and now on bbc news, victoria derbyshire takes a look back at some of the highlights from her programme this week. hello, and welcome to our programme. over the next half an hour, we will bring you some of our special programmes this week, looking into the secret world of the family courts. on wednesday, it was revealed that in the last five years, four children have been killed at the hands of a parent who had been granted access to the child by the family courts. and, in each of those cases, that parent, the dad, had a known history of domestic abuse. as a result of our findings, more than 120 mps have called for an urgent and independent enquiry into the family court system. first, let's hearfrom three mums who were courageous enough to speak out to us about the impact of the family court

decisions on theirs and their child ren‘s lives. this is emma ailes‘ exclusive film. the family courts — a secretive world where decisions about children's lives are made out of sight and behind closed doors. the law requires courts to put the welfare of the child first. but this programme can reveal that children are often being forced to spend time alone with a parent with a known history of abuse, putting their safety and even their lives at risk. everyone thinks no court is going to send a child to spend time with a criminal drug addict. but yeah, they do, and it'sjust a contact at all costs. when parents separate and they can't agree arrangements for their children, they can end up in the family court. it's a place of last resort, where a judge decides what contact each parent should have.

there is a fundamental presumption in law that a child should have contact with both parents. but dozens have told us the courts have ordered unsupervised contact with a violent ex—partner, including some with serious criminal convictions. this is the story of three women. they can't tell us what happened in court or they could be prosecuted. but they can talk about the devastating impact of the court's decisions. rachel suffered years of extreme violence by her ex—partner. she became pregnant after he raped her. my home was my prison. he said he'd...

he said he'd kill me and my son from a previous relationship if i told anyone. and i knew he meant it. he punched and kicked me in the stomach. i went to the hospital and they said, "there's no heartbeat." a few months after that, he did the same thing again. i got pregnant again. after the baby was born, he tried to strangle me while i was breast—feeding my baby, whilst my newborn was in my arms. police assessed rachel and her children at being at high risk of homicide. she managed to take her kids and flee her home. he then applied to the family court and won access to their child. for now, it is supervised, but that could change. look at his criminal record, and you will see he is a massive risk. threats, stalking, convictions.

and at one point, i thought i might turn suicidal, because he came out of the courtroom smirking and then threatened to kill me in the car park straight after. i found out that my older son had googled, "how long will a teenager get in prison if he kills a man?" i had to say to him, "no, we're not going to do that." "we're going to keep you and your brother safe somehow." it is horrifying that even in proven cases of sexual assault, severe domestic abuse, rape, murder in some cases, men are still being encouraged and granted access to their child, and itjust seems to me that that presumption is all wrong. that contact is being presumed as the absolute best outcome, no matter what the circumstances, and we need to flip that, and we need to make sure the presumption is if they are a known abuser,

if they are a known risk to mother and child, then we need to assume that contact probably isn't best for the child. when a child is killed or seriously injured as a result of abuse, the authorities are required to conduct what is known as a serious case review. we have analysed serious case reviews for england for the last five years and found that at least four children have been killed during contact with a parent with a known history of domestic abuse. and that contact had been ordered by a family court. in one case, professionals including a teacher, a social worker and a cafcass officer, the body that assesses parents for the court, said they were too scared to be left alone with the father because of his aggressive behaviour. but that did not stop the court granting him unsupervised contact with his children. he went on to kill them both.

other cases referred to what's known as a toxic trio of addiction, mental illness and a history of abuse. lucy says she knows all about these toxic trio. she says her ex had a 20—year crack addiction and would become violent if she refused to give him money for drugs. while they were together, she felt she could protect their little girl. but after they split, he applied to the family court for contact. he's got numerous convictions. it's just not safe in his flat with drugs everywhere. assault and battery, possession, he was jailed for drunk driving, and everyone thinks no court is going to send a child to spend time with a criminal drug addict. but yeah, they do. and itjust defies all logic. it is just contact at all costs. lucy's ex—partner‘s drug—taking appeared to reduce, but not stop altogether.

the judge decided that there is no reason why you can't have unsupervised overnight contact. like addiction is no longer an issue. so all he had to do was sign a piece of paper that says he won't use for 2h hours prior to or during contact. it's ridiculous. he's not even sticking to it. i have to send her there and abide by the court order, or i am breaking the law. but when i pick her up, she has been really vacant in her expression. it happened a couple of times and then i realised, "oh, my god, is it because she's stoned?" and i can smell cannabis on her. another time she told me that her dad got her up in the night, put a coat over her pyjamas, and they went out in a white van to buy sweets, but they weren't sweets for her. but from the way she described it, that was a drug deal. but i have got no proof, except the word of a toddler. every time something happens, i report it to all and sundry,

the police, social services, gps, so there's a trail. but again the court confirmed the unsupervised access. it's like they see the greatest risk to my daughter is emotional damage because her parents don't get along. but that's not the greatest risk. you are sending my daughter to unsafe contact with a drug addict. whenever there are allegations of abuse, the court is required to hold what's called a fact—finding hearing. there are no official statistics, but parents and lawyers have told us anecdotally that those hearings are not always been done. in family courts, unfortunately, we still see quite a lot of examples of misogyny and sort of sexist views and attitudes towards mothers and indeed sometimes fathers. and there's this, i think, perception that mothers are preventing contact with fathers and they are doing that unilaterally without good reason.

and this idea that even though there is domestic violence, she just needs to get over it. i've heardjudges say, "oh, it's just a little bit of dv." it's minimised rather than seeing the significance of that. that's why in many cases you don't have fact—finding hearings. mary's ex—partner was physically and emotionally abusive and has numerous criminal convictions for violence and drug offences. she spent more than £100,000 on legal fees fighting his application for contact. i was completely naive about the family courts. i assumed that they would see that to enable a violent man to have a relationship with his children, the contact needed to be supervised. i mean, i'd already seen him being physically aggressive to our child when he was a toddler. but that's not how the family court sees it at all. he was on the domestic abuse perpetrators programme, but he has always just

denied abusing me. my solicitor told me unless he has beaten you black and blue, he will be deemed a good enough father, so don't even bother trying. the court ordered mary's ex—partner to have regular unsupervised overnight contact with their children. she says they have been coming back from visits with unexplained injuries. my children have come home with bruising and other injuries, and i've had to take them to a&e. but it's not enough for them to tell me. they have to say, "my daddy did this," to an independent party before anyone will listen. my children wake up sobbing, and i just sit there with them and reassure them that no—one is expecting them to stand up to their dad. they tell you this stuff,

and you just have to put a smile on your face and then hand them over to their abuser. nobody is saying that a child shouldn't have a relationship with their father. itjust needs to be healthy and safe. there are many cases i have come across where children have said, "i am not going to contact with my father." and in those cases, where there is a court order specifically specifying contact, the mothers can be at risk of going to prison or being fined, serving a community order of some type, because they have failed to comply with that court order. the government has promised some changes to the family court system, such as stopping victims of abuse being cross—examined by their abuser. but those calling for changes say far more needs to be done. they argue the lack of transparency is preventing scrutiny of the system that is failing parents and children

with potentially fatal consequences. i think there is a culture of secrecy. and all the practitioners, lawyers, social workers, cafcass, the judges, they are kind of operating with impunity. we need to know what's happening at the heart of ourjustice system. at the moment, i don't know how bad the problem is. the minister doesn't know how bad the problem is. i don't believe the president of the family court knows how bad the problem is. currently, there is no independent research on contact orders being made — only stories such as those we have heard that suggest things may be going wrong. emma ailes reporting. telling these stories isn't easy. there are stringent restrictions on what we can report. quite rightly. to protect a child's privacy and safety.

we can't report anything said inside the family courts, anything from documents submitted to the courts. to do so would be breaking the law. but the politicians, lawyers and campaigners we heard from all told us why they thought aspects of the family court system needed reform. as a labour mp and a member of the women and equality select committee, jess phillips, how do you respond? i feel bereft that this is not something that we are discussing for the first time, this is something that has been before parliament for many years, and lots of research has been done about — previously it was 19 child homicides, to sit here today and hear that, since all that work and trying to highlight that, four more children have died, it is just so depressing. what is it going to take to change this? how many children are we going to let die while the lack of scrutiny, and it is such a delicate and important institution, is allowing children to be murdered, and it is as simple as that. this should be, if i was the justice secretary, this would be my single and top

priority, yet itjust seems constantly like we are pushing at a closed door. rachel, you are a survivor of domestic abuse. how do you respond to our findings? it makes me feel sick to the core. this is nothing new, but how many more need to die, how many more kids need to die before this country wakes up and take this seriously? and let's not forget as well, children will commit suicide because of these perpetrators. my son committed suicide because of one man's actions. i know two other women whose sons committed suicide because of an abuser within the household. how do you respond to some of the stories that we brought you there in emma's film? rachel, her children were granted supervised contact with her ex, despite the fact that the police said that she was at high risk

of being murdered by him. mr lawson, you are a former children's minister, you are the chair of the all—party parliamentary group on children. how do you respond to that? i think there is a much bigger problem here. but respond to that in particular. the cases we have heard about, children should not be given contact to parents who have got that sort of record — drugs, domestic violence or whatever. if it were the residential parent, there would be good grounds for taking that child away from that parent and into care. so it is crazy that a judge would consider allowing contact with somebody with that record. you have to put it into context, we are talking about a relatively small number of parents who are dangerous, and the vast majority of parents are safe, responsible and want to do best by their children. of course. we must not penalise them because of the experiences of those who should not be allowed near children at all. you are absolutely right, that is zero consolation

to the surviving parents of dead kids. absolutely, absolutely. but at the same time, the law is right. i was responsible for bringing about those changes to the law, that a child's welfare is best served by, wherever possible, having maximum contact with both parents. whether they are together, or apart. but paramount, and this goes back to all the legislation, the children's act 1989, the consideration must be that it must not be contrary to the welfare of that child. the law in 2014 made absolutely clear, a presumption of involvement with both parents, unless there was a clear danger to the welfare of that child. in these cases, there were clear dangers. so it is not working? in those cases, it is not working. but this is not a new problem. whether it is new or old, it is not working. that is cause for alarm. it is absolutely cause for alarm. we have still not got it right. even before the law changed,

something like 70 or 80 children a year die at the hands of parents or carers. in the majority of cases, actually, it is at the hands of a mother or a mother's new partner as well. there are two sides to this. what we must not do is to exclude children from having that contact with parents, which is in their best interest. when you say there are two sides, what do you mean? we have only focused on men here. actually, our focus, and it sounds brutal to say it, was dead children. that is where we began. our investigation months ago. absolutely. what i have just said to you, though, is that the figures for many years show that the majority of children who have died at the hands of parents or carers have been at the hands of a mother, or a mother's new partner in many cases. it was usually a man? it is not the mother's fault if a new partner murdes a child. but it is not the father's fault in the majority of cases.

i am not defending anybody who does harm by their children. what i am defending is the right of children to have maximum time and enjoyment with both parents, unless there is a threat to the safety of that child. we need to parents to step up to the mark and do right by their children in the majority of cases. those who can't, those who are incapable, those who would do harm to their children, need to be locked up or completely excluded from their children's lives. in these cases the did not happen and it has had tragic consequences. lucy, you are from women's aid. is the system working? we have seen in far too many cases of domestic abuse in the family courts, that this culture of contact at all costs isjust too often a feature. children don't just witness domestic abuse, they experience it, and it has long—term and devastating impact on their development and theirwell—being. but far too often, this very strong presumption in our law that a child should see both parents is overwriting those concerns and those welfare concerns of domestic abuse, and as the statistics and the report you have highlighted today show just so clearly,

that has to change. michael, families need fathers. do you agre it has to change? we have to see if we can do anything about these horrendous cases that are coming up. at the same time, i don't relate... we have thousands of people who come to us, and we don't relate to the notion that courts are applying a contact at all costs approach. on the contrary, the whole process is that they have a lengthy period of safeguarding checks which they take before somebody makes an application to court. at the subsequent court hearing, if there is an allegation, they will then take a precautionary approach. if no order is made, and no order will be made unless it is by consent at that point, they will then pass

to evidence to be presented at the court, and be presented at the court, and the judge will weigh up, on balance of that evidence, what the risks are. where there are risks, they might either in the interim or permanently, require supervision and contact to be supervised. something clearly has gone wrong in these cases, but the picture that is being portrayed here, of contact at all costs, is the opposite of what we are experiencing. we are seeing is thousands of mostly dads, but some mums come to us because they are struggling to get any kind of contact. in the face of abstraction. there are 6000 applications every year for the enforcement of orders which have already been made on the premise of them being in the best interests of the child. why can't the children have their own voice? we have parental rights, what about the children? if they do not want to see the parent, why should they be made to see them? you are talking about assessment. what if that is too late? what if, in that period of time, that child is hurt or killed?

well, except there are already protective measures there. i'm not saying that every case is going to work, but you have already got a situation where there are injunctive orders made. there are 26,000 a year injunctive orders made, which prevent a parent or somebody from accessing a home, going to partner. but they are broken. in which case they will end up criminalised and they may be jailed. not always. also, those injunctions are put in place where there is domestic abuse, usually. yes, indeed, orallegations of domestic abuse. those are not always found to be correct. but a judge has to rule on an injunction though. the same judges that you are just defending. a judge will take, in most cases, a precautionary approach, and actually, if somebody makes a statement saying, i have been abused, they will put an injunctive order in place. that is not happening.

anecdotally, but we have dozens and dozens of women saying this is not happening. i am going to bring in a magistrate, rupert holderness, a family magistrate, who has presided over similar cases. the big question, rupert, is why? it is baffling to most people, itjust doesn't make sense. why would a court, why would a judge grant contact to a parent with convictions and a known history of serious domestic abuse? these are tragic cases. i can't comment on the individual cases... no, but let's talk about some of the reasons. why do you think? the court will be looking at the risks, as well as the record. they will have advice from cafcass about that. and there is the presumption, but it is not a contact at all costs... that is what it feels like to some people. i can understand that in an individual case it may feel, to the mother of the child, that that right of the father has

been given priority over what she thinks ought to happen. in these disputed cases, then it is also inevitable that someone is going to feel the court has got it wrong. it is tragic when you have a consequence of the kind that we have heard about in your film. i can't believe any court would have made orders that allowed that to happen, knowing that it was a significant risk that would happen. the court in question must have been convinced there wasn't a risk... the whole point is, because it is so secret, we don't know if the history ever came before the judge. we are not allowed to know that detail. we don't know if it was included in the report, in the risk assessment. well, you will no doubt hear about the cafcass process, but when the application comes on in the first place, cafcass do ask the police for any information they have got on the family, and they also speak to the local authorities where the families may have led. the information that comes back includes notjust convictions, but any call—outs, including things where the police decided

to take no action, or cautions were administered. and despite that, contact is granted sometimes. it may be. it depends on what is assessed to be the risk. let me bring in charlotte, a barrister. you represent alleged domestic violence perpetrators in the family courts. what do you say to a judge to convince him that the abusive parent should have contact to a child? so what i tend to do is i isolate the allegations of domestic violence. i will say, well, he may be a risk to the mother, but they have now separated. the circumstances have changed, and there is no reason why contact can't take place in a safe environment, away from the mother. you can also have a third—party neutral handover point, and also an individual that can assist with that. i will also argue that the allegations are historical, so if they happened a year or two years ago, they are no longer relevant because circumstances have changed. i will argue that there ought not

to be a fact find... i can feel that your nostrils are widening. furious. these are the types of argument i will make before the court. let me tell you, they are persuasive because i have only seen, i represent women and men in these courts on a daily basis. i have been doing this since 2011, and only a handful of cases has ever been a no order for contact. i was working on a case... why do you think that is? because you are so good at yourjob? i represent women as well, in fact mostly women. there is a rule that means you cannot refuse any brief. i understand. it is important to represent both sides. it is also about social workers and cafcass that are supporting contact, in my view, at all costs. and also judges that reinforce that. if any of the issues in this programme have affected you and you would like some help,

do you go to the bbc actionline website. that's it for this week. you can contact us as at any time with your stories. do send us an e—mail. you can see more from our programme online. we are back monday morning at 10am. bbc two, bbc news and online. thank you for watching. it is very slow—moving weather at the moment. the winds are light and it feels warm when the sun is out but we have seen some showers developing as well. this picture was taken in mid wales. there has been a lot of low cloud around the north sea coasts. this was the scene earlier on today in north yorkshire. showers have been developing and as it has brightened up across eastern

scotland, we ask in showers arriving here as well. western scotland on the cloudy side as we head towards the cloudy side as we head towards the evening. some bright weather allowing the arch shower. some showers across northern england. most of the showers are arriving through the midlands towards central and southern england. they could be heather ian thundery. overnight, many places turning dry. that low cloud and misty weather will push a little further inland. pretty mild. temperatures around eight or 9 degrees. as we head into monday, almost a repeat performance of today. it will be warm in the sunshine with showers arriving and they may be heavy and thundery once again and slow—moving. that is why we have that may stand fog around in the morning. it develops a little more widely, triggering showers.

again, a little bit misty around the north sea coast with temperatures similarto north sea coast with temperatures similar to those of today. we still have low pressure towards continental europe. high pressure is coming in from the atlantic. it is not a strong area of high pressure but it will limit the chance of catching a shower. a chilly start out in the west on tuesday. the risk of showers developing for the eastern side. a bit of rain in northern scotland. temperatures much you are. that will feel pleasant in the light winds. the outlook, temperatures are not going to change an awful lot. later in the week a bit more cloud and the chance of a feel more showers returning.

this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. the headlines at apm: theresa may promises mps a bold new offer on brexit, to try to get her deal through parliament before she leaves office. security sources in egypt say at least 17 people have been injured, in a blast appearing to target a tourist bus. the new national rail summer timetable has come into effect today — train companies say they've learned lessons from weeks of chaos on the network last summer. # all i know # loving you is a losing game... eurovision went dutch last night with a victory for the netherlands. the uk finished last. kompany parts company with his club — the manchester city captain is off to anderlecht as player—manager