Latest news with #GarrickClub
The Guardian
5 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Julie Etchingham ends Garrick Club application after drawn-out process
Julie Etchingham has withdrawn her candidacy to join the Garrick Club, uncomfortable with the protracted process of being vetted by the London club's membership of 1,500 men. The broadcast journalist said she would not comment on her decision, but she is understood to have been uneasy at the level of hostility displayed by men opposed to the admission of women during a candidacy lunch at the club, when members have the opportunity to question prospective members. One member said he understood that with 'hardly any women being elected, it is very uncomfortable to walk into a room full of men scrutinising (and ogling) you'. Only three women have been admitted in the year since members decided to drop the club's men-only rule last May, 193 years after the club was founded. The comedian Matt Lucas was one of six men elected last month alongside one woman, Celia Imrie, who joins fellow actors Judi Dench and Siân Phillips, named as members last year. Several women from the first batch of female nominees for membership have expressed frustration at the club's 'half-hearted' steps towards admitting women. After decades of internal wrangling over the issue, 60% of members voted last May to confirm that women could be admitted to the club. But none of the seven women nominated as prospective candidates last year, all of whom occupy senior roles in journalism, law or academia, have yet been voted in as members. One woman whose candidacy is being considered by the club described the vote to admit women as a cynical public relations gambit, designed to allow the club to continue functioning quietly as essentially a men-only club. She said she found the vetting process absurd. 'We're all being made to feel we need to beg to join; most of us don't give a toss whether we join or not and think they should be making every effort to persuade us,' she said, asking not to be named to avoid alienating her sponsors at the club. She said it was clear that men who opposed women's membership were continuing to fight against the swift admission of women. 'It's frankly ridiculous and embarrassing. What are they scared of?' The actor Juliet Stevenson said she had heard nothing further from the club since she received a phone call from a member early in 2024 asking her if she would like to be nominated. She was uncertain about whether her candidacy had been dropped. 'I was asked if my name could be cited as a potential candidate and I agreed, but since then I've heard nothing more,' she said. 'I haven't set foot in the place. It wouldn't surprise me if they've decided they don't want a troublemaker like me in there.' One recent visitor to the club said the vote to admit women had had no impact on the atmosphere there, with just two women in a dining room full of approximately 50 men. A cohort of men who remain opposed to the rule change have set up a WhatsApp group named Status Quo where they continue to protest against the admission of women. The classicist Mary Beard, the former home secretary Amber Rudd, the Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman and the Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika were among the first nominees to join the club, along with Stevenson, Margaret Casely-Hayford, who was chair of Shakespeare's Globe and was chancellor of Coventry University until last year, and Elizabeth Gloster, a former appeal court judge. None of them have yet been approved for membership. Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Another female prospective candidate said she understood that there was a 'dead man's shoes' element to the process of becoming a member (new members can only be appointed when old members die) but she hoped that the club would soon vote in some female lawyers, to balance the high concentration of senior barristers, judges and solicitors at the club. The club has consistently said it would not fast-track female members, stressing that women may have to wait three or four years for approval. 'It would be a helpful change if they brought in some female members of the legal profession; it would demonstrate the keenness of members to modernise themselves,' she said. A string of high-profile names resigned from the Garrick last year after the Guardian published a long list of senior figures from the civil service, politics, the arts and the judiciary who were members of a club that had repeatedly blocked the admission of women since the 1960s. Listed alongside the king were the then deputy prime minister, dozens of members of the House of Lords and 10 MPs, as well as heads of influential thinktanks, law firms and private equity companies, academics, senior journalists, the head of the Royal Opera House and the head of the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The head of the MI6, Richard Moore, and the then head of the civil service resigned from the club after deciding that membership was incompatible with their organisations' commitment to improving diversity. Several judges also left the club. The Garrick club did not respond to a request for comment.
Times
03-05-2025
- Business
- Times
London's 60+ Oyster card: fair deal or Britain's biggest freebie?
At the Garrick Club, one of London's best-heeled members' societies, a must-have accessory is a free travel pass. Home to chief executives, senior lawyers and members of the great and good, those turning 60 proudly show off their new 60+ London Oyster photocard, which entitles them to free travel in the capital at all times except the morning rush hour. One regular has apparently taken to enjoying sightseeing bus tours of the West End. The twentysomethings working for the national living wage in the Covent Garden shops around the corner, battling runaway rents and inflation, enjoy no such perks. London residents get their complimentary ticket to ride around the capital from the age of 60, several years before the state pension age of 66. It
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Yahoo
‘I was a marked woman': Meet Britain's most controversial barrister
Charlotte Proudman likes to rattle cages. A barrister specialising in family law and domestic abuse cases, she has won several awards, including Woman of the Year at the Women and Diversity in Law Awards last month, in recognition of her campaign to make the Garrick Club open its doors to women. And she has made a lot of headway in the family courts, challenging legislation that discriminates against women in cases of domestic abuse and parental custody, which she writes about in her new book, He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court. But Proudman, 36, has also had a lot of flack. Her constant battle against inequality and her fight for justice in the legal system has led to her being branded a Feminazi by the Daily Mail, and a lot worse ('a joke in legal circles', 'a c—t', an 'insufferable w—ker') by others in her profession. I meet Dr Proudman, as she is known (she has a PhD, in female genital mutilation law and policy), at Goldsmith Chambers at the Temple in London. I had been slightly disconcerted to see a photograph of her on her website, commissioned by King's College, Cambridge, where she did her doctorate between 2013 and 2017, posing in a long legal gown with a bare midriff, next to Ted, her cavapoo, on a chair, but here she is in person – composed, friendly and sympathetic, wearing chunky pearls and a black suit. The best possible riposte to all the contentiousness and criticism levelled against her is her recent victory in court. It was not a case that she was representing as a barrister – it was a case against her, brought by the Bar Standards Board (BSB). In March 2022, a judge named Jonathan Cohen ruled against her in a high-profile divorce case which involved allegations of coercive control, in which Proudman had been representing the wife. Proudman thought the judgment unfair, and took to Twitter (as it was then) to complain that the judge had not taken the issue of domestic abuse seriously. In a 14-thread tweet, she posted a summary of the judgment, and commented that 'this judgment has echoes of the 'boys' club' that still exists among men in powerful positions'. As a result, she was taken to a tribunal by the BSB, which – she claims in her book – had been looking for a test case to establish what barristers could and couldn't say on social media about judges and their judgments. It was completely unexpected, and she was terrified, she says. 'It could have been the end of my career.' In December 2024, after the BSB had pursued it relentlessly for three years, the case was finally dismissed. It was 'a clear instance of sex discrimination', Proudman said at the time. Does she mean if a man had done this they would not have held him to account? 'We know they wouldn't, because we had the comparators – male barristers who had said things about judges and nothing had happened to them. And they didn't just investigate me or give me a warning – they went full force, five charges. It's not insignificant. They really went for it. I do think it was very personal.' Proudman is now taking action against the BSB for discrimination. A senior KC, who does not want to be named, told me that he thought the BSB was entirely wrong to have brought the case, as did many of his colleagues. 'My sense is that there was almost no support at all for the BSB proceedings. Apart from anything else, we all think the BSB are f—king useless.' He says that opinions fell into different categories: 'A lot of people felt some sympathy for Charlotte, but also thought she had brought it on herself, because why did she need to say it publicly, even if it's true? It was asking for trouble. And there is a small group – like me – who thought that the proceedings were wholly wrong, and that the failure of the BSB/SRA [Solicitors Regulation Authority] to tackle the kind of abuse that Charlotte has received from other professionals over the years was also wrong.' Proudman is more philosophical about the abuse she gets these days, though she still finds it hard to take. 'I realise that it comes with the territory. I really struggle when it comes from colleagues.' She does get support from colleagues too, she says, but 'largely in private, because they don't want to speak publicly about it. The loudest voices are often very critical and nasty, and the supportive ones are the quiet ones – so it doesn't look very balanced.' It all stems back to an incident that happened 10 years ago, she believes: the LinkedIn incident. The writing was already on the wall when she started out. She was called to the bar in 2010, and was taken aback by 'the most male environment' she had ever encountered, especially after growing up in an all-female household and going to a university in which 60 per cent of the students were female (she originally got a degree in law and sociology at Keele University in 2009, followed by an MPhil in criminology at Queens' College, Cambridge, in 2011). At lunch with someone who had been assigned as her mentor, she was told, 'You've done really well to get here and get this far, but you'll never make it.' Subsequently, when she applied for work experience at a firm of solicitors, one of the partners suggested that, instead of submitting a CV, she should send a bikini picture instead. In 2015 she received a message in her inbox on LinkedIn, saying, 'Delighted to connect, I appreciate this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture!!! You definitely win the prize for the best Linked in [sic] picture I have ever seen…' It was from Alexander Carter-Silk, a senior partner at a London office of solicitors. Taken aback, Proudman replied saying that she found his message offensive as her use of LinkedIn was entirely for professional reasons and 'not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men'. Then she put a screenshot of the message she had received on Twitter, asking if anyone else had had similar approaches. She was immediately branded an attention seeker, though in fact the attention was instigated by Roll On Friday (a 'cheeky and irreverent' legal website) which retweeted her. From there it was picked up by the Daily Mail. 'Heaven help the poor man who actually tries to ask her out on a date, let alone try to get her into his bed,' wrote the ever sympathetic and sisterly Sarah Vine. 'He'd have better luck propositioning a porcupine.' Two days on the front page of the Mail 'set me up as target practice for the media. I was a marked woman.' Proudman is an only child who grew up in Leek, in Staffordshire. Her mother was a teacher, and a single parent – her father was an alcoholic who died in a car accident when he was drunk when Proudman was four. Her mother was a strong believer in education and ambitious for her daughter, and Proudman's achievements have been pioneering. Her particular speciality is in family law and domestic abuse. In He Said, She Said, she writes in detail about some of the cases she has been involved in, and one of the things she is most proud of is her work in the area of implementing FGM protection orders, together with Forward, a group of lawyers and FGM survivors. Proudman was also responsible for a change in the law at women's refuge centres, where previously, police were able to turn up in full uniform with court orders obtained by perpetrators that the women were fleeing from, which revealed their whereabouts and put the refuges in very difficult positions. On the day I interviewed her she was about to achieve another first, in a case where a woman she had represented whose original allegations of rape and domestic abuse had been dismissed 'in error' (which was reversed two years later) was given the legal right to talk publicly about her case. (The family courts used to be entirely secret, but recently have been open to reporting, after a two-year pilot. Previously, journalists could report what they witnessed in family courts but this will be the first time that a parent has made a successful application to speak out without having to go through the press.) In this case, the judge ruled that the woman's ex-partner, who had countered her accusations with his own – of 'parental alienation' – should have no contact with the child. Parental alienation is something that Proudman takes particular issue with. Its premise is that one parent has turned the child against the other, and it is often used by the estranged parent to get access to the children, or to overturn custody arrangements. It is not new, but has become increasingly weaponised in custody cases, and the reason it's so alarming to Proudman is the fact that allegations of parental alienation are certified by psychologists who are often unregulated. 'Parental alienation syndrome was first recognised by Richard Gardner, in the USA in the 1980s,' she says, and although it has been discredited in the States, 'it's made its way over here. It never used to be as prevalent as it is now – I see it in 98 per cent of the domestic abuse cases that I am involved in. 'It's a contentious label which is now a whole industry – you have a lobby of so-called experts, regulated and unregulated, who specialise in it and purport to diagnose it when they're instructed, which can result in a transfer of residence for the child.' Even if that means returning the child to the parent from whom they have been removed. 'This 'expert' will meet the parents and talk to the children and then offer their opinion in court. Sometimes they will try to pathologise with some sort of psychological condition – histrionic personality disorder is quite a common one we see mothers labelled with, though I certainly don't see fathers labelled with personality disorders. Then, if the experts have a veneer of legitimacy, the courts accept their opinion. 'In this country 'psychologist' is not a regulated title. And it's lucrative – if you win one [case] you get a name for yourself, and you're instructed in more cases, and that becomes your niche.' He Said, She Said details many of the cases in which she has acted to try to protect women in the family courts, and there are some horrific stories: the English girl, Lisa, who had escaped with her child from her abusive partner in Australia, and was ordered to return, even though she feared for her safety; Beth, who wanted another child but whose husband said she had to agree to certain 'conditions', including that she should 'entertain all sex requests – whenever and whatever – with a smile on my face and as a willing participant'; Mary, whose allegation of being raped and strangled by her ex-husband was disbelieved by a judge who, in part, deemed her 'too intelligent' to have allowed it to happen. Or Daria, who was ordered back to Sudan with her daughter, even though the 11-year-old was likely to be subjected to FGM, from which two of Daria's sisters had died. It must be distressing to lose cases, having exhausted all legal avenues. How does Proudman detach herself? 'I'm not sure that I do detach from them – I suppose that's why I'm the person I am. I'm a campaigner as well as a barrister, and that's why I've written the book. Many people – and I'm not criticising them, in some ways I'm quite envious – will finish a case and move on to the next, and that's it for them. But for me – especially if it goes wrong and I think the decision is unjust – I will rant and rave about it, and try everything to secure some sort of justice for these people. I will make it my mission.' She says in the book that she keeps going 'because misogyny and sexism are everywhere in the legal profession'. Does she get disillusioned? Is it mainly male judges she is referring to, or is it to do with a certain generation? Statistics suggest that diversity within the courts is slowly improving, she says, 'but it's at a glacial pace. Change is so incredibly slow. 'I think we probably have to recognise that the legal establishment is still very white, male and privileged. If you look at the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court, the vast majority of those sitting in really senior positions are white public school/Oxbridge-educated men who just don't have the same experience as many of the people in front of them – and I do think that you need a judiciary which reflects the society we live in, so they can understand some of their experiences and what people have been through.' 'There is a substantial 'old school' element,' says my anonymous source, the senior KC, 'who are not wholly unthinking, and I'm sure don't consider themselves misogynistic, but in fact inhabit a world steeped in sexism. They are perfectly happy for women to succeed, and recognise the value and merit of successful women colleagues, but they want them to do so within the established norms of the profession. What they don't like is those who want to do it on their own terms, which I think Charlotte Proudman represents: making a fuss, calling out behaviours, and drawing attention to the massive gender pay disparities. I think that there is a deep-seated defensiveness in the profession, which remains (white) male-dominated at senior levels. I also have a female colleague who feels that Charlotte is doing women no favours, because she is just picking fights. Everyone agrees that women should be treated fairly, but we would all much prefer it if they just quietly got on with the job, instead of bleating about the various insults, obstacles, aggressions etc with which they are confronted.' Which is not Proudman's style. Is she now a member of the Garrick? 'I wish! I'm still waiting for my invitation – it must have got lost in the post. I hope in time they will see it as a real benefit when they actually start opening their doors to more women, rather than the three or four or whatever it is now. I'd want to be a member in order to bring in other women, which is probably why they don't want me.' What advice might she give to aspiring female barristers? 'Just carry on even in the face of adversity – and never give up,' she says, and adds a quote from American lawyer and activist Florynce Kennedy, with which she ends her book: 'Rattle cages, make noise. Cause trouble.' (Hear, hear.) The following is an extract from He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court I squinted into the laptop screen to catch my first sight of my newest client. A pale, cautiously smiling face peered back. We were about to begin a conversation that had been long in the making. Florence was not the first client who had approached me directly to represent her, but she was undoubtedly the only one who'd had to fight in court to earn representation in the first place. Her legal battle against a situation she felt was fundamentally unjust had now been going on for several years. What made this all the more remarkable was that she was still just 15 years old. Florence had been put in this unconventional, unreasonable situation because, five years earlier, her father had obtained a court order saying that she should live with him. After her parents separated when she was eight, she had been living happily with her mother and having regular contact with her father. But because there were, as there often are, difficulties with a child being passed between two parents at odds with each other, the case ended up in court. As a result, Florence was ordered to move from living with the parent she chose to the one she had not. When her case crossed my desk in mid-2021, I was still unfamiliar with the approach her father had used to achieve this, though it would soon become a regular part of my work. I was about to learn about 'parental alienation', the allegation that one parent has turned the children against the other. Soon I would see the almost extraordinary power this can have in court: how a deceptively simple argument, dressed up as science and supported by carefully chosen experts, can be used to upend children's lives, persuading the court that they should live with the parent who was accused of being abusive in the first place. I was late to the party in a case whose history went back seven years to when her parents had separated. Initially, Florence had lived with her mother and had regular contact with her father. In the legal proceedings that began after contact broke down, the court found the father had been abusive on several occasions – he had slapped the mother and 'held Florence down and shouted at her when she had a tantrum'. Far from the case going against him, however, it was turning his way. As his own abusive behaviour was being established by the court, in parallel, the narrative of parental alienation was being established. A child psychiatrist interviewed Florence and gave evidence to the effect that the problems over contact had arisen 'because of the mother's distress and unresolved angry feelings about the breakdown of the relationship [which] was being communicated to Florence'. The judge picked up this thread and concluded that the mother 'was not giving Florence permission in an emotional sense' to have a relationship with her father. She ordered the contact arrangements to be reversed, and for Florence to live with her father. It was a classic example of how parental alienation can be used to flip a family dispute on its head. The father did not have custody of Florence and was found by the court to have been abusive to both her and the mother. Yet with the right expert in his corner, Dr Mark Berelowitz, he had been able to persuade the same judge that the mother was the real root of the problem and to rule that Florence should instead live with him. 'Parental alienation' was the silver bullet that allowed this man to override the objections of his child, and the reality of his former abuse, to get the court to rule in his favour. From the age of 12, Florence had been repeatedly trying to gain her own legal representation, with support from her maternal family, to make the case that she should live primarily with her mother. One judge had refused this, and another actually banned her from making these applications for two years. After the two-year prohibition had passed, she applied again and was rejected once more. Only when she appealed this to the High Court did a decision finally go her way. With Florence then nearing the age of 16, at which point her wishes could no longer legally be ignored, her father consented, and a judge granted the appeal. Now, finally, she had been granted the right to be independently represented and to put her case in front of a High Court judge, Mrs Justice Frances Judd. I argued that Florence being forced to live with her father did little good for their relationship, just as it was unfair to her and her mother. The guardian recommended that she alternate between parents on a weekly basis, which Florence's father supported. We argued that this would not reflect her wish to live primarily with her mother, and the judge ultimately agreed, ordering an arrangement that saw her granted this right for the majority of each month. As my career has gone on, I have increasingly seen parental alienation as a straw that fathers are keen to offer and which professionals are eager to clutch. That is despite the fact that parental alienation does not exist in any credible medical guidance, is not a recognised syndrome, or a condition that can be formally diagnosed. The UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has listed parental alienation syndrome as discredited. The Family Justice Council has also issued draft guidance on parental alienation, stating that instructed experts should be regulated and that 'parental alienation' is not a diagnosable condition or disorder. Yet, in my time as a family law barrister, I have seen it grow rather than diminish in significance. Academic research underlines quite how widespread a legal tactic this has become, weaponised against vulnerable women. In a University of Manchester study, published in September 2023, which assessed and interviewed 45 women who had been through family court proceedings in England after alleging domestic abuse, 39 had been accused of parental alienation. Those mothers described how allegations of alienation 'not only shifted the focus of proceedings once raised but also diminished and often completely sidelined the investigation of [domestic abuse] and child abuse'. Parental alienation is not just junk science and bad law. It is a symptom of how women are too often treated in the family justice system – pathologised, blamed and stripped of their rights. While it is true that one parent can negatively influence their children against the other, such cases are the exception. And they should always be matters of fact for the court to determine, not ones of spurious, quasi-medical diagnosis. Five years on from the original order that had taken her away from her mother, Florence had finally got what she had repeatedly asked for. But it had taken an unreasonable amount of struggling against the system for her to get there. Florence could never get back the years of her childhood she had lost with her mother or the time that she had dedicated to a personal legal battle that started when she was not yet a teenager. He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court, by Dr Charlotte Proudman (W&N, £20), is out on 1 May. Preorder now by clicking here Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
17-04-2025
- Telegraph
‘I was a marked woman': Meet Britain's most controversial barrister
Charlotte Proudman likes to rattle cages. A barrister specialising in family law and domestic abuse cases, she has won several awards, including Woman of the Year at the Women and Diversity in Law Awards last month, in recognition of her campaign to make the Garrick Club open its doors to women. And she has made a lot of headway in the family courts, challenging legislation that discriminates against women in cases of domestic abuse and parental custody, which she writes about in her new book, He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court. But Proudman, 36, has also had a lot of flack. Her constant battle against inequality and her fight for justice in the legal system has led to her being branded a Feminazi by the Daily Mail, and a lot worse ('a joke in legal circles', 'a c—t ', an 'insufferable w—ker') by others in her profession. I meet Dr Proudman, as she is known (she has a PhD, in female genital mutilation law and policy), at Goldsmith Chambers at the Temple in London. I had been slightly disconcerted to see a photograph of her on her website, commissioned by King's College, Cambridge, where she did her doctorate between 2013 and 2017, posing in a long legal gown with a bare midriff, next to Ted, her cavapoo, on a chair, but here she is in person – composed, friendly and sympathetic, wearing chunky pearls and a black suit. The best possible riposte to all the contentiousness and criticism levelled against her is her recent victory in court. It was not a case that she was representing as a barrister – it was a case against her, brought by the Bar Standards Board (BSB). In March 2022, a judge named Jonathan Cohen ruled against her in a high-profile divorce case which involved allegations of coercive control, in which Proudman had been representing the wife. Proudman thought the judgment unfair, and took to Twitter (as it was then) to complain that the judge had not taken the issue of domestic abuse seriously. In a 14-thread tweet, she posted a summary of the judgment, and commented that 'this judgment has echoes of the 'boys' club' that still exists among men in powerful positions'. As a result, she was taken to a tribunal by the BSB, which – she claims in her book – had been looking for a test case to establish what barristers could and couldn't say on social media about judges and their judgments. It was completely unexpected, and she was terrified, she says. 'It could have been the end of my career.' In December 2024, after the BSB had pursued it relentlessly for three years, the case was finally dismissed. It was 'a clear instance of sex discrimination', Proudman said at the time. Does she mean if a man had done this they would not have held him to account? 'We know they wouldn't, because we had the comparators – male barristers who had said things about judges and nothing had happened to them. And they didn't just investigate me or give me a warning – they went full force, five charges. It's not insignificant. They really went for it. I do think it was very personal.' Proudman is now taking action against the BSB for discrimination. A senior KC, who does not want to be named, told me that he thought the BSB was entirely wrong to have brought the case, as did many of his colleagues. 'My sense is that there was almost no support at all for the BSB proceedings. Apart from anything else, we all think the BSB are f—king useless.' He says that opinions fell into different categories: 'A lot of people felt some sympathy for Charlotte, but also thought she had brought it on herself, because why did she need to say it publicly, even if it's true? It was asking for trouble. And there is a small group – like me – who thought that the proceedings were wholly wrong, and that the failure of the BSB/SRA [Solicitors Regulation Authority] to tackle the kind of abuse that Charlotte has received from other professionals over the years was also wrong.' Proudman is more philosophical about the abuse she gets these days, though she still finds it hard to take. 'I realise that it comes with the territory. I really struggle when it comes from colleagues.' She does get support from colleagues too, she says, but 'largely in private, because they don't want to speak publicly about it. The loudest voices are often very critical and nasty, and the supportive ones are the quiet ones – so it doesn't look very balanced.' It all stems back to an incident that happened 10 years ago, she believes: the LinkedIn incident. 'I was a marked woman' The writing was already on the wall when she started out. She was called to the bar in 2010, and was taken aback by 'the most male environment' she had ever encountered, especially after growing up in an all-female household and going to a university in which 60 per cent of the students were female (she originally got a degree in law and sociology at Keele University in 2009, followed by an MPhil in criminology at Queens' College, Cambridge, in 2011). At lunch with someone who had been assigned as her mentor, she was told, 'You've done really well to get here and get this far, but you'll never make it.' Subsequently, when she applied for work experience at a firm of solicitors, one of the partners suggested that, instead of submitting a CV, she should send a bikini picture instead. In 2015 she received a message in her inbox on LinkedIn, saying, 'Delighted to connect, I appreciate this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture!!! You definitely win the prize for the best Linked in [sic] picture I have ever seen…' It was from Alexander Carter-Silk, a senior partner at a London office of solicitors. Taken aback, Proudman replied saying that she found his message offensive as her use of LinkedIn was entirely for professional reasons and 'not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men'. Then she put a screenshot of the message she had received on Twitter, asking if anyone else had had similar approaches. She was immediately branded an attention seeker, though in fact the attention was instigated by Roll On Friday (a 'cheeky and irreverent' legal website) which retweeted her. From there it was picked up by the Daily Mail. 'Heaven help the poor man who actually tries to ask her out on a date, let alone try to get her into his bed,' wrote the ever sympathetic and sisterly Sarah Vine. 'He'd have better luck propositioning a porcupine.' Two days on the front page of the Mail 'set me up as target practice for the media. I was a marked woman.' Proudman is an only child who grew up in Leek, in Staffordshire. Her mother was a teacher, and a single parent – her father was an alcoholic who died in a car accident when he was drunk when Proudman was four. Her mother was a strong believer in education and ambitious for her daughter, and Proudman's achievements have been pioneering. Her particular speciality is in family law and domestic abuse. In He Said, She Said, she writes in detail about some of the cases she has been involved in, and one of the things she is most proud of is her work in the area of implementing FGM protection orders, together with Forward, a group of lawyers and FGM survivors. Proudman was also responsible for a change in the law at women's refuge centres, where previously, police were able to turn up in full uniform with court orders obtained by perpetrators that the women were fleeing from, which revealed their whereabouts and put the refuges in very difficult positions. On the day I interviewed her she was about to achieve another first, in a case where a woman she had represented whose original allegations of rape and domestic abuse had been dismissed 'in error' (which was reversed two years later) was given the legal right to talk publicly about her case. (The family courts used to be entirely secret, but recently have been open to reporting, after a two-year pilot. Previously, journalists could report what they witnessed in family courts but this will be the first time that a parent has made a successful application to speak out without having to go through the press.) In this case, the judge ruled that the woman's ex-partner, who had countered her accusations with his own – of 'parental alienation' – should have no contact with the child. Parental alienation is something that Proudman takes particular issue with. Its premise is that one parent has turned the child against the other, and it is often used by the estranged parent to get access to the children, or to overturn custody arrangements. It is not new, but has become increasingly weaponised in custody cases, and the reason it's so alarming to Proudman is the fact that allegations of parental alienation are certified by psychologists who are often unregulated. 'Parental alienation syndrome was first recognised by Richard Gardner, in the USA in the 1980s,' she says, and although it has been discredited in the States, 'it's made its way over here. It never used to be as prevalent as it is now – I see it in 98 per cent of the domestic abuse cases that I am involved in. 'It's a contentious label which is now a whole industry – you have a lobby of so-called experts, regulated and unregulated, who specialise in it and purport to diagnose it when they're instructed, which can result in a transfer of residence for the child.' Even if that means returning the child to the parent from whom they have been removed. 'This 'expert' will meet the parents and talk to the children and then offer their opinion in court. Sometimes they will try to pathologise with some sort of psychological condition – histrionic personality disorder is quite a common one we see mothers labelled with, though I certainly don't see fathers labelled with personality disorders. Then, if the experts have a veneer of legitimacy, the courts accept their opinion. 'In this country 'psychologist' is not a regulated title. And it's lucrative – if you win one [case] you get a name for yourself, and you're instructed in more cases, and that becomes your niche.' 'You need a judiciary which reflects the society we live in' He Said, She Said details many of the cases in which she has acted to try to protect women in the family courts, and there are some horrific stories: the English girl, Lisa, who had escaped with her child from her abusive partner in Australia, and was ordered to return, even though she feared for her safety; Beth, who wanted another child but whose husband said she had to agree to certain 'conditions', including that she should 'entertain all sex requests – whenever and whatever – with a smile on my face and as a willing participant'; Mary, whose allegation of being raped and strangled by her ex-husband was disbelieved by a judge who, in part, deemed her 'too intelligent' to have allowed it to happen. Or Daria, who was ordered back to Sudan with her daughter, even though the 11-year-old was likely to be subjected to FGM, from which two of Daria's sisters had died. It must be distressing to lose cases, having exhausted all legal avenues. How does Proudman detach herself? 'I'm not sure that I do detach from them – I suppose that's why I'm the person I am. I'm a campaigner as well as a barrister, and that's why I've written the book. Many people – and I'm not criticising them, in some ways I'm quite envious – will finish a case and move on to the next, and that's it for them. But for me – especially if it goes wrong and I think the decision is unjust – I will rant and rave about it, and try everything to secure some sort of justice for these people. I will make it my mission.' She says in the book that she keeps going 'because misogyny and sexism are everywhere in the legal profession'. Does she get disillusioned? Is it mainly male judges she is referring to, or is it to do with a certain generation? Statistics suggest that diversity within the courts is slowly improving, she says, 'but it's at a glacial pace. Change is so incredibly slow. 'I think we probably have to recognise that the legal establishment is still very white, male and privileged. If you look at the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court, the vast majority of those sitting in really senior positions are white public school/Oxbridge-educated men who just don't have the same experience as many of the people in front of them – and I do think that you need a judiciary which reflects the society we live in, so they can understand some of their experiences and what people have been through.' 'There is a substantial 'old school' element,' says my anonymous source, the senior KC, 'who are not wholly unthinking, and I'm sure don't consider themselves misogynistic, but in fact inhabit a world steeped in sexism. They are perfectly happy for women to succeed, and recognise the value and merit of successful women colleagues, but they want them to do so within the established norms of the profession. What they don't like is those who want to do it on their own terms, which I think Charlotte Proudman represents: making a fuss, calling out behaviours, and drawing attention to the massive gender pay disparities. I think that there is a deep-seated defensiveness in the profession, which remains (white) male-dominated at senior levels. I also have a female colleague who feels that Charlotte is doing women no favours, because she is just picking fights. Everyone agrees that women should be treated fairly, but we would all much prefer it if they just quietly got on with the job, instead of bleating about the various insults, obstacles, aggressions etc with which they are confronted.' Which is not Proudman's style. Is she now a member of the Garrick? 'I wish! I'm still waiting for my invitation – it must have got lost in the post. I hope in time they will see it as a real benefit when they actually start opening their doors to more women, rather than the three or four or whatever it is now. I'd want to be a member in order to bring in other women, which is probably why they don't want me.' What advice might she give to aspiring female barristers? 'Just carry on even in the face of adversity – and never give up,' she says, and adds a quote from American lawyer and activist Florynce Kennedy, with which she ends her book: 'Rattle cages, make noise. Cause trouble.' (Hear, hear.) The following is an extract from He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court The silver bullet I squinted into the laptop screen to catch my first sight of my newest client. A pale, cautiously smiling face peered back. We were about to begin a conversation that had been long in the making. Florence was not the first client who had approached me directly to represent her, but she was undoubtedly the only one who'd had to fight in court to earn representation in the first place. Her legal battle against a situation she felt was fundamentally unjust had now been going on for several years. What made this all the more remarkable was that she was still just 15 years old. Florence had been put in this unconventional, unreasonable situation because, five years earlier, her father had obtained a court order saying that she should live with him. After her parents separated when she was eight, she had been living happily with her mother and having regular contact with her father. But because there were, as there often are, difficulties with a child being passed between two parents at odds with each other, the case ended up in court. As a result, Florence was ordered to move from living with the parent she chose to the one she had not. When her case crossed my desk in mid-2021, I was still unfamiliar with the approach her father had used to achieve this, though it would soon become a regular part of my work. I was about to learn about 'parental alienation', the allegation that one parent has turned the children against the other. Soon I would see the almost extraordinary power this can have in court: how a deceptively simple argument, dressed up as science and supported by carefully chosen experts, can be used to upend children's lives, persuading the court that they should live with the parent who was accused of being abusive in the first place. I was late to the party in a case whose history went back seven years to when her parents had separated. Initially, Florence had lived with her mother and had regular contact with her father. In the legal proceedings that began after contact broke down, the court found the father had been abusive on several occasions – he had slapped the mother and 'held Florence down and shouted at her when she had a tantrum'. Far from the case going against him, however, it was turning his way. As his own abusive behaviour was being established by the court, in parallel, the narrative of parental alienation was being established. A child psychiatrist interviewed Florence and gave evidence to the effect that the problems over contact had arisen 'because of the mother's distress and unresolved angry feelings about the breakdown of the relationship [which] was being communicated to Florence'. The judge picked up this thread and concluded that the mother 'was not giving Florence permission in an emotional sense' to have a relationship with her father. She ordered the contact arrangements to be reversed, and for Florence to live with her father. It was a classic example of how parental alienation can be used to flip a family dispute on its head. The father did not have custody of Florence and was found by the court to have been abusive to both her and the mother. Yet with the right expert in his corner, Dr Mark Berelowitz, he had been able to persuade the same judge that the mother was the real root of the problem and to rule that Florence should instead live with him. 'Parental alienation' was the silver bullet that allowed this man to override the objections of his child, and the reality of his former abuse, to get the court to rule in his favour. My new book, He Said, She Said, covers a collection of real family court cases that reveal how the system protects some and fails too many. This book is my call to action for change. Out 1 May. Preorder now. 🔗 🔗 — Dr Charlotte Proudman (@DrProudman) March 20, 2025 From the age of 12, Florence had been repeatedly trying to gain her own legal representation, with support from her maternal family, to make the case that she should live primarily with her mother. One judge had refused this, and another actually banned her from making these applications for two years. After the two-year prohibition had passed, she applied again and was rejected once more. Only when she appealed this to the High Court did a decision finally go her way. With Florence then nearing the age of 16, at which point her wishes could no longer legally be ignored, her father consented, and a judge granted the appeal. Now, finally, she had been granted the right to be independently represented and to put her case in front of a High Court judge, Mrs Justice Frances Judd. I argued that Florence being forced to live with her father did little good for their relationship, just as it was unfair to her and her mother. The guardian recommended that she alternate between parents on a weekly basis, which Florence's father supported. We argued that this would not reflect her wish to live primarily with her mother, and the judge ultimately agreed, ordering an arrangement that saw her granted this right for the majority of each month. As my career has gone on, I have increasingly seen parental alienation as a straw that fathers are keen to offer and which professionals are eager to clutch. That is despite the fact that parental alienation does not exist in any credible medical guidance, is not a recognised syndrome, or a condition that can be formally diagnosed. The UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has listed parental alienation syndrome as discredited. The Family Justice Council has also issued draft guidance on parental alienation, stating that instructed experts should be regulated and that 'parental alienation' is not a diagnosable condition or disorder. Yet, in my time as a family law barrister, I have seen it grow rather than diminish in significance. Academic research underlines quite how widespread a legal tactic this has become, weaponised against vulnerable women. In a University of Manchester study, published in September 2023, which assessed and interviewed 45 women who had been through family court proceedings in England after alleging domestic abuse, 39 had been accused of parental alienation. Those mothers described how allegations of alienation 'not only shifted the focus of proceedings once raised but also diminished and often completely sidelined the investigation of [domestic abuse] and child abuse'. Parental alienation is not just junk science and bad law. It is a symptom of how women are too often treated in the family justice system – pathologised, blamed and stripped of their rights. While it is true that one parent can negatively influence their children against the other, such cases are the exception. And they should always be matters of fact for the court to determine, not ones of spurious, quasi-medical diagnosis. Five years on from the original order that had taken her away from her mother, Florence had finally got what she had repeatedly asked for. But it had taken an unreasonable amount of struggling against the system for her to get there. Florence could never get back the years of her childhood she had lost with her mother or the time that she had dedicated to a personal legal battle that started when she was not yet a teenager. He Said, She Said: Truth, Trauma and the Struggle for Justice in Family Court, by Dr Charlotte Proudman (W&N, £20), is out on 1 May. Preorder now by clicking here
The Guardian
29-01-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Members of London's Savile Club vote against letting women join
The Savile Club, one of London's last remaining gentleman's clubs, has opted to preserve its men-only status, with members voting against reforming the rules to allow women to join. During a heated emergency general meeting on Tuesday evening, about 53% of members present rejected a motion proposing redrafting the club's regulations in order to permit women to be admitted to the 157-year-old organisation. Members opposed to the admission of women, described the club as a rare place where 'men can be themselves without pretension' and said the Savile was 'under attack from the woke mind virus', one attender said. They argued that the 'dynamics in the bar and the camaraderie' would be damaged by the arrival of female members. At least five men were understood to have resigned in protest at the outcome. After the vote, a long stream of mostly white men wearing sober ties and suits, many with umbrellas, a few in claret-coloured trousers or tweed jackets, waistcoats and bow ties, carrying their overcoats over their arms, left the central London Thistle hotel, which hosted the event. Most refused to comment, except for one man who remarked: 'We won! No women.' The vote came as several of the capital's surviving gentlemen's clubs wrestle with whether they should change their membership rules to admit women after last year's decision by members of the Garrick Club to abandon its men-only status. The Savile Club was established in 1868 as a meeting place for writers and artists and its current membership of upwards of 1,000 people is said to include journalists, academics, musicians, scriptwriters, television executives, vicars and City workers, who pay about £1,900 in annual subscriptions. Its white stucco Mayfair building has a large ballroom, a snooker room, a library, a dark wood-panelled bar, a marble-columned dining room with a menu by Michelin-starred chef, Michael James. Briefcases, business papers, mobile phones and newspapers are not permitted in the club's main rooms. Women are allowed inside as guests, but need to be accompanied by the man who has invited them in. Members arguing in favour of changing the rules to allow women to join said that the club's no-women policy was making it harder to rent out rooms in the Brooke Street building and was consequently harming club revenues, according to one member who attended. One speaker told the meeting that his son's employers, Google, had informed him that it was now unacceptable to host meetings at the club. 'We have lost, and may continue to lose, friends who will feel they cannot continue at a club that decides to continue not to accept women,' a written summary of arguments in favour of allowing women to join stated. 'If we want the best members, why limit ourselves to half the potential candidates when there are so many women, in the arts and elsewhere, who would make excellent Savilians?' Attempting to explain the appeal of a men-only club, one member said he thought men liked the idea of a 'man cave, a place where blokes feel that they can go and unwind'. An acrimonious atmosphere had developed in recent weeks over preparations for the emergency general meeting, as some members opposed to women joining threatened to take out a high court injunction to prevent the club from allowing people to register their votes remotely. In the face of this legal threat, club officials last week decided to abandon plans for remote voting. 'The older members, many of whom were unable to make it to the meeting in person, tend to be more in favour of women. It's the younger members who are more opposed to women,' one attender said, asking not to be named because club rules require members not to speak about the organisation. He described the vote as 'disappointing'. 'The Savile now seems to have an unfair share of young fogeys from the City and political consultancies who enjoy throwing their weight and cash around.' The 141-year-old Flyfishers' Club, which occupies rooms on the top floor of the Savile building, voted to admit women in October, after several high-profile female anglers complained about being excluded. The Savile has been contacted for comment.
