A former jockey and racehorse trainer has been banned from seeing her daughter for three years after she falsely accused her partner of being a paedophile during a bitter custody battle
During the initial custody hearing in August 2011, Vicky Haigh, 43, claimed that her ex-partner and father of the child, Mr Tune, had abused her daughter. She even went as far as to ‘coach’ the young child to make false claims about her father.
After the hearing in 2011, the then Family Division President Sir Nicholas Wall ordered Ms Haigh to be named and shamed as he branded the ‘scandalous allegations’ a ‘pack of lies’. The judge wanted the identity of the parents to be made public so that Mr Tune could clear his name and put the false allegations behind him.
In December 2011 Ms Haigh was jailed for three years for defying court non molestation orders forbidding contact with her daughter, known only as X. The little girl has been living with her father since the couple split up in 2003.
At a hearing on the 20th March 2014, Family Division judge Mrs Justice Hogg set up a ‘no go zone’ around the child.
Ruling the measures were a means of ‘protecting’ the little girl, she also banned Ms Haigh from making any court applications for three years.
She said further litigation was ‘not conducive to peaceful existence. Litigation is anxiety making.’
The judge added: ‘It is not good for a child to be the subject of litigation, and after eight years it really has to come to an end for X’s sake.’
‘She needs to be able to continue her life with her father, do well at school, she has the 11-plus coming up, and I hope very much she will do well and get to the school that she wants.
‘If there were further litigation this could deflect her from what is otherwise prospective success.’
The exclusion zone will come to an end in 2017. The judge warned that at this point the situation may be very different: ‘It may be that X will have her own views, maybe the mother will have come to a different view about the past.’