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Social workers and guardians could be used as experts in straightforward contact cases freeing psychiatrists and psychologists to advise on more complex cases including those involving domestic violence, according to Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the family court division, writes Claire Laurent.

She was responding to concerns raised by delegates at a conference on children and domestic violence at the length of time it took in child contact cases for assessments to be carried out and reports prepared.

The conference staged by Children Law UK (formerly British Juvenile and Family Court Society) and chaired by Cherie Booth QC, heard that courts are still enforcing contact orders between children and parents despite evidence of domestic violence and serious child protection concerns.

Claire Sturge, a consultant child psychiatrist who co-authored guidelines on contact for the court of appeal, told the conference: "Domestic violence undermines one of a child's most basic needs. It involves the abdication of the perpetrator's responsibility of care to the child."

She said a violent parent needed to earn the privilege of contact. "I don't just want safe contact. I want something that can do something really positive for the child. I feel the courts fudge the moral issue. It's a really serious matter when a court tells a child they want them to have contact with someone they know has done very bad and evil things."

Anthony Hewson, chair of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), the organisation responsible for preparing reports for family courts, said: "It's easy for us to listen to the child with our adult ears. What we must not do is translate what they are telling us into what we want to hear."

The Women's Aid Federation of England is calling for legislative changes to the Children Act to ensure the issue of domestic violence is properly addressed by the courts.

In a survey of 127 domestic violence refuge services, WAFE found that 48 per cent of refuge projects reported that adequate safety measures are not being taken to ensure the safety of the child and the resident parent before, during and after contact. Forty refuges said that children who do not want contact with a violent parent are not being listened to and taken seriously.

But Dame Elizabeth did not advocate a change in the law: "What you need is to teach everybody including the judges and the lawyers, the significance of what's happening to the children. That's not by legislation, that's by a culture change and teaching."