When Safeguarding Fails, Not the Law: Why the Presumption Still Matters
Few cases have shaken the public’s conscience more than that of Jack and Paul Sykes, two young boys murdered by their father, David Sykes, in 2014. Their mother, Claire Throssell, has since become an extraordinary advocate for change — determined that no child should suffer as hers did. Her courage, and her campaign for family court reform, deserve nothing but respect and compassion.
But as the government moves to repeal the presumption of parental involvement, we must pause and ask: is it really the presumption that failed — or was it the system entrusted to protect children?
Because in the case of David Sykes, it was not the law that endangered those boys. It was poor risk assessment, systemic failure by Cafcass, and judicial blindness to warning signs. Removing the presumption will not fix that; it risks creating a new problem entirely — where safe, loving parents are cut out of their children’s lives without cause or recourse.
What the Presumption Really Means
The “presumption of parental involvement” — enshrined in the Children and Families Act 2014 — simply means this:
It is presumed that a child’s welfare is best served by the involvement of both parents, unless such involvement would put the child at risk of harm.
That final clause — unless there is a risk of harm — is the safeguard. It is the legal line that protects children from dangerous parents while ensuring that safe, loving parents remain part of their children’s lives. It is not a guarantee of contact. It is not a father’s right or a mother’s privilege. It is a child’s right to the love and care of both parents where safe.
When professionals apply the law correctly, it protects children. When they don’t — when Cafcass fails to assess risk, when judges ignore red flags — tragedy can follow. That is what happened to Jack and Paul.
The presumption did not kill them. Negligence did.
The Case of David Sykes: A Failure of Safeguarding
David Sykes should never have been granted contact. His history of abuse, coercion, and control was known. Claire Throssell raised repeated warnings. Yet the system — the professionals tasked with protecting children — failed to act with the necessary caution.
Five hours of unsupervised contact were permitted. Within those hours, two children lost their lives.
This was not a failure of legislation but of implementation. The same professionals who could misapply the presumption will still misjudge risk even after its repeal. Removing the presumption changes the paperwork, not the practice.
Without better training, supervision, accountability, and culture within Cafcass and the courts, no legislative reform will save children like Jack and Paul.
The Other Side: When the Presumption Was Absent
To understand the risk of abolishing the presumption, we must also look at the case of 10-year-old Sara Shariff.
Sara was murdered in 2023 by her father and stepmother in Woking, Surrey. Her mother, Olga Shariff, had been systematically excluded from her daughter’s life. She raised concerns, wrote to authorities, pleaded to see her child — and was repeatedly ignored.
There was no presumption of parental involvement protecting Sara’s relationship with her mother. There were no “extra loving sets of eyes” to watch over her.
Had that safeguard been there — had her mother’s voice been recognised and her involvement presumed to be in her daughter’s best interests — Sara might still be alive today.
This is the other tragic face of family court failure: not when unsafe parents are granted contact, but when safe parents are shut out. Both stem from the same root problem — professional misjudgement, lack of training, and institutional bias — not from the law itself.
A Balanced System, Not a Broken One
Abolishing the presumption risks turning the clock back to an era when one parent — usually the non-resident one — can be erased from a child’s life by default. That is not progress. That is harm by omission.
The solution is not to remove the principle that children benefit from two loving parents. It is to ensure that the wrong parents don’t get through the gate — that Cafcass and the courts are equipped to distinguish between the genuinely dangerous and the genuinely loving.
We need:
- Better risk assessments — mandatory, evidence-based, and independently verified.
- Cafcass reform — officers must be trained to identify coercive control, but also to recognise when allegations are used manipulatively.
- Judicial accountability — decisions that lead to harm should trigger automatic review.
- Transparency and data — so systemic patterns of error are identified and corrected.
Two Tragedies, One Lesson
Jack and Paul Sykes remind us what happens when abusive parents are allowed access they should never have had.
Sara Shariff reminds us what happens when loving parents are excluded when they should have been there.
The thread running through both cases is not the presumption. It is institutional failure to protect the child’s welfare through sound judgement, evidence, and courage.
If we remove the presumption entirely, we will not prevent another Jack and Paul — we may simply create more Saras.
In Memory and in Resolve
We can and must hold both truths: to mourn deeply for the loss of Claire Throssell’s sons, and to respect her determination to prevent other children suffering. But we must also insist that reform must be based on evidence, not reaction.
The presumption of parental involvement — applied correctly — is a child-safety mechanism, not a threat. It recognises that children flourish when they have access to two safe, loving parents — and that safeguarding, not ideology, should determine when that bond is broken.
We owe it to Jack, Paul, and Sara to get this right — not by scrapping the principles that protect children, but by fixing the systems that keep failing them.
Paul O’Callaghan
Chair, Both Parents Matter
