Cafcass apologised for factual errors in its report

What happened

Mr J was involved in family court proceedings relating to contact with his two young sons. Mr J was generally unhappy with the way Cafcass handled his case and the contents of its report to the court about future contact arrangements. He felt the Cafcass officer involved was biased against him and had overlooked his evidence. He also complained that the Cafcass report was inaccurate.

What we found

We partly upheld Mr J's complaint, as many of the points he raised related to the officer's professional judgment and would be best addressed in court.

However, Cafcass' report did include some factual inaccuracies. For example, it had misinterpreted information from the local authority and attributed information to Mr J when it actually related to a different person who happened to have a similar surname to Mr J.

Cafcass also overlooked a reference on updated police record checks which confirmed that Mr J had been found not guilty of breaching a non-molestation order. As a result, its report wrongly stated that Mr J had breached the order, when he had been cleared of this offence earlier that month.

Cafcass could have handled some of Mr J's correspondence better as some letters went unanswered and some phone calls were not returned.

Putting it right

Cafcass apologised to Mr J for the factual inaccuracies in the report, and for its communication. It also wrote to the court to correct the errors in the report.