their mother. In early 2025 the daughter, then 18, moved to live with her mother for a few months before returning to her father's care. Later in 2025 Y, then 15, left his father's home and travelled to his mother's. He was removed into police protection, spent time in foster care, and then went to stay with a friend of the mother under an order made by Lieven J.

The question

In April 2025 the mother applied under Part 18 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010 to set aside the findings made in October 2019 and consolidated in May 2020. Her application relied on the approach in Re C ('Parental Alienation'; Instruction of Expert) [2023] EWHC 345 and on guidance on alienating behaviours issued by the Family Justice Council in December 2024. It said that guidance is clear that unregulated experts, such as Ms Gill, should not be instructed in cases of alleged alienating behaviour, and that expert evidence should be directed only after findings of fact have been made.

The decision

At the end of the hearing on 29 January 2026 the President announced that the key findings of fact made in October 2019 and May 2020 were set aside. The judgment gives his reasons. It was common ground between the parties that no purpose would now be served by relitigating the earlier allegations and cross-allegations.

On 30 January 2026 the court went on to consider Y's future. It discharged the existing order under which Y lived with a friend of the mother, Mrs M, and replaced it with a child arrangements order for Y to live with his mother. The father, who did not attend, took a neutral position.

The reasoning

The President stressed that the judgment was not about one person. When the 2019 process is held up for audit against the principles of good practice in alienating behaviour cases, which are now well established, every agency involved can be seen to have been at fault. He named Cafcass, the children's solicitor, the local authority and the court. He described the case as being about the failure of the system to act as it should have done in protecting the children and prioritising their welfare needs.

Sources

• Y (Experts and Alienating Behaviour: The Modern Approach), Re [2026] EWFC 38, Family Court, 20 February 2026: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewfc/2026/38