A Haslemere woman has launched a petition calling for urgent family court reform, claiming she was “let down at every opportunity” by the legal system.

Caroline Wells, says she experienced domestic abuse during a relationship from December 2023 until April 2025 and argues the system failed to protect her after she applied for a non-molestation order.

She said her former partner did not attend the first hearing. When he later appeared, he filed a counter-application alleging she was the abuser. The court subsequently issued cross-undertakings - mutual promises made by both parties without formal findings of fact.

“I left the building treated as the legal equivalent of the man I’d asked the court to restrain,” she said.

Ms Wells claims lengthy legal disputes followed, including disagreements over shared assets and a bankruptcy application relating to their home. She said a judge described aspects of the conduct in the case as “aggressive” and “deplorable”, but argued this did not prevent further legal and financial action.

She also said police previously told her that incidents were not actionable unless physical harm could be shown.

Ms Wells said: “Under UK family law, domestic abuse survivors who don’t share children with their abuser are falling through the cracks.”

Her petition argues that Practice Direction 12J — the family court rule requiring a structured, pattern-based approach to domestic abuse in child arrangement cases — does not extend to standalone non-molestation applications under the Family Law Act 1996, leaving what she describes as a gap in protection.

She is calling for PD12J-style safeguards, including mandatory fact-finding and recognition of coercive patterns, to be extended across all domestic abuse cases in family courts.

Ms Wells has also begun speaking publicly about financial abuse, saying survivors often experience fragmented systems where no single organisation sees the full pattern of harm.

She is urging people to sign her petition, which is online here.