Skip Navigation


International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family Advance Access originally published online on August 24, 2006
International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 2006 20(3):317-343; doi:10.1093/lawfam/ebl015
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
20/3/317    most recent
ebl015v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Cobley, C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, Vol. 20, No. 3, © The Author [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Quest for Truth: Substantiating Allegations of Physical Abuse in Criminal Prosecutions and Care Proceedings

Cathy Cobley*

* Senior Lecturer in Law, Cardiff Law School, Cardiff University. email: Cobleyc{at}cardiff.ac.uk

The protection of children from violence is increasingly being placed on national and international societal and political agendas throughout the world. Although responses vary, measures to punish abusers in the criminal courts and measures to protect child victims in the family courts are common to many jurisdictions. When an allegation of abuse is contested, the conflict must be resolved before these punitive or protective measures can be implemented. However, proving that a child has been abused is a process fraught with difficulties. This article explores the concept of proof and illustrates the challenges faced in substantiating allegations of physical abuse in criminal prosecutions and care proceedings in England and Wales. In so doing it considers the relationship between the two kinds of proceedings in the light of their respective punitive and protective objectives. It concludes that, although recent developments may occasionally have blurred the distinction between the two systems, the fundamentally different objectives of each remain and that this distinction justifies apparently conflicting outcomes in the quest for truth.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.