A man convicted of multiple counts of domestic abuse had his sentence suspended in its entirety, while his terrified ex-wife was jailed for not forcing her young son on overnight access with him, the Mail has learned.

The woman’s father spoke this week about how he wrongly ‘assumed the law would do the right thing’ and support his daughter and grandson.

And a young woman described how the system abused her ‘all over again’ as she screamed in terror when forced as a child to see the father who assaulted her.

These were just two of the shocking stories heard this week at the launch of Right to Transparency, a campaign founded by barrister and women and children’s advocate Lisa Ann Wilkinson to reform the family court system.

Right to Transparency is calling for an end to the ‘in-camera’ rule, where proceedings are held in private; a pre-litigation fact-finding hearing to recognise abuse; and an end to use of unregulated court reports by unqualified ‘experts’.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik and Independent TD Paul Gogarty listened to several harrowing testimonies from women and their supporters who refused to be silenced by the in-camera rule.

Speaking at the launch event in Buswell’s Hotel, Ms Wilkinson addressed a room full of abused women – some of them in disguise for fear of being found in breach of the in-camera rule.

She said ‘one of the most dangerous developments unfolding within the family law system’ for mothers is when children resist access with their fathers’.

The barrister said: ‘She [the mother] sees the [child’s] distress, the tears, the suicidal ideation, the self-harm attempts. But if she doesn’t send them, she’s at risk of contempt proceedings.

‘I know at least two people in this room who have been in prison because their child would not go on access... It always gets pointed towards the mother.’

One grandfather, introduced as Mr X, said he was at the event ‘to do his daughter and grandchild justice’, and that his family was ‘failed in multiple ways through the legal system’.

He recalled how he and his wife suspected their daughter was in an abusive marriage, but for years she would not speak about it. 

Finally, she fled, barefoot and with a broken jaw, in the dead of night.

‘Her escape was at 2am in her pyjamas and bare feet. She walked kilometres to our house.’

A criminal complaint was made, but to appease the father, access with their child was arranged. One day the boy refused to go on overnight access and the family were sent back to court.

‘The judge sent my daughter to jail for breach of the order and not forcing her son to go on access.

‘This was shocking. We came to this system as middle-of-the-road people who assumed that the law would do the right thing and the justice system would support those who are the victims, and it didn’t.

‘The father has been convicted of multiple counts of domestic assault but he received a suspended sentence. He never saw one day in jail for all the assaults but my daughter was sent to jail for trying to protect her child.’

In another case, a young woman revealed how she was forced into seeing the man who had abused her. She said she was made to feel ‘invisible, worthless and alone’.

She said: ‘I was seven years old when I first came forward. 

'I lived through horrors no child should ever have to endure, experiences that still cause me pain to this day.

‘The system that was supposed to protect me forced me into rooms with my abuser and told me to play happy families.

‘Social workers – the very people who were meant to keep me safe – told me it was all in my head, that I was just making it up.’

The Department of Justice said Minister Jim O’Callaghan is ‘fully committed to reforming the family justice system through implementation of the Family Justice Strategy 2022-2025’.

On the in-camera rule, a spokesman said: ‘The Family Justice Strategy committed to a review of the operation of the in-camera rule in family law proceedings.’