A member of the armed forces who terrorised his wife has been allowed unsupervised access to their daughter – in a case that British military authorities tried to keep out of the public eye

Consent will no longer be admitted as defence but brings prospect of more trials involving children as record number of cases wait to go to court

We talk to director Daisy-May Hudson about her powerful drama of a mother’s fight to regain custody of her kids – and Emilia Porter, who faced a similar trauma in real life

Protecting the identity of members of the judiciary in cases of obvious public interest risks undermining our entire legal system

The brutal circumstances of Sara Sharif’s death were described by the judge that sent her killers to prison as torture. But when it emerged that the two adults who murdered her were granted parental responsibility by a family court judge four years earlier, the finger of blame began to wander. Who could have saved Sara Sharif?

The Observer has obtained private family court papers that show how a system meant to protect children failed a ten-year-old girl