If you and your family needed help, could you trust the law to be on your side?
Award-winning barrister Charlotte Proudman has dedicated her working life to representing women who find themselves in need of help from the family law courts. Time and again, she has watched as these women – many of whom have experienced the very worst traumas imaginable – are let down by the system that is supposed to protect them. Seeking only justice and safety, they have instead been met with cruelty and disdain, deemed unreliable witnesses compared to the men who abused them.
From family courts failing to protect victims from abusers to the misogynistic bullying Charlotte herself receives from senior members of her profession, the problem is clear: no matter their circumstances, women across the country are suffering at the hands of a legal system built by men.
But change is on the horizon. In He Said, She Said, Proudman gives voice to the women whose stories are all too often brushed aside in the name of giving abusers ‘the benefit of the doubt’. Through real-life cases spanning forced marriage, domestic abuse, child abduction and female genital mutilation, Proudman highlights the troubling biases and shocking prejudice that underlie our legal system – and in a book that is at once thrilling, engaging and deeply compassionate, puts forward her own inspiring vision for long-term change.
