Al Jazeera's Fault Lines examines two custody cases that ended in children's deaths
The documentary follows mothers Hope Hooton and Kellie Elliott, who feared their children were unsafe with their fathers and who later lost them to those men.
At a glance
- Al Jazeera's Fault Lines documentary Fatal Custody examines two mothers whose children were killed by their fathers.
- Hope Hooton sought protection after her husband threatened suicide; Kellie Elliott documented years of domestic violence and abuse.
- Both fathers had unsupervised time with their children despite the mothers' fears, and both later killed them.
Hope Hooton and Kellie Elliott both believed their children were not safe with their fathers. Both later lost those children to the same men, in the cases examined by Al Jazeera's Fault Lines documentary *Fatal Custody*.
Hooton sought protection after her husband threatened suicide and later experienced a psychiatric crisis. Elliott documented years of domestic violence and abuse.
Each woman had flagged the danger she saw. Yet each father had unsupervised time with his children, whom he later killed.
What the film investigates
Through the two mothers' stories, *Fatal Custody* examines how evidence of danger can be missed, dismissed or fail to reach family courts at all. The film treats the two cases as a way into a wider debate about custody.
The documentary looks at the push for equal custody, and at what it presents as a failure to treat violence against a parent as a risk to that parent's children.
It also sets out the changes advocates say could prevent other families from suffering the same losses, and the ways warnings raised before a child is harmed can go unheeded.
The questions the film raises stretch beyond the two families. They include whether courts deciding how much time a parent spends with a child are given the full picture, and whether a parent's history of violence is treated as relevant to the child's safety.
For both mothers, the signs of danger were there to be seen. The documentary sets out to trace what happened to that information as their cases moved through the custody process.
Source: Al Jazeera.
Questions and answers
- What is Fatal Custody about?
- It is an Al Jazeera Fault Lines documentary that examines the cases of two mothers, Hope Hooton and Kellie Elliott, whose children were later killed by their fathers.
- What did Hope Hooton and Kellie Elliott do before the killings?
- Hope Hooton sought protection after her husband threatened suicide and later experienced a psychiatric crisis. Kellie Elliott documented years of domestic violence and abuse.
- What changes does the documentary discuss?
- It looks at the push for equal custody, the failure to treat violence against a parent as a risk to children, and the changes advocates say could prevent other families from suffering the same losses.
