Every evening, Claire Throssell used to pop her head round the door of her young sons’ bedrooms to check they were OK, before heading to bed herself. She still does this today, even though Jack and Paul’s bedrooms have been empty for over 10 years. ‘Rather than saying goodnight, I sit on their beds and cry,’ she tells me.
In October 2014, on a family court-ordered visit to see their father – Claire’s abusive ex-partner – the boys were lured to his attic with sweets. He then locked all the doors, placed mattresses and chairs behind them to slow down firefighters, and set fire to the house. Jack was 12, and Paul was nine. All three died.
‘When a policeman knocked on my door that day, I knew,’ says Claire. ‘The first thing I said was, “What’s he done to them?”’
After an abusive marriage, where she was pushed down the stairs and had chairs thrown at her head, Claire left taking the boys with her. They hadn’t wanted to see their father, who they had seen hit their mother, made them eat food they didn’t like until they were sick, and called them cry babies. They clung tearfully to Claire’s legs ahead of the visits he was granted by a family court, despite his abuse. ‘As a parent you know you’re sending them into danger and my stomach clenched all the way through those visits,’ she says.
‘It was presumption of contact at its worst. And an example of how children are put in danger every day by family courts, who automatically assume it’s in a child’s best interests to have contact with both parents. It’s a national scandal, and it needs to change.’
Earlier this summer, the charity Women’s Aid (of which Claire is an ambassador) published its Nineteen More Child Homicides Report – 19 children who have been killed in the last nine years, by a parent who is a perpetrator of domestic abuse, through child contact.
‘Currently, the rights of a parent to have access to a child takes priority over a child’s safety, and it’s damaging and dangerous,’ says Isabelle Younane from Women’s Aid. ‘This pro-contact culture needs to be challenged, because it’s causing the death and injury of children, as well as long term trauma. The law now sees children as victims of domestic abuse in their own right, and yet family courts still prioritise a parent’s right to access. We want to see this repealed by the Government as a matter of urgency, which we’re hoping they’ll do in the coming months.’
Isabelle says she also hopes for an Ofsted-style body to hold family courts to account, as well as more training for family judges in domestic abuse. ‘Another huge issue in family courts is the accusation of parental alienation, which is when a parent is accused of actively trying to alienate a child from the other parent.’
A recent survey by Channel 4’s Dispatches found allegations of alienation are five times higher in cases of domestic abuse. ‘It’s often a counter allegation in domestic abuse cases, but it has no grounding in fact,’ say Isabelle, who says that children are also weaponised by abusers in custody battles.
Claire agrees: ‘My ex knew the best way to punish me was to take the lives of my boys, and the court let it happen. Perpetrators often come across as charming, while the women accusing them look scared or hysterical, but that’s the fight or flight response coming out. The courts get sucked in by the charm and don’t see the monster behind it.’
Claire says the voices lost in all of this are the children themselves. ‘The children of abusers are not supported, not listened to, and not heard by those making the decisions. The only time Jack’s voice was heard was when he was being carried out of that attic. As he was dying, he told firefighters, “My dad did this, and he did it on purpose.” He told as many people as he could, before he was sedated.’ He died five days later.
Since their deaths, Claire has campaigned to reform family court processes, which has led to change, and in 2020 she was awarded an MBE for services to child safety.
When I speak to her, photos of her sons – handsome and proud in their smart back- to-school uniforms – are hung on the walls behind her. ‘I’m so proud of those boys of mine. Those gorgeous young men, who would be 23 and 20 now,’ she says. ‘Every child deserves to feel safe, and to have a bright future ahead of them. My boys didn’t get that. But I hope their legacy will be to give other children freedom and safety. That way, I’ll know they didn’t die in vain.’
You can sign Claire’s petition at womensaid. org.uk/get-involved/campaign/claires-story