James Carter (see [2009] Gazette, 17 December, 9) appears to have a rather different understanding than I about the way in which family cases, and public law proceedings in particular, are conducted.

First, he refers to them being dealt with ‘in secret’ when they are not. They are dealt with confidentially. There is a substantial and important difference. The media have had right of access to proceedings in the Family Proceedings Court for years. They rarely, if ever, exercise it.

Second, it is generally not the case in family proceedings that expert witnesses ‘have to give evidence for one side or the other’. Indeed, there is abundant case law requiring such witnesses (who more often than not are jointly instructed on behalf of the court) to remember that their primary duty is to the court, not the parties. Moreover, in areas of disputed fact, it is the judge, not the expert, who decides, albeit with the assistance of experts as well as the parties, their witnesses and the advocates.

Third, having practised as a children panel solicitor since 1985, I cannot recall one public law case in which ‘there is only the expert for the local authority’. Any such practice should have been well and truly rooted out by now in any event, following the Protocol for Judicial Case Managment in 2003 and the Public Law Outline in 2008.

Fourth, although he makes fleeting reference to ‘guardians’, Mr Carter appears oblivious of the tandem system of representation in which children’s guardians appoint solicitors to represent each child in every care case, and which involves a rigorous and critical analysis of the local authority’s case and actions. Does he believe we are so wet behind the ears that we take everything a local authority says as gospel, and do nothing to prevent children’s wishes and feelings being ignored, when it is at the very heart of what we do to ensure that this does not happen? If so, he does us a great disservice. Moreover, I can tell him that he is wrong.

If local authorities ‘fail to engage with parents, other professionals and the child’, guardians and children’s solicitors are quick to address that issue directly with the local authority and, in the event they will not listen, the matter is referred to the judge to whom the case has been allocated.

The image painted by Mr Carter is one in which children are taken forever from their families by unscrupulous local authorities who pay experts to peddle their case before a weak and easily persuaded tribunal with nothing to prevent this happening apart from ‘the power of the media’. Mr Carter portrays a system I do not recognise.

Stephen Mannering, Nottingham