Today a legal challenge to the benefit cap will be brought by three families, two of them victims of domestic violence, in the court of appeal. The benefit cap has wide implications. Solicitor Rebekah Carrier describes it as "catastrophic, cruel and arbitrary". The cap limits a family's total benefits to £500 a week (including child benefit) and mothers and children can be left destitute after paying extortionate rents, even for social housing and refuges. As a result, many may be trapped, unable to leave their home and tied to the income of a violent partner. Women Against Rape have issued a petition to end it.
One family, a mother and three daughters, was in refuges and temporary accommodation, moving six times before they could safely return home. If they lose this appeal, they may be left, after rent, with no food money (emergency payments from the local authority are discretionary and temporary), and this by itself is a reason that children can be taken into care. For now mother and children are together. But for how long?
Domestic violence is commonly used to take children away from their mothers. Cathy Ashley, chief executive of the charity Family Rights Group (FRG), has said: "Our data tells us … that the state's way of dealing with domestic violence is often to end up with a child being made subject to child protection plans." The FRG documents that domestic violence – not parental mental illness, drugs or alcohol – is now the main reason children are taken from their mothers. No one so far, except grief-stricken mothers, has called this forced separation for what it is: state child abuse.
For years the courts have torn families apart. Parents and advocates blame the secrecy of the family courts: as cases are heard behind closed doors, there is no public scrutiny of evidence used to justify taking children away. Earlier this month Lord Justice Munby, president of the family division, instructed that judgments must be public and reportableunless a judge orders against it. It is a first step but comes too late for many families, such as in the following cases.
The benefit cap is supporting state child abuse (England)
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