Question reference: S5W-33310
- Asked by: Claudia Beamish, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 17 November 2020
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Current status: Answered by Ash Denham on 24 November 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, when considering the granting of a child contact or residence order, to what extent a court takes into consideration an applicant’s previous civil or criminal convictions for, or history of, domestic abuse against the child’s other parent, and, before granting such an order, what safeguards it would require to be put in place.
Answer
Section 11(7A) to (7E) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 makes provision in this area. These subsections provide that the court must have regard to the need to protect the child at the centre of the case from abuse when considering cases such as contact and residence. Abuse is defined as including domestic abuse and also violence, harassment, threatening conduct and any other conduct giving rise, or likely to give rise to physical or mental injury, fear, alarm or distress.
The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 which gained Royal Assent on 1 October 2020 introduces a new special measure into the Vulnerable Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2004. This gives the court the power to prohibit a party from personally conducting the remainder of their contact or residence case where a party has been convicted or accused of a specific criminal offence against a witness in the case. The list of criminal offences that would trigger this prohibition include where a person has a conviction for a domestic abuse offence. This section will take time to commence as we will need to establish a register of solicitors who would be willing to act for parties who have been prohibited from conducting their case.