A mother repeatedly raped by her ex-partner was left “devastated” after the family court permitted the convicted sex offender to have contact with their child.

Kristoffer Paul Arthur White, a serial rapist, was granted unsupervised access to his daughter following a recommendation by a Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) officer, who carried out a risk assessment on behalf of the court.

Not only had White been found by the family court to have raped the child’s mother on three occasions but he also has a criminal conviction for raping a stranger in 2008 and is on the sex offender register. He can be named following an application submitted to the court by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).

The mother told TBIJ of her horror at hearing the recommendation that White should be allowed contact with her daughter, who is of primary school age.

“It was like being told that, despite the court’s findings, Cafcass doesn’t believe you,” she said. “A judge has said it happened. But it doesn’t matter that he’s a convicted rapist and he raped you – he can spend time with your child. It was earth-shattering.”

The girl’s mother went on to successfully appeal the order and has since submitted to the court that Cafcass is an “actively harmful organisation” that is not “fit for purpose”.

In court documents, her legal team said: “That a Cafcass officer… took the view that a man who dragged a young woman into a garden and raped her twice and then went on to rape the mother in these proceedings three times was safe to have contact with a [young] girl in an unsupervised setting, is a damning indictment of Cafcass’s role and its work.”

A spokesperson for Cafcass, which earlier this year received an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted, said they were unable to comment because proceedings have not been concluded.

White’s access to his child was suspended following the appeal and pending a final decision on contact by the court. A children’s guardian from Cafcass was appointed in June this year to represent the girl in relation to the application to publish White’s name.

The new guardian has advised the court that White, a former soldier, “is a danger to women and children and he is unsafe to have any form of contact or involvement” with his child. They have also supported a fresh application by the mother to strip him of his parental responsibility.

The mother said: “I find it concerning that two employees of Cafcass came to polar opposite conclusions regarding safeguarding – it highlights a lack of systems to follow and a lack of awareness of the impact of domestic abuse and sexual assault.”

TBIJ is now able to report the wider background to the case after the court issued a transparency order that permits the mother to talk about what happened.

Living in fear

Prior to the parents’ separation, the mother and child lived in an environment of fear and intimidation due to White’s coercive and aggressive behaviour, the court found.

After a fact finding hearing in December 2022, at which the mother represented herself and the father was represented by a lawyer, District Judge Sophie Harrison made various other serious findings.

They included that on three occasions during the parents’ relationship, the father had raped the mother and that, on one occasion after the relationship ended, he had sexually assaulted her.

Findings in the family court are made by a judge on the balance of probabilities, whereas in criminal court convictions are brought on a standard of proof “beyond reasonable doubt”.

A Cafcass officer filed a report in April 2023 that dealt with the extent and nature of the contact the child should have with her father.

Harrison said the officer was “mindful of the serious nature of the court’s findings and was concerned that the father expressly did not accept these findings”.

Despite this, it was initially recommended that contact could progress from a supported contact centre and into the community. Overnight contact could then happen after at least a year if there had been no difficulties with this arrangement.

Then, in June 2023, Harrison made an interim order that White’s contact with his child could move to being unsupervised in the community.

There was a final hearing on 12 February this year where both parents were represented but only the Cafcass officer gave oral evidence.

The officer shifted her position to say that contact should not take place in White’s home, or overnight, while there was “an unaddressed risk of domestic abuse” and recommended that he self-referred to a domestic abuse perpetrators programme (DAPP).

In a judgment Harrison said she found the Cafcass officer to be a “cogent, child-focussed and sensible witness” who had not promoted “contact at all costs”, as had been suggested by the mother’s barrister, Elisabeth Traugott.

The judge said the officer had recognised both the serious findings against White and the child’s “positive relationship and attachment to her father”. She said contact notes showed the father’s behaviour towards his daughter had been “loving, patient and child-focussed”.

In April 2023 White had told the Cafcass officer he did not accept any of the court’s findings. The officer commented that if he did not accept his behaviour as domestic abuse “there is a high risk he will continue to be abusive”.

It was only at the final hearing that the father, through his barrister, said he accepted the court’s findings and was willing to undertake the DAPP.

Harrison said the Cafcass officer was right to recognise this as positive progress and rejected Traugott’s submission that the court should operate on the basis the father had still shown no acceptance of the findings.

The judge said she was concerned the mother’s proposal to stop or significantly curtail her daughter’s contact with White would deprive the child of a regular and loving presence in her life.

Harrison made a final order for unsupervised community contact between White and his daughter and said he should complete a DAPP before applying to increase his contact.

“Unsafe” contact order

That decision, however, was overturned on appeal following a hearing in April before His Honour Judge Greenfield.

The mother was represented this time by barrister Charlotte Proudman, who told the court Harrison’s order had failed to sufficiently address the risk posed by a convicted rapist to his former partner and their child.

She said White had only “begrudgingly” accepted the court’s findings, had previously accused the mother of lying about the allegations and had not completed a DAPP.

It was the mother’s case that the contact order was “unsafe” and had been made despite the father’s “extremely serious risk profile”.

The court was reminded that White had served four years of a nine-year sentence for raping a teenager in 2008. According to press reports White dragged the 19-year-old into a garden, threatened to kill her and raped her twice.

He was identified through his DNA two years after the attack and convicted in 2011. He denied the offence at the time and continued to deny it during the family proceedings.

Responding to the mother’s grounds for appeal, White said that by the time of the final hearing, community contact with his daughter had been taking place uneventfully for seven months.

His barrister, Thomas Pye, said the proposal to stop contact would cause “disruption and upset” to the girl and would deprive her of a loving presence in her life. He said it had been noted by the Cafcass officer that the parents agreed his daughter enjoyed the contact and had a good relationship with her father.

Greenfield allowed the appeal on two grounds, including that the district judge – having refused the parties permission to give evidence – had not given sufficient weight to the mother’s written statements describing the traumatic impact of the father’s abuse and of the court proceedings.

‘He would exploit any loophole in the system’

The mother said the process of giving evidence about multiple rapes without legal representation until the final hearing had been harrowing.

In her final statement she said: “My self-esteem was destroyed by the father. He systematically took down every recognisable part of myself ... The abuse I lived through has affected every part of my life.”

She said her stress was exacerbated by the expectation she should just be able to move on.

“During the final hearing the Cafcass officer told the court she expected that I, the mother and victim of rape, would over time start to trust the father again. It shows a total lack of training or knowledge of trauma and minimises the lived experience of victims.”

Signed off work with suicidal thoughts, she experienced acute anxiety when she knew her daughter was going to have unsupervised contact with White, according to court documents.

She described suffering sleepless nights at the thought White could go on to harm someone else. “I had a recurring nightmare that without speaking out I would feel guilty if someone else was hurt by him,” she said.

The mother supported TBIJ’s application, submitted with freelance journalist Suzanne Martin, to name White in connection with the family proceedings.

She explained: “I supported the application because [White] is a risk to women, children and the wider community and I believe he would exploit any loophole in the system to hide the fact he’s a sex offender.”

His Honour Judge Moradifar said the facts of the case demonstrated a “compelling public interest argument that prevents the abuser shielding behind his/her rights or those of a child which prevent him/her from being publicly identified.”

In a judgment published in July, he also ruled that naming White was necessary because his “established course of conduct” may expose people not involved in the case to a risk of harm.

The newly appointed guardian acknowledged the public safety argument for naming the sex offender but had opposed the application, claiming the fact there was already information in the public domain about his criminal conviction made further publication unnecessary.

‘Legitimate debate’

The guardian’s opposition to naming White led the mother to claim Cafcass was empowering the father to shield himself behind the child’s rights without any proper regard for his behaviour and the consequences for his victims.

Her barristers, Proudman and Traugott, wrote in court documents: “Cafcass’s position changed from pro-contact at all costs with a rapist father to not supporting any contact only once there was a successful appeal […] and proceedings became the subject of media scrutiny and a transparency order.”

At a hearing before Moradifar in July, Proudman told the court the guardian was being used as “tool to argue in many respects on behalf of the father against publication of his name”.

Representing the children’s guardian, the barrister Oliver Wraight said he took significant issue with a large number of points made on behalf of the mother. They included that Cafcass was a “harmful organisation” and that the guardian was “protecting a rapist”.

He told the court: “Cafcass is not an amorphous body that emits a single view. Guardians provide their views. There is a legitimate public debate on whether children should have contact with fathers who have perpetrated physical or sexual violence.”

He added: “A debate about the way in which Cafcass conducts its duties does not require identification of the father. And we say that not to protect the father – it is about protecting the child.”

White, who represented himself at the July hearing, vehemently opposed the application to name him and said transparency could be achieved without identifying him.

The mother has applied to the court to remove White’s parental rights and introduce a barring order to limit his ability to take her back to court, an application which is supported by the guardian.

In a position statement in response to her application, White consistently referred to false allegations made about him and accused the mother of “parental alienation”.

“The flavour and tenor of those allegations are deeply abusive,” Proudman told Moradifar.

A decision on those matters has been adjourned after White failed to attend the last court hearing in August.

It means that, for the mother, the case drags on. “Him failing to show up to the last hearing feels like his last attempt to control me and his daughter,” she said. “His silence makes me uneasy and is further traumatising.”