“THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD” means more money for the legal system.

When I voted with my feet at age 15 to go live with my dad again, a family court judge, like all of the other ones before tried to force me to go back to my mum. And he told me I was too young to express my views to him… He said he needed social services to tell him what my views were. . . . More delay, more work for the system, more income, more funding. That’s what it’s all about. If you need a good reason to open up the secret family courts to the public, this is one. . . .

It was horrible. Why would I want to go back to social services who had always misled the court about my views? They make it their job to lie, and to twist things, and this judge was just giving them another chance to do that.