Jason Green in F v M [2025] EWHC 621 (Fam) – a case which provides important guidance on the wider implications of making false allegations of coercive control
3rd Apr 2025 | Cases
Jason Green was instructed by Dawson Cornwell for the Applicant Father in F v M [2025] EWHC 621 (Fam); a fact-finding hearing under inherent jurisdiction.
This was a fact-finding hearing within wardship proceedings in respect of a young child aged 12 months, born of an arranged marriage between two distantly related cousins. The mother was from Berlin and the father lived in Coventry. There was compelling evidence before the court that the mother’s family are organised criminals involved in very serious crime, centred in Berlin. The father was concerned about the risk of abduction to Germany given the dangers presented by the maternal family.
The mother sought findings that the father had been physically abusive, had engaged in coercive and controlling behaviour, including financial abuse and had isolated her from her family. The father denied all allegations and himself alleged that the mother was influenced by her family to an unhealthy extent.
The judge made no findings on any of allegations made by the mother and made all findings sought by the father. He agreed with Mr Green’s description of the mother’s allegations as “diffuse and unclear” and pointed to the evolution of the allegations whereby the mother made no allegations of physical abuse to a number or professionals and police. He found that the mother had been under great pressure from her intimidating family. On that basis he did not criticise her for the false case she presented but made this comment at the conclusion of his judgment, of wider application:
“I do, however, find it necessary to say that where wrongful allegations of coercive and controlling behaviour are brought and consequently dismissed, that may have wider resonance. This is frequently an insidious abuse, most commonly inflicted against women. It is invariably corrosive to the victim’s self-confidence. Victims of such abuse, as the case law shows, frequently doubt their own perceptions, precisely because of the subtle but permeative nature of the harm. Garnering the evidence in such cases can be forensically challenging. Sometimes, the most harrowing experiences for the victim can seem trivial or innocuous to the outsider, who does not have the available material to place the behaviour in its wider context. Allegations, wrongly brought, may serve, for a variety of reasons, to make life more difficult for a genuine victim in the future.”
