We are representing Lizzie, a former contestant on Married at First Sight. @DrProudman is counsel.
She alleges that she was abused while on the show.
Do watch this evening.
@BBCPanorama 8pm.
🔗 https://t.co/ZgShZTDtXi
@proudmanslaw@DrProudman@BBCPanorama Always knew there was a reason I hated this show. It doesn't surprise me at all that the production failed to properly safeguard their participants.
We are incredibly proud of our consultant solicitor at Proudmans, Ms Manveet Chhina, for winning Rising Star at a Boutique Law Firm at the Women and Diversity in Law Awards 2026. This recognition is so well deserved.
https://t.co/EjvhKSGcnS
I am in awe of the trauma survivors who choose to spend years healing, undoing, rebuilding. The choice to devote time and energy to understand themselves while walking through a world that has not been kind to them. Truly, remarkable. May all your efforts return peace.
Obviously this is horrific - but can we also broaden the discussion to the fact that many regulated and registered experts are causing the exact same outcomes with virtually no consequences?
Many of the women I hear from who have had dodgy psychiatric and psychological reports drawn up against them in family court were written by perfectly qualified and registered professionals who essentially just did not believe them about being raped or abused.
Further, it has often been a result of ‘expert shopping’ to get the desired outcome the team wanted (usually a specific diagnosis or report of risk).
The reality is this: expert witnesses are not witnesses at all - and should not be making any comments on whether they believe abuse or rape has occurred or not, but they do this often.
They also shouldn’t be able to diagnose someone during a traumatic and stressful child proceedings case at all - regardless of what side they are on - which actually aligns with NICE guidelines on trauma and assessment. The psych assessments used in family court are highly variable and problematic for endless reasons - not least that some of them read like they have been copied and pasted over numerous cases, contain factual errors, and even contain accusations and labelling of victim of abuse that are appalling to read.
Psychiatry is being successfully weaponised in family courts - whether it’s ‘pseudoscience’ or established psychiatric diagnoses - I’ve seen far too many cases where professionals have diagnosed mothers with personality disorders and delusional disorders when they were merely raising concerns about their own safety or the safety of their kids - and were often following guidance they were explicitly given by police or social workers.
The real discussion here is much bigger than this one woman (whilst I acknowledge that it’s outrageous someone with no qualifications should be able to have this much power over someone’s life) - I think the real conversation is about the way the family court process is totally captured by dodgy and dangerous use of psychiatry and psychology, whereby diagnoses and assessments are not conducted in the best interests of anyone - and are usually used tactically to either frame someone as dangerous, back up a foregone conclusion, or claim that abuse disclosures are lies.
These things are happening every single day by regulated psychologists and psychiatrists and judges hang on their every word despite them often being easily disputed.
1/I am so incredibly proud of my friend and now colleague, @DrProudman , for founding and launching @proudmanslaw, a pioneering law firm dedicated to the protection of victims and survivors of domestic abuse.
https://t.co/DiOTWkkBWg
Sorry state of affairs where Andrew having his ‘Prince’ title removed for the sake of PR for the wider Royal Family is seen as justice rather than you know… actual criminal justice for his role in sex trafficking and abusing a minor who the family paid off for him, who is now dead from suicide.
I’m sorry but I won’t be accepting, ‘we’ve told him he can’t say ‘Prince’ in front of his name anymore because he did a bad thing and made us all look bad’ - as ‘justice’.
Dear Royal Family - ‘Justice’ would be forcing him to hand himself into police and explain exactly what he knows, who did what, why and how it happened and to show even a shred of remorse instead of trying to get dirt on his victims via police forces and paying them for silence.
I hope everyone realises what they all just witnessed.
We commend the bravery of Sophie whos experienced the greatest harm via family court, having to grieve for a child who still lives who she cannot see, even though she is the DA victim. Thank you @DrProudman for your formidable efforts and to the @CommissionerDA and research team
One of the most damaging impacts of domestic abuse is how it erodes your sense of self.
You forget who you were before them - what you liked, how you laughed, what made you feel alive.
Abusers chip away at your identity, replacing it with their version of you, the one that’s easier to control, easier to blame, easier to keep small.
You shrink to survive.
And one day you look in the mirror and barely recognise the person staring back at you.
If you’re in that place right now, I want you to know that all is not lost. You can recover from this and become someone even more deeply rooted in your truth.
#DomesticAbuseAwareness #AbuseRecovery
When you hear someone over-explaining, know one (or all) of these is true:
1). They’ve often had their reality denied.
2). They've been hurt in unpredictable ways & believe it was because they didn't explain better.
3). They've grown up being ignored.
Please be patient.
We don’t have a ‘mental health crisis’.
We have a poverty and cost of living crisis. A trauma and child abuse crisis. A domestic and sexual abuse crisis. A bullying and violence crisis. A working-80-hour-weeks crisis. A healthcare crisis. A social media crisis. An oppression and discrimination crisis. A quality of life crisis. A debt crisis. A social expectations crisis. A body image crisis.
Convincing us that all our external pressures and stressors are inside our heads, caused by a mystery mental illness - is gaslighting at its finest.
If it’s in our heads, and we are ill, and we are ‘not coping’, then nothing has to change except us.
People love to ask, “Why didn’t you just leave?”
It’s such a simple question for them, but it’s so much more complicated for those of us who’ve lived through it. They don’t understand the fear, the manipulation, or the way your self-worth is slowly chipped away until leaving feels impossible. They don’t see the trauma bonds, the financial control, or the fear that things will get worse if you go.
Comments like that can make us feel like we failed, like we weren’t strong enough. But leaving isn’t about being strong or weak—it’s about survival, and that’s never as straightforward as people think.
#DomesticAbuseAwareness
1/ I represented the Mother in this case which shows how abusers will go to extreme lengths to silence & discredit victims, including attacking the victims solicitor with baseless allegations in an attempt to isolate them victim from their chosen representative.
🧵
Rape takes many forms.
Consent is not consent if not freely given
because of age, coercion, or deceit.
Lying to gain sexual access isn’t a “relationship”. It’s grooming. It’s abuse.
#ConsentMatters#CoerciveControl#RapeByDeceit @NatalieFleetMP https://t.co/cruGLcX1dt