Abstract

Introduction

I have had an interest in the subject of religious dress since the 1990s, when I was in the Family Division of the High Court trying a childcare case in which the local authority alleged that a young baby's serious head injuries had been caused’ non-accidentally’ by one or both parents. The baby's father was a doctor from Pakistan training for membership of the Royal College of Physicians. His mother was an arts graduate from Pakistan, but they had decided that she would go into full purdah while they were here. That meant a long robe, a face veil, a headscarf, and a black gauze shroud covering the whole of her head and upper body. Parents are compellable witnesses in care proceedings and it was essential that I heard her evidence. But we had an easy solution. Care proceedings are held in private. The judge was a woman. Counsel for the local authority was a woman. Counsel for the child's guardian ad litem was a woman. Counsel for the parents was a man, but it was agreed that she could give evidence behind a screen. Thus, the only male who could see her face was her husband and the only counsel who could not see her was her own.