← Intelligence Squared
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- [00:01]
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Charlotte Proudman
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Charlotte Proudman
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- [01:23]
Mia Sorrenti
Tax extra welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Recent high profile legal disputes with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have renewed public debates about gender, power and credibility in the courts. But beyond the celebrity cases lies a deeper question. How fairly does the justice system treat women? In this episode, Maithili Rao speaks to barrister Charlotte Proudman about the gender bias and misogyny she argues remain embedded in our legal system. Drawing on her work in the Family Court, Proudman examines how women seeking protection from domestic abuse, forced marriage, child abduction, and female genital mutilation can be failed by processes that were not designed around their experiences. Together, they explore the culture of the legal profession, the treatment of survivors in the family courts, and the reforms Proudman believes are needed to secure fairer outcomes. At its center is a question about justice itself. How can equality before the law become more than ideal? This conversation contains strong language and discussions of adult themes, including misogyny, sexual and domestic abuse. Let's join our host, Maithili Rao, now with more.
- [02:38]
Maithili Rao
You're listening to Intelligence Squared. I'm Maitha Lee Rao. Today I'M speaking with barrister Charlotte Proudman about her new book, He Said, she Said. Welcome to Intelligence Squared, Charlotte.
- [02:48]
Charlotte Proudman
Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's wonderful to speak with you, Charlotte.
- [02:51]
Maithili Rao
This is a very eye opening book. You write in really devastating detail about how women and children who are trapped in abusive dynamics at home, then so often experience still more suffering as they try to navigate a legal system that is supposed to afford them some protection. There are a lot of heartbreaking stories in this book, but what also comes across very clearly in the book is how much you relish your role as an advocate and how gratifying this work can be, particularly when you find opportunities not just to help individual clients, but to make changes in the system, small or big. I wondered if you could start with your desire to be a barrister, which emerged at a pretty young age for you. Can you talk about your childhood background and your journey into the legal field?
- [03:43]
Charlotte Proudman
Yes. So for me, I come from a non traditional law background. I was brought up by my mum, single parent. My father died when I was four, which is obviously quite a formative experience at such a young age. And he was an alcoholic and violent. And I think reflecting back on some of those experiences writing the book, which my editor really encouraged, I think it helped me trace perhaps my journey from a child to a teenager adolescent to now, obviously as an adult, as to how I've ended up where I have. So, as I say, my father's an alcoholic and violent and then he died in a car accident in which he was drunk and killed another woman as well. And obviously that would have had a profound impact upon me as a child being exposed to abuse within the household. And I think as a result of that, it's made me more understanding and empathetic with the women and children that I represent in family courts and wanting to advocate on their behalf to ensure that they do obtain the protection that they so desperately require and that the law does provide some semblance of justice for them as well. So I think that my very early childhood experience has definitely been a motivator and within law as well. I think, you know, particularly under 10 work experience within that field. I was able to see how very few young women from non traditional law backgrounds, particularly from working class backgrounds and state school educated, they actually are in the legal field and how important it is to have more diversity so that the legal profession actually represents a society and people that, you know, we go into court and fight for and advocate for every day.
- [05:40]
Maithili Rao
It was a bit shocking to read about people who actively discouraged you from this line of work, taking the assumption that you had the wrong kind of background, you had the wrong profile, you weren't going to make it. There were several times where people who are supposed to be teachers or mentors just said, no, you can't do it. I was really struck by that. I don't know if you wanted to say anything about that as well.
- [06:02]
Charlotte Proudman
Yeah, I think that's, that's right. I mean going to a state school, growing up in Leake in Saftwich is a small, very, very small town. It's one of those places, you know, where everyone knows everyone and you walk around the town and you recognize the same phases and you'll have some sort of connection with people within that small town. And you know, I'd never met a barrister before I went off to university and did work experience. So I can understand, I suppose within my school that say you wanted to be a lawyer or solicitor or barrister or so forth is probably quite an alien concept in many ways. So I remember my teacher, when we were discussing as a class what we wanted to do when we got older and I said at that point I wanted to be a solicitor. And I remember the sort of, the laughter at that, sort of even that suggestion and my teacher suggesting that I might be better suited to becoming a clerk. And I'll never forget there was this huge sort of career book and it looked like the yellow pages and you could scan through all of the different professions and then it would tell you what qualifications or experience you needed to become a solicitor or a doctor, whatever it might be. And so it was just seen as very much unreachable and the suggestion that I was very much out of touch and having this aspiration. And then of course I went off and I did study law at university. I went to my local university, Keele, lived at home to save money and then I went to bar school and I obtained a scholarship and that was my first time living away from home in London. So my first experience as well of upper class circles and it really was an incredibly daunting and eye opening experience. And one of those was from my mentor who as I say, he was sponsoring me, so providing advice and guidance and support throughout bar school process. And I'll never forget him turning to me and saying, you've done so well to make it here, but you know, you won't make it at the bar and you won't become a barrister. And you know, I look back on that now and every time I see him we're still Very, very close friends. You know, he laughs at, as do I, but we both remember it very well. And, you know, I think he, you know, he genuinely meant it at the time when he said it. You know, given where I come from and my background and, you know, I love to prove people wrong, but it does show the kind of obstacles you're up against. You know, before you even got into the profession, you're very much seen as an outsider.
- [08:42]
Maithili Rao
You did get into the profession. You made your start and were kind of had a career that was humming along. And then you write that 2019 was a very radicalizing year for you for a number of reasons. And it all culminated in a case you took on involving a client you call Denise. What was your state of mind when you met her and what was her story?
- [09:04]
Charlotte Proudman
So I met with Denise and she had told me she'd been into Family Court in front of a judge who's on a Judge Scarrett. And she'd explained that when she described her rape and domestic abuse allegations, the judge had said to her, if you carry on with your rape allegations, I could have your child put into foster care or adopted. She told me she was terrified by that. And I must say, even having heard all sorts of things that have been said in court myself directly, I doubted what Denise had said. I thought, surely this very senior judge wouldn't say such a thing to her, a rape complainant in court. And then we obtained the audio from the court hearing, and I actually heard the judge saying this to her and scolding her, shouting at her, even with a raised voice. And you could hear Denise sobbing on the court audio. And this really was very much, I think, a rallying moment. And I represented Denise in what became the Lee case of Re HN in the Court of Appeal in 2021, where we appealed the decision that the judge had made to allow regular contact between the child, Denise's child, and the father. Denise just couldn't facilitate contact with what she described as a man who'd raped her and abused her. And she felt the child was very much unsafe. And we were successful in that guidance case and setting out that coercive control is as harmful as physical abuse, amongst many other issues. And then Denise had to go to a retrial in front of a judge who's now Lord Justice Cobb, who sits in the Court of Appeal, actually just become the president of the Family Division. And that was one of the first cases in which the Family Court defined gaslighting, because the father, who was a mental Health care worker had used his position of power and trust to try and get Denise diagnosed with bipolar. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with Denise's mental illness. She not have bipolar. If anything, she suffered with symptoms that I would describe as akin to post traumatic stress. So it was an incredible result for Denise in terms of turning the case around, but a highly traumatizing experience for her.
- [11:19]
Maithili Rao
And how did that case kind of start to change your career path? It sounded like in the book, you. You had been kind of just trying to not lift your head above the parapet too much before that, kind of just taking on cases, keeping things quiet, not trying to look at the big picture too much. Do I have that right?
- [11:39]
Charlotte Proudman
I think that's probably broadly right. I mean, I went through a real media storm in 2015 when I called out a solicitor for what I thought was sexist behaviour on LinkedIn. When he made comments about my picture and wanting to work together because it was, you know, I was hot stuff or words akin to that. I called him out on social media. Didn't expect anything to happen. Of course, it went viral. Sarah vine from the Daily Mail wrote a piece, called me a feminazi and then ended up everywhere, friends in Pakistan, Australia, all over the world, saying it reached them as well. And I think after that experience, which came with an enormous backlash, including death, rank and all sorts of abuse, I decided, yes, I would keep my head down far more than I had. I mean, just crack on with my cases one after one, day by day representing victims and survivors. But as always, the campaigner inside of me would see the injustices in court and would feel this burning desire and sense of injustice, such that I needed to challenge some of these decisions, particularly where I saw judicial bias and sexism and prejudice towards women and children play out and dangerous decisions being made. And so I think Denise's case, amongst some others that I speak about in the book, very much encouraged me to continue with the campaign work both inside and outside of court, which then again came with quite a significant backlash.
- [13:13]
Maithili Rao
I'll ask you more about the backlash because there's a lot to talk about there, but I wanted to first get to another high profile case you worked on where maybe people who didn't see the Sarah vine column may have seen articles about someone who at the time was a conservative mp, Andrew Griffith. His wife, Katie, ex wife, contacted you when she wanted to contest an application Andrew had made for increased contact with their child. And you write that she reminded you that there's no such thing as a classic victim of Domestic abuse. What was significant about her case, I
- [13:49]
Charlotte Proudman
think, unusually within family court at least, but probably not, of course, within society, is that Kate Kniveton really defied a lot of stereotypes and tropes that play out when it comes to domestic abuse victims. She's a powerful, independent, middle class woman who is a Member of Parliament, which she was certainly at the time think perhaps of a more powerful position for a woman to occupy. And yet behind closed doors, when she was the wife of Andrew Griffiths, who at the time was a minister and a Member of Parliament, he was raping, abusing, coercively controlling her and being abusive towards their child as well. And so I felt that she very much shattered a lot of those stereotypes because we know that domestic abuse happens across all demographic backgrounds and we understand that people, certainly women and children with intersectional inequalities and oppressions that play out, particularly when it comes to race, immigration status, language barriers and so forth, obviously have it far harder in terms of raising domestic abuse within family courts and seeking to be believed and have a lot further to go. Kate, on the other hand, as a politician, wanted to speak about her experiences of what happened behind closed doors, which is very unusual as well. So it was one of the first cases whereby Kate fought for the right as a mother in family law proceedings to be able to share her story as to what had happened. And we went all the way to the Court of Appeal for her to be able to do that so that she could champion other survivors who perhaps do not have the same power or resources or platform as her to generate change within family courts because of what she had been through. And I think that was very courageous and brave of her to do that. And in many ways, Kate's case was a first. It was a first in terms of arguably, you know, proving rape, Damascus abuse and coercive control by a minister. It was a first by getting the right to speak out. It was a first by setting a precedent that rape victims should not be financially subsidising the costs of child contact with their rapist. That, in and of itself, I argued, is a form of domestic abuse. And it was a first in terms of her ensuring protective measures such that the father, Andrew Griffiths, couldn't have contact with the child and his parental responsibility was restricted to protect her and their child. So, you know, many, many firsts. And I must say I find it devastating that Kate is no longer a Member of Parliament. After the recent change of government, the Labour Party, of course, won and now they're in power because she really did Put family court reform on the agenda. Campaigning for the presumption of parental involvement to be repealed, such that rapists and abusive fathers not exclusively, but largely would not then have the right to involvement in a child's life, but would have to prove that they are safe. And that was successful last year. So she really has been at the forefront and very instrumental in campaigning for some of these changes.
- [17:15]
Maithili Rao
I want to ask also now about the backlash that you've experienced in taking on some of these high profile cases. They get written off on the BBC and the Guardian and they are very vocal on social media. They get attention, your work gets attention. But there's also a tremendous backlash that comes along with this, with people feeling free to post all kinds of comments and online harassment and even a very serious legal case that was made over your tweets. When it comes to using social media, what kind of cost benefit analysis do you run in your mind?
- [17:53]
Charlotte Proudman
That's a great question. And I think for a long time, I don't think I applied a lot of self protection to my campaign work, which came at obviously a huge cost. So I would share things that I think are important to raise awareness without necessarily being probably fully cognizant of the backlash that would come as a consequence of that. So when I criticized a judge in a case in which I'd represented the wife, and I criticised the judge for his views on domestic abuse in this particular case, and I said that his views on domestic abuse had echoes of the boys club. And this judge was a member of the Garrett Club, which I was alluding to, and also generally been to eton in his 70s high court, very privileged background, you know, reflective of sometimes a very skewed demographic. And I thought some of the comments were very troubling. So I tweeted about that and then found myself in a disciplinary tribunal after three years of litigation, I was completely vindicated and exonerated and it was thrown out. But at the same time as I've been sharing cases, as you say, and you mentioned various cases in the newspapers and I campaigned against the Garrett Club and judges being male judges, being members of this all male club, when they're supposed to be, you know, they're supposed to embody diversity and equality and we're supposed to have trust in their judgment, and yet the same time members of a club that excludes half the population and were successful in campaigning to open the doors to women, although still very few women are part of that. But you can imagine the backlash that came with it, you know, and I was Called the C word. I was called a bitch, wanker, mentally ill, all sorts of things. And this was by barristers, by the way. And my regulator took no action against them and said that all of these men had a right to free speech. That apparently misogyny, sometimes violence, actually, in terms of the way in which this was framed on social media, gender violence, they also said, was free speech. And I challenged that and I'm waiting for that decision to be made in the Employment tribunal against my regulator. I think it's utterly wrong that women that speak out are silenced through threats to their career, their livelihood, their personhood and gender violence. And the fact that this is happening within the legal profession, I think in some ways exploring explains why the legal profession still remains closed off to certain groups of women. Not all of them, of course, those that conform to patriarchy or are foot soldiers a patriarchy, or believe that, you know, they achieve power through conforming to expectations that often do quite well. But for other women, I think that are very much non traditional for variety of reasons, I think struggle and the legal profession's approach to them is one in which I think it dissentivised women from speaking out and engendering change because of how harmful pushing back actually is.
- [21:23]
Maithili Rao
You cited surveys that suggest that around 40% of female lawyers report experiencing some kind of sexual harassment at work. And there are so many examples that you write about in this book. I was astonished and then maybe also shouldn't have been astonished. Have you seen this change in your years in the profession? Is it improving?
- [21:47]
Charlotte Proudman
In all honesty, I don't think I have. I mean, of course I'm in a different position now and not as junior. I did experience sexual assault and harassment when I was very junior, particularly undertaking many pupilages or work experience. I understand from more junior contemporaries that things haven't really changed and there still remains a culture of fear and silence and speaking out because of the consequences for their career. I mean, I've experienced harassment from even judges, one judge in particular, who used an anonymous account, designer Judge Daniel Sawyer, to, in my view, troll me and harass me and bully me. And notwithstanding that, the Judicial Complaints Information Office effectively refused to investigate this judge. And I think that that sends out a strong message that perpetrators of behavior which should not be permitted in the legal profession is tolerated and, you know, our legal profession should be upheld with the utmost integrity and professionalism. And if you see a judge behaving that way towards a young junior female barrister, you know, how are rape victims or domestic abuse victims going to feel when they see this judge presiding over their case in a criminal court or otherwise probably going to lack trust and confidence in the system and particularly that individual legal profession needs to be a lot better in terms of holding those accountable for this behavior rather than seeking to close down complaints. And I also think there needs to be greater transparency as well. So I think for me there's a real issue around judicial accountability and transparency and I set up a not for profit organization called Right to equality in 2022 and they published a report this month in fact, which shows the levels of bias within family court judgments with over 70% of judgments was just under 100 that were explored. More than 70% of those included examples of victim blaming behaviour by judges towards victims or biases towards them towards mothers in particular. So I think we have a long way to go in terms of recognizing some of the challenges amongst those in real positions of power that sit on the bench.
- [24:33]
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Charlotte Proudman
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Charlotte Proudman
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- [26:44]
Maithili Rao
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Charlotte Proudman
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Mia Sorrenti
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Maithili Rao
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Charlotte Proudman
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- [27:37]
Maithili Rao
At the moment. Is there any kind of official training that judges who hear these cases in family court have to go through? I mean, there's so much work that's been done in psychology about studying abusive dynamics, understanding victim blaming, getting into the psychological complexity of abuse. I know as a journalist, if you're going to be interviewing someone who has experienced trauma, if you're with a reputable media organization, there will be resources for you to prepare yourself and think about duty of care, think about the psychological complexity of these situations. I wondered if there is anything of that nature available to family court judges or mandated or. If you think there should be.
- [28:23]
Charlotte Proudman
Yeah. So when the Domestic Abuse Bill was going through Parliament, I worked with members of Parliament, including Jess Phillips, Baroness Gabby Burton, Claire Waxman, who's now Victims Commissioner. And the reason that we worked together was that we wanted to introduce mandatory judicial training on domestic abuse and complex dynamics of trauma and memory. Also stereotypes and tropes that can be used so that judges are properly educated in this field, which experts spend years being trained in. But unfortunately, the government, at that point, the Conservative government, voted against it, so it wasn't put into legislation. Notwithstanding that, we've continued our quest to ensure proper and robust training for judges and worked with Right to Equality, Women's Aid and other not for profits, women's rights organizations, asking the Judicial College, and indeed the Lady Chief justice, what training is actually provided to judges, particularly family judges. And we still don't have a clear answer. We don't know specifically what training is provided, how often, what the mandatory nature of it looks like, the curriculum, the experts that are involved. There are a lot of questions we don't know about. And a Member of Parliament recently tried to table an amendment to the Courts and Tribunal Bill calling for specific training and also greater understanding of what judges are trained on. And unfortunately, that was met with some criticism by the Lady Chief justice who said that judicial training is entirely a matter for her and is not an issue that Parliament should be taking up, which I find somewhat extraordinary, I must say, because I do think that judicial training is a democratic issue and one which should be scrutinized not just by other legal professionals, but by wider society. So, again, judges are held accountable. Ultimately, they are paid for by the state and any training that they undertake. I do think there is a public interest and a matter of public importance that they know what that is, particularly when we understand the studies on the prevalence of victim blaming and other forms of, I think, inequality that can play out within judgments, whether subconsciously or unconsciously or consciously. So I think there's a really strong argument here for better training and understanding, and I'm somewhat surprised that there continues to be such pushback, which I think makes me even more concerned.
- [31:07]
Maithili Rao
One thing you describe that turns up often in court is parental alienation. What is it? What is that term and when have you seen it turn up? What happens?
- [31:17]
Charlotte Proudman
Parental alienation is a highly contested concept which in my view is junk science. And it stems from an academic based in the US who coins parental alienation called Dr. Richard Gardner, some decades ago. He's now since passed away, but his legacy of alienation very much continues. And we've seen it used now in the uk, but it's always been used in family courts. And the idea of parental alienation is a very simplistic one, that a mother, and it is usually very gendered, a mother is accused by a father of turning the children against him, manipulating the children or influencing them to align with her. And ordinarily, parental alienation is used by fathers who are accused of domestic abuse. And so what he will often say, and I argue that this is usually straight out of a perpetrator playbook, is to say, I wasn't abusive towards her or the children. The reason the children don't want to see me is because she's turned them against me. And that simplistic narrative has been highly effective, particularly amongst judges who accept it, legal professionals, where there's an entire industry based on this, making submissions of this nature in court, and particularly experts, psychologists who have asserted for a long time that they can diagnose parental alienation. As Dr. Richard Gardner argued some decades ago, even though parental alienation is not recognized in the dsm, it's not recognized by the World Health Organization, it's not recognized by nice, not even recognized by the un, in fact, it was debunked by the un. It is not a recognisable concept by any credible authority, and yet we still see it play out in our courts. And now it's referred to as alienating behavior. And frankly, there's no difference. It's just a change in language. But the actual meaning behind it is exactly the same. And you know, in cases that I've been involved in, in the book, I talk about Gemma's case. Gemma was accused of parental alienation by the father. And the court allowed the father to have an expert psychologist to opine on whether Gemma was guilty of alienation the children effectively. And I appealed that on Jemma's behalf and said that a psychologist is incapable of diagnosing this. And the appeal judge agreed and said this is not. This is a factual issue for the court to decide. And in fact, after going through a fact find hearing, it was absolutely tragic. But Gemma was found to be a victim of rape, domestic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour, and the children were found to have been abused by the father. And importantly, the judge found that the father had used parental alienation as a weapon to frighten, torment and intimidate Gemma such that she felt silenced. That is how dangerous this weapon and label can actually be. And in some cases, these children can be transferred from living with their mother to their father because of so called alienation to correct their thinking and to make them love the father because apparently the mother is guilty of alienation. So it's a simplistic concept, but plays out in so many quite warped ways. And Family Court are very much, I think, bought into this. Unfortunately.
- [34:56]
Maithili Rao
There's another example of a simple concept that has sometimes strong consequences that are perhaps not what was intended in the original thinking of the legislation. And that has to do with the laws around what happens when a woman decides she needs to leave the country to keep her children safe. There are very strict laws about what happens if a parent takes their children to another country without the other parents. Consent. What are those laws?
- [35:28]
Charlotte Proudman
Yeah. So child abduction. Most people think, gosh, that sounds awful, you know, a parent abducting the children from another parent and leaving from one country to another. But I just want people to imagine how desperate a parent must be to leave their home, leave all of their possessions and belongings and take their child, put them on a flight, such that they get away from another parent who's allegedly or sometimes proven to have been profoundly abusive towards them, such that they are fleeing a really dangerous situation. And many parents, and it's often mothers, believe that once they leave that country and say, come to the uk, the England and Wales courts will protect them and they couldn't be more wrong. What often happens is that the court, the High Court in London, will say, regardless of the alleged abuse that's been inflicted on you and or your child, you have to go back. And I represented Lisa, who fled. I think in the book, I refer to it as her having fled, a stranger to this country. And I represented Lisa and she was ordered to return, notwithstanding all of the alleged abuse that she and the child had suffered. And the father gave a number of promises saying, well, if Lisa and the child are returned, I promise that Lisa won't be arrested by the police for abduction and I promise I'll support her getting immigration status and I promise that I'll pay maintenance so that Lisa has a roof over her head and she's not homeless with a child. In fact, what happened is Lisa got back to Australia with her child and lo and behold, the father reneged on all of those promises and there was nothing the courts in London could do. She was completely stranded and isolated, away from her family and effectively locked in a prison abroad and battling immigration, battling criminal court and battling family court, she found herself arrested for child abduction. So women, I think, and mothers that go above and beyond to try and protect their children through abducting them, yes, it's wrong, yes, it's a criminal offence, but desperate circumstances to protect their children are often considered to be perpetrators and are very much punished by legal institutions, particularly the courts that should actually be protecting them.
- [38:03]
Maithili Rao
Charlotte, you've described so many different kinds of issues that turn up repeatedly in family court, from things like parental alienation to laws about child abduction to just rampant sexism that women in the legal profession face and that women who are trying to make their case face. If you had a magic wand and could implement any one change in the family court system, where would you start? What's the first thing you would address?
- [38:34]
Charlotte Proudman
I think the first thing That I would do, actually, is introduce a Family justice bill we presently use as the framework for family law, the Children act, which dates back to 1989. And however well intentioned that was, of course it's very outdated. In 1989, marital rape was legal then. Being gay was a criminal offence. Domestic abuse is not even written in the Children Act. And I think the laws in family court very much need updating. And one of the concerns I have is that we're constantly tinkering with the legislation. We're repealing legislation, we repealed the presumption of parental involvement. You know, we are seeking to amend legislation and add other things such as judicial training, but actually we need a wholesale change. And what I mean by that, for example, is we need to make it clear that when rape, domestic abuse are proven that there's actually a presumption of no contact and a victim or complainant's medical record should never be disclosed to their perpetrator. At the moment, there is no definition of rape and consent in family court. So it's almost. It's so difficult, if not impossible, for complainants to prove because they don't even know what standard they need to meet. I mean, I could go on and on with 30 different changes that I think we need in law, but we need a wholesale, I think, systemic change through a bill. And I know that members of Parliament such as Alex Davis Jones, the former Minister for Victims, is very keen on this, as is Jess Phillips and very many other members of Parliament. And I do hope that whilst we have a Labour government, this may be something that we can at. Look, look at further so that we can, I think, make sure that children really are at the centre of proceedings and their welfare is protected.
- [40:32]
Maithili Rao
Charlotte, thank you so much.
- [40:34]
Charlotte Proudman
Thank you.
- [40:35]
Maithili Rao
That was Charlotte Proudman, author of He Said, she said. Available now in bookshops and online. I'm Maitha Lee Rao. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.
- [40:45]
Mia Sorrenti
Thanks for listening to Intelligence Squared. This episode was produced by me, Mia Sorrenti and it was edited by Mark Roberts. For ad free episodes and full length recordings. You can become a member@intelligencesquared.com membership. And if you'd like to join us at future live events, you can see our full program or buy tickets over@intelligencesquared.com attend. You've been listening to Intelligence Squared. Thanks for joining us.
- [41:25]
Charlotte Proudman
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