Britain’s family-court system is overwhelmed

Child x is a polite and articulate teenager, his solicitor told the judge. He is grateful to his carers for looking after him and is settled in their home. The boy understands, the lawyer went on, why the local authority believes he should see his mother once a month rather than more often, as she had requested. But he would like it to be known that he would prefer to live with her, because he misses her.This was part of the final hearing in a case at the family court in Leeds, where your correspondent spent a day as part of a pilot project giving journalists unprecedented access to a process long shrouded in secrecy. More than eight months previously the boy had been removed from his mother, an alcoholic who had neglected him. He had been waiting to hear where he would spend the rest of his childhood. The judge ruled he would remain with his carers and see his mother once a month.