Speech by Lord Justice McFarlane: Contact: a point of view

FamilyPresident of the Family DivisionSpeeches

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Keynote Address

Introduction

In opening today’s conference, which is focused upon the topic of ‘contact’, I have been invited to express a point of view and I wish to do so by highlighting three separate topics: adoption, contact in adoption and intractable private law disputes. It might be thought that the third of these topics is unrelated to the first two but, as I will suggest, in terms of its impact upon the child and any family members she no longer sees, there is a need for us to recognise that these cases have much in common with cases of adoption.