My correspondence with Cafcass about Karen and Nick Woodall

Karen Woodall appears to have a hotline into Cafcass headquarters. On 25 May 2017 I wrote to Sir Anthony Douglas, the Chief Executive of Cafcass, asking him about a conference he had spoken at, which was hosted by the Centre for Separated Families. I also sent him a compilation of Karen Woodall’s blog posts, containing numerous lurid criticisms of him an Cafcass.

His assistant wrote back the following day to say that he had no recollection of the conference and that Cafcass had “no relationship with Ms Woodall in relation to training”.

On 13 June 2017 Cafcass Governance wrote to me, saying that Karen Woodall had submitted a Subject Access Request and asking whether I gave my consent for Cafcass to disclose my information. I wrote back the following day, expressing my surprise that Karen Woodall appeared to know about my email, given that Cafcass claimed to have no relationship with her.

On 20 June 2017 I wrote to Cafcass Governance, asking for my information not to be disclosed to Karen Woodall, on the grounds that she had friends in high places and that there was an extreme power imbalance between us.

On 21 June 2017 I was shocked to read Karen Woodall’s blog, in which she demanded: “If the obsessive stalker would like to make yourself known to me I can give you a complete history of child maintenance reform instead of the made up potted history you are peddling which was brought to my attention last week.”

The blog was highly unflattering to Sir Anthony Douglas, therefore I cannot imagine that he publicised it to the rank and file in Cafcass. I draw the conclusion that someone in his inner circle in Cafcass was/is close to Karen Woodall and told her about my email, without going so far as to divulge my identity.

I have outlined the correspondence below.

25 May 2017

Dear Mr Douglas

You were one of the headline speakers at a conference held in October 2008 by the Centre for Separated Families, alongside Iain Duncan Smith, Stephen Geraghty and Karen Woodall. I am a mother in London trying to find out why the Government has shown so little enthusiasm for collecting any child maintenance for my son since 2010, and all roads seem to lead back to the child maintenance reforms of 2012, and to Iain Duncan Smith and Stephen Geraghty's long association with Karen and Nick Woodall of the Centre for Separated Families. This was a small charity in York which the Woodalls were promoting as a 'national’ charity as early as 2006, even while it owed ever increasing sums to HMRC for unpaid PAYE and NICs. (It was eventually dissolved in December 2016 owing nearly £180,000 to HMRC). I am intrigued as to how they managed to get such a prestigious and illustrious line up of speakers for the conference, where the venue was, and whether attendance was free or charged.

If you remember anything about the conference, I would be most grateful if you would get in touch. My email is [redacted] and my phone number is [redacted]. Please note that I have never had any involvement with the family courts or Cafcass.

This is a link to a leaflet about the conference: https://www.separatedfamilies.info/app/download/810708210/Putting%20Children%20First%20Policy%20Document.pdf?t=1225474242.

You might be interested to know that Karen Woodall claims to train Cafcass officers all over the United Kingdom on the subject of ‘parental alienation’ through the couple’s Family Separation Clinic (which has submitted accounts for a dormant company to Companies House since its incorporation in 2014). You might also be interested to read her opinions on you, Cafcass, and many other individuals and organisations on her blog. I have collected all of her blog posts into one document so that interested parties can search the over one thousand pages for what they are looking for. Simply go to ‘find’ and then type in your name, or Gingerbread, Women’s Aid, Liz Trinder or feminism, for example, and I imagine you will be somewhat surprised at the opinions expressed. To read blog entries on Karen Woodall’s blog itself, simply click on the underlined web links.

Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you.

26 May 2017

Dear Ms [redacted]

Thank you for your email of 25th May 2017 for Anthony Douglas. I am writing to acknowledge receipt and to confirm that your email was passed to Anthony who has now read your email and has noted your points. Unfortunately Anthony does not recall the conference in 2008 at all. I can also confirm that Cafcass has no relationship with Ms Woodall in relation to training.

Yours sincerely,

Claire Evans

Business Services Officer (Chief Executive & FJYPB)

27 May 2017

Dear Ms Evans

Thank you for your very quick reply.

Karen Woodall does appear to have trained Cafcass Cymru on 15 November 2012, but I now realise this is a separate organisation.

And in her blog, she has claimed to have trained Cafcass in Derby and the Midlands in 2015 and in England 2016. This would probably have been done in the name of the Family Separation Clinic.

Other claims made in her blog, such as training barristers at No. 5 Chambers and Withers, are corroborated by other evidence on the internet, so I thought it likely that her claims to have trained Cafcass staff were true.

Yours sincerely

8 June 2017

Dear Ms [redacted],

Thank you for your email sent and received on 27th May 2017. I would like to acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely,

Claire Evans

Business Services Officer (Chief Executive & FJYPB)

13 June 2017

Dear Ms [redacted],

The Data Protection Act 1998 gives individuals the right to find out whether their personal data is held by public organisations, and, if so, what this is. This is known as a Subject Access Request (SAR).

Cafcass have been asked to complete a Subject Access Request for a Miss Karen Woodall from the Family Separation Clinic.

In the process of responding to this request, we have identified Miss Woodall’s personal data which was provided by you. Please find this attached.

We would be grateful if you could read the attached material and let us know whether or not you consent to its disclosure within two weeks, by 26 June 2017.

If we do not hear from you by 26 June 2017, we may decide to disclose the information where we consider this reasonable, so please let us know if there are any reasons why the information should not be disclosed.

Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Governance Team | Cafcass

14 June 2017

Dear Ms Evans

On 26 May 2017 you told me that Cafcass has had no relationship to Karen Woodall or the Family Separation Clinic or the Centre for Separated Families. So I was very surprised yesterday when I received the following email from Cafcass:

Dear Ms [redacted],

Cafcass have been asked to complete a Subject Access Request for a Miss Karen Woodall from the Family Separation Clinic.

In the process of responding to this request, we have identified Miss Woodall’s personal data which was provided by you. Please find this attached.

We would be grateful if you could read the attached material and let us know whether or not you consent to its disclosure within two weeks, by 26 June 2017.

Your assistance in this matter is greatly appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Governance Team | Cafcass

If Cafcass has had no relationship to Karen Woodall, I do not understand why she would wish to make a Subject Access Request. Furthermore, it seems odd that she has made her request just a couple of weeks after I have raised concerns with you.

Please can you confirm whether you have, in fact, re-checked your information following my second email, and whether you have found that Ms Woodall has trained Cafcass staff, and whether my emails have precipitated some kind of action on your part, which has led to Ms Karen Woodall making her Subject Access Request?

I look forward to your reply.

14 June 2017

Dear Sir or Madam

On 25 May 2017 I wrote an email to Anthony Douglas, the Chief Executive of Cafcass, about Karen Woodall, the Family Separation Clinic and the Centre for Separated Families.

On 26 May 2017 Claire Evans informed me via email that there has never been any relationship between Cafcass and Karen Woodall, the Family Separation Clinic or the Centre for Separated Families.

Therefore I was very surprised yesterday to receive your email (below) asking for my permission to pass on details of my enquiry to Karen Woodall of the Family Separation Clinic, who has made a Subject Access Request.

I cannot understand why Karen Woodall would make a Subject Access Request to Cafcass unless she does have a relationship with Cafcass. Please explain the nature of any relationship between Cafcass and Karen Woodall, the Family Separation Clinic and the Centre for Separated Families. I look forward to receiving your explanation before I give my permission for you to share details of my enquiry with Karen Woodall.

Furthermore, I make the following request under the Freedom of Information Act:

Please give details of any training or education which has ever been provided to Cafcass employees by Karen Woodall, Nick Woodall, the Family Separation Clinic, the Centre for Separated Families, Jersey Centre for Separated Families, Isle of Wight Separated Families, or Separated Families (UK) Ltd. If possible, the details should include the date and duration of the training, the venue of the training, the title and content of the training, and any payments made for the training.

I look forward to your reply as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully

20 June 2017

Dear Ms [redacted],

Thank you for your email and your email to Ms Claire Evans received on 14 June 2017.

The Data Protection Act 1998 gives all individuals the right to access any of their personal data held by an organisation. The individual who seeks that information has no obligation to inform the organisation why they are asking for the information or what precipitated the request. Cafcass is under a duty to disclose all personal data held but if any data identifies a third party their consent may be sought before disclosing it to the individual making the Subject Access Request (SAR). As your email contains personal data and you are identified as the author of the email we are asking whether you consent to that email being disclosed as part of the SAR.

Please find attached the Subject Access Request (SAR) factsheet of Cafcass for your information and you will note that there is a time limit in which the organisation has to respond. Please could you confirm whether you consent to your email addressed to Cafcass being shared with Ms Woodall.

There is no relationship between Ms Woodall and Cafcass. Any individual has a right to make a Subject Access Request regardless of whether a relationship exists.

In response to your Freedom of Information request, Cafcass has no records of any training or education delivered by Karen Woodall, Nick Woodall, the Family Separation Clinic, the Centre for Separated Families, Jersey Centre for Separated Families, Isle of Wight Separated Families, or Separated Families (UK) Ltd being commissioned by Cafcass. Cafcass does not hold information as to whether any individual members of staff may have attended any external training or education delivered by any of the above mentioned individuals or groups.

Kind regards

Governance Team | Cafcass

21 June 2017

Dear Cafcass Governance and Ms Evans

Thank you for your reply.

I have decided to ask you not to divulge the content of my emails with Karen Woodall and the Family Separation Clinic. I am a single mother on an extremely low income. Karen and Nick Woodall are a couple with close connections to Iain Duncan Smith, the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Tim Loughton, the former Minister for Education, and Maria Miller, the former Minister for Culture, Minister for Women and Equalities, and Minister for Disabled People. I feel that the power imbalance is extreme.

I still find it decidedly odd that Karen Woodall should make a Subject Access Request to an organisation with which she has never had any relationship.

I wish to reiterate that I have never met Karen or Nick Woodall or corresponded with either of them in any way. My feelings and opinions on Cafcass are entirely neutral as neither I, nor to my knowledge any of my family or friends, have ever had any contact with the family courts. My interest in Karen and Nick Woodall is related to their involvement in the child maintenance reforms of 2011 to 2012.

I am sending you further links to Karen Woodall’s blog posts about Cafcass, for your interest and benefit, given that she has highly controversial opinions and, it appears, a great deal of influence. I have also attached PDFs in case at some point in the future she takes her website down.

Yours sincerely

21 June 2017

Karen Woodall’s blog: Hurting the Heart of a Child: Parental Alienation is Child Abuse

If the obsessive stalker would like to make yourself known to me I can give you a complete history of child maintenance reform instead of the made up potted history you are peddling which was brought to my attention last week. The questions you ask which intrigue you are very easily answered there is no need to make it up as you go along. As for prestigious events, well hang on to your hat because there’s something big coming next year.

24 June 2017

Karen Woodall’s blog: The Politics of Love and Hate

I am equally amazed to discover, as I did this week, that someone is so hostile towards me that they have taken the trouble to compile a thousand page document of my writing and turned it into a searchable database for those who wish to know my thoughts on Gingerbread, Liz Trinder, Feminism and more. Whilst there is no need to wonder what drives this obsession, given my clear articulation of the problems these particular subjects cause in the lives of children, the fact that out there are people who are so opposed to what I do that they would bother to do this AND construct their own potted imaginary history of my work to go with it, is a little out there. I am reminded again that the children that I work with are influenced by parents who are often extremely unwell. And that the negative transference which is drawn when one is carving out new routes which go against the current status quo, is very strong indeed.

No doubt we will continue to be dogged by the obsessed, the opposed and the general oddballs who occupy this divided landscape, but we will plough on regardless.

If that someone who created that database would like to put their obsession to better use however, I could seriously use a good archivist!

31 December 2017

Dear Sir or Madam

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act.

As you can see from the screen shot below, Karen Woodall (now running the Family Separation Clinic with her husband, Nick Woodall) claims to have trained CAFCASS Cymru on the problem of parental alienation.

Please tell me about any training delivered to Cafcass Cymru staff, or on behalf of Cafcass Cymru, since 2011 by any of the following organisations, which are/were all headed by Karen and Nick Woodall:

Centre for Separated Families

Separated Families (Europe) Ltd

Family Separation Hub

Family Separation Clinic

If possible, I would like to know the dates of any training, the amounts of money paid, and the company or charity number to which the payments were made.

Thank you for your help. I look forward to your reply within twenty working days, i.e. by 27 January 2017.

Yours faithfully

Dear Ms [redacted]

Request for information - ATISN 11869

Thank you for your request for information received on 31 December.

I have been unable to find any recorded information meeting the description of your request. If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you can ask for an internal review within 40 working days of the date of this response. Requests for an internal review should be addressed to:

Nigel Brown

Chief Executive

Cafcass Cymru

Sam Mynach

Llandudno Junction

Conwy

LL31 9RZ

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner. Normally, however, you should pursue the matter through our internal procedure before you complain to the Information Commissioner.

Yours sincerely

[redacted]

Central Support Team

Cafcass Cymru