Lotties Law.

Introduce LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) in England and Wales: a statutory framework that triggers urgent action when a child has had no face-to-face parent–child contact with a parent for 150 days or more, and where contact is only restored through court intervention (or remains blocked pending proceedings).

LOTTIE’s Law must require the court to reach a clear legal conclusion on whether the restriction was child-centred, necessary, proportionate and factually supported, and to identify the reasons, triggers and any improper motives, so HLE (Harm through Legalised Exclusion) and status quo
entrenchment cannot take hold.

It must also directly address two linked patterns that repeatedly overlap in practice:

​

1. The Silver Bullet tactic (strategic/exaggerated allegations and emergency processes used to restrict contact and manufacture a new status quo).
2. Child routine blackmail (money-for-contact leverage, including CMS-linked incentives, where financial pressure is used to condition or remove a child’s routine).

​

Why do you want this?

1. The Silver Bullet tactic (strategic/exaggerated allegations and emergency processes used to restrict contact and manufacture a new status quo).2. Child routine blackmail (money-for-contact leverage, including CMS-linked incentives, where financial pressure is used to condition or remove a child’s routine).

This enables HLE (Harm through Legalised Exclusion): a child’s relationship eroded not by proven safeguarding need, but by untested allegations, weak enforcement, and status quo entrenchment.

​

LOTTIE’s Law is needed because the same joined pathway is repeatedly reported:
allegations → emergency restriction → new status quo → financial leverage → routine
destabilisation.
The law must interrupt that pathway early, ensure proper testing where central issues are disputed, and prevent tactics that manufacture a status quo from being rewarded—whether through outcomes, costs, legal aid imbalance, or financial remedy advantage.

​

What should LOTTIE’s Law include?

​

1) 150-day trigger (urgent safeguard) — face-to-face only

If there is no face-to-face parent–child contact for 150+ days (excluding video calls, messages, letters and other indirect contact), the case must enter a defined safeguard route with:

• urgent review,
• a written plan and timetable, and
• active judicial oversight.
This must be treated as a high-risk escalation marker for HLE (Harm through Legalised Exclusion) and status quo entrenchment.

​

2) Duty to decide (no “status quo by default”)

​

The court must make and record a clear determination stating whether the restriction is:

• child-centred, necessary and proportionate, and
• factually supported.

This must include:

• the legal basis relied upon,
• the evidence supporting it,
• the identified risk being managed, and
• what must happen (and by when) for face-to-face contact to resume.
Restrictions must not continue by default or be left as “one of those things”.

​

3) Automatic restoration of the previous status quo where risk isn’t proven

​

Where safeguarding risk is not proven (or can be safely managed), the default outcome must be automatic restoration of the pre-interruption face-to-face routine (previous status quo), with stepping-stones only where genuinely necessary for welfare and with clear deadlines.

Baseline marker (“mark in the sand”): where a parent has offered a defined routine in writing in exchange for money (e.g., “pay X and I will sign 50/50”), that proposed routine must be treated as a clear reference point for the previous intended status quo, and must not later be ignored as if no
shared-care baseline existed.

​

4) Emergency stage safeguards (non-mol / urgent applications)

​

At any emergency non-molestation hearing (or similar urgent relief) where parent–child contact may be affected, the judge must record an explicit decision on:

• whether the court is satisfied the application is protective rather than tactical, and
• whether granting the order risks manufacturing a new status quo in linked child arrangements proceedings.

​

Linked proceedings access: the court must be required to check for, and consider, linked live/recent proceedings (including C100/CAO, divorce petition and financial remedy where applicable) and key dates, so highly relevant context is not invisible at the emergency stage.

Costs consequence on tactical misuse: where an emergency application is later withdrawn/dropped, or allegations are not pursued, and the court determines it was used tactically or unreasonably to affect contact/status quo, the court must be required to consider costs consequences, including the respondent’s reasonable defence costs, so tactical misuse is not cost-free.

​

5) Mandatory judicial attention to child routine blackmail indicators

​

Where chronology shows a money demand or financial pressure (divorce assets, settlement timing, CMS-linked leverage, or “extra” sums) followed by restriction or cessation of contact shortly afterwards, this must be treated as a mandatory red-flag indicator requiring explicit judicial consideration on the record. It must not be minimised as generic “conflict”.

Where there is credible evidence that one parent is unilaterally controlling the routine after a period of broadly equal care—especially where the timing aligns with financial gain—CAFCASS/ICFA and the court must address it explicitly.

​

6) Fact-finding must be available when central issues are disputed

​

Where disputed allegations or coercive control/economic abuse issues are central to contact outcomes and status quo change, the court must have a clear, usable route to proportionate fact-finding/early testing. This route must not be blocked by vague assertions that fact-finding “isn’t beneficial” where the disputed issue is decisive to welfare and contact outcomes.

​

7) CMS reform: remove incentives that reward breach and status quo creation

​

Where there is a child arrangements order and unjustified breach is proven, the system must not allow loss of contact to be converted into financial leverage. CMS should have a safeguarded mechanism to recognise court-ordered arrangements (with appropriate triggers and protections), reducing incentives that reward obstruction while protecting genuine safeguarding cases.

​

8) Fee-free enforcement after final orders (so enforcement is realistic)

​

Once a child arrangements case has reached its natural conclusion and a final order is made, any later enforcement needed due to breaches should be application-fee free (or automatically fee- remitted). Parents must not be priced out of enforcement after exhausting resources in the main proceedings, as this makes non-compliance more effective than the order itself.

​

9) Section 7 / ICFA reforms: itemised evidence, correction rights, and recording

​

To end vague recommendations that cannot be tested:

• Itemised “show the working”: reports must itemise what was considered, accepted, rejected, and treated as uncertain/untested, with brief reasons for each and how conclusions were reached.
• 14-day right of reply: any participating person quoted or relied upon should receive relevant excerpts and have 14 days to submit a confidentiality-safe correction/response if inaccurate or misleading.
• Recording as standard: all substantive CAFCASS/ICFA interviews should be recorded as standard, stored securely, and transcriptable into evidence where either party seeks it (subject to safeguarding/redaction rules).

​

10) Costs, accountability, and “time taken, time back”

​

Where unjustified obstruction is proven, the default should be time taken, time back, with proportionate enforcement and costs consequences where appropriate—so the system does not reward creating a new status quo through non-compliance.

​

11) Legal aid safeguards: review and recovery where misuse is proven

​

Where the court makes findings that the Silver Bullet tactic and/or child routine blackmail occurred, and legal aid was obtained or maintained through material misrepresentation or knowingly misleading allegations, there must be a clear mechanism for:

• mandatory review of the legal aid certificate,
• withdrawal where the statutory test is no longer met (or was never properly met), and
• recovery/ claw back where lawful and proportionate, so misuse does not create a one-sided funded advantage that entrenches a new status quo.

​

12) Financial remedy: mandatory “unreasonable conduct” consideration + rebalancing

​

Where findings confirm the Silver Bullet tactic and/or child routine blackmail and there are ongoing financial remedy proceedings, the court must be required to treat those findings as a mandatory consideration of unreasonable conduct.

The financial remedy court must also have a clear power—and be required to consider using it—to rebalance the financial outcome to reflect reasonable, evidenced costs incurred defending proven tactical misuse (including emergency hearings, repeated listings, report challenges and enforcement steps), so the defending party is not financially punished for resisting proven misuse.

​

13) LOTTIE Register (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) — findings- based + controlled disclosure aligned with Clare’s Law principles

​

Create a court-held, findings-based, privacy-protected register (not public) recording proven:

• malicious/vexatious misuse of emergency safeguarding applications linked to contact outcomes,
• serious patterns of unjustified obstruction causing loss of face-to-face time, and
• proven money-for-contact leverage (child routine blackmail).

Where strictly necessary and lawful, confirmed findings should be capable of informing controlled safeguarding disclosure decision-making aligned with the protective principle behind schemes such as Clare’s Law, without identifying children or publishing restricted material.

​

14) Protected public-interest publishing (child anonymised)

​

Create a clear legal pathway—similar in principle to whistleblower protections—for parents and professionals to publish anonymised public-interest accounts about systemic problems in family justice, provided children cannot be identified and restricted/private material is not disclosed.