Just how bad it can get-- child visitation case stretches 14 years in UK

Article here. Excerpt:

'In A (A Child) [2013] EWCA Civ 1104, the Court of Appeal has allowed a father's appeal against a contact order in respect of his daughter, restricting him to sending her emails and presents at Christmas and on her birthday. The father's application for contact / residence will now be reheard.

As McFarlane LJ explained in the lead judgment:

"The case concerns a girl, M, born on 26th October 1999 and therefore now fast approaching her fourteenth birthday. M's mother ["the mother"] is now aged 48 years and her father ["the father"] is aged 60. M's parents separated in May 2001 when M was only some 21 months old and the first application for contact was made by the father five months later in October 2001. The litigation concerning M between the parents has continued, almost without interruption, for the ensuing twelve years. Since 2006 alone there have been no fewer than eighty-two court orders. At least seven judges have been involved in the case at one stage or another and over ten CAFCASS officers have played a part, initially as report writers and, latterly, as M's children's guardian. More recently M has been represented by NYAS. Several local authority social workers have also been involved at various stages of the case. HHJ Goldsack considered that these basic statistics provided the 'best evidence that there has been systemic failure in this case'."'

Text of judgment here.