When Parents Split
BBC Radio 4

As ever, in these despatches from the family courts, it was the personal testimonies that burned into your consciousness. Take twentysomething Sam, whose parents had separated when he was seven, spent nine years fighting out their custody battle and bequeathed a legacy of total estrangement. Only recently had their son been able to unpick the grotesque caricatures offered to him as a child and taken his first, tentative steps to reconcile himself with his mother.

Or there was the anonymous Swedish woman whose other half had decamped from the family home leaving a four-month-old baby behind him, remarried and then instituted custody proceedings at which his daughter had declared that she wanted to live with daddy. Forbidden access to letters or emails, her mother – who declared that “my life died when she left” – was reduced to leaving messages on her Instagram account.