6/14/2005 12:02:00 AM|||Antonia|||
Okay, so there’s been a mini-explosion of comments below at the first F4J post, so I thought I’d reprise why I detest them and their fathers’ rights crusade.

But first, from one professional campaigner to another, kudos to F4J for a magnificent media campaign and an imaginative conceit - fathers as superheroes. Shame about the cause.

I’m glad F4J has imploded because:

1. Their campaigns are based on a bogus claim to be standing up for their “rights”. Rights campaigns are powerful, and, to use a word of the moment, they resonate with a large section of the population who are prepared to support the campaigns of underprivileged groups claiming what is rightfully theirs. As such, framing their cause as one of “rights” is savvy. But, in the end, it’s not about the “rights” of the father or even of the parents, but about the welfare of the child. In most cases the mother has been the primary caregiver of the children, and courts believe she should continue in that capacity, which is why mothers most often get sole custody. It is not due to bias against fathers in court. (On a side point, bias toward women by any court is hard for me to believe, knowing the figures of women who are raped, the tiny number that go on to report that rape, how they are subsequently treated throughout the criminal justice system and the pitful level of convictions for rape). Most mothers want their children to have contact with the children's fathers, and would only try to stop contact with them if they are worrie about the children's welfare. But, as the Newham Domestic Violence Project says, "when mothers try to protect their children from abusive fathers, they are often viewed by the courts and welfare professionals not as protective, but as obstructive, manipulative and irrationally ‘implacably hostile’." (source)

2. If there’s a rights based argument here, it’s the right of women to live a life free from violence and controlling behaviour and the fear of violence and controlling behaviour, and the right of children not to be subject to or witness violence and controlling behaviour. F4J and their advocates and offshoots belittle and question the impact of domestic violence on women and children - just see the comments below.

Just for the record (all stats available here):

Oh, and if you believe the myth that men are just as likely to be victims of domestic violence as women:


3. The effect of F4J’s campaign has been to put pressure on the family courts to grant contact even where it may not be safe to do so, putting more vulnerable women and children at risk. See the comments from the chief executives of Women's Aid and Refuge (who should know, as together they run the National Domestic Violence helpline which received 250,000 calls in 2003-04) ) and from the police here.

4. The "problem", if there is one, is far smaller than groups like F4J would have us believe. In 2003, 67,000 contact orders were granted and contact was refused in only 601 cases, less than 1% (source). As The Guardian points out, "in 1998, only 3 per cent of fathers' applications for contact orders were refused. By 2001 this had dropped to 1.3 per cent - that is 713, a figure which barely covers the number of men who murdered their wives and schedule one offenders (child abusers)". You have to ask, if so few cases were resolved with no contact granted, just what the parents in the cases where contact had been refused had done to deserve being refused contact...

5. One size demonstrably doesn’t fit all, so advocacy of “shared parenting”, a euphemism for joint custody, presumes that the best interests of the child are inevitably best served by a presumption of a 50-50 split of their time between both parents. Surely there should be as many solutions to custody disagreements as there are families involved in them? Trish Wilson has more detail on this: "Joint custody has been shown to be detrimental to children who are exposed to conflict between their parents. Joint custody also asks a lot of children. Many of them cannot handle the shunting back and forth between homes very well. They also must keep track of which home they are to be in on a given day, which is stressful for them. They lose track of their friends, and their extracurricular activities suffer when parents pay too much attention to when the children are to be with them."

6. I believe that the advances of feminism - no fault divorce, challenges to traditional gender roles, an end to acceptance of violence against women, ending the stigma of lone parenting and having children outside marriage - are good things. Do we really want to return to the days of women trapped in loveless or violent marriages, sent to homes for fallen women and stigmatised for bearing illegitimate children? The inference is that F4J and their fellow travellers do: "The legacy of the family breakdown and the fragmentation of parent/child relationships is all around us. Teenage crime, drug taking, truancy and general delinquency... The UK has the second highest rate of young offending in Western Europe. Is it coincidence that the explosion in young offending has happened under a government that is systematically denying thousands of children 'contact' with their fathers? "

Yet we know that there is no link between single parent families and crime - "studies have shown repeatedly a consistent relationship between juvenile delinquency and large family size, marital disharmony, alcohol abuse in parents and overall social deprivation. A consistent relationship has also been shown with delayed reading age, below average scores on intelligence and achievement tests, conduct disorder of childhood and parental aggressive behaviour." For a really extreme view of the problems that feminism has visited on fathers, see Justice for Fathers UK.

7. F4J's tactics include bullying and intimidating CAFCASS (family court) staff.
See “Spate of hoax bombs hits family courts” and "Fathers 'terrorise' lawyers": "A dossier compiled by the union representing family court staff shows its members have been sent fake letter bombs and hate mail, had rotting meat put through an office letter box and been subjected to verbal abuse. In one of the worst incidents — for which nobody has claimed responsibility — a solicitor found her car engine and headlights doused in petrol, which could have exploded when she started the engine."

8. The activists of F4J are hypocrites, as they clearly do not themselves embody the “wronged fathers” they claim to represent. See here: "While prominent members of the group defend these tactics, the truth behind many of the cases they publicise is more complex than their slogans suggest. Former wives and girlfriends who spoke to the Guardian described relationship break ups involving domestic violence, being forced to live in refuges and incidents in which their children witnessed frightening aggression by their fathers."

And here: "Williams, a 36-year-old nurse, knows from experience the picture painted by militant men's groups can sometimes be far from the truth. Her ex-husband is a member of one - and in her view, he forfeited his 'right' of access when he drove the family out of the house to a women's refuge. (The police had warned her that, if she didn't leave soon, she'd leave in a box.)"

So, that's my case. If you're interested, a couple of other bloggers have been posting on this subject too. Trish Wilson is the authority on the subject - see her blog here, Volsunga has a great blog here and last November Dead Men Left blogged here .

Oh, and just to get a few things clear. I was brought up by a father (and a mother) that I love very much, I value the men in my family and my life, and calling me a feminazi isn't likely to win me over to your case (ditto homophobia).
|||111870381955424533|||F4J Mark 26/14/2005 12:44:37 PM|||ms. b.|||Great post; I stopped writing so much on F4J when I got direct threats to my family over the phone and email! If that doesn't show the extremist nature of some of their "movement" (not to mention a disregard for the safety of children in my household) I don't know what does. Seems to me much of this "i want my kids" sentiment comes from a desire to control ex-wives more than anything else.6/14/2005 12:58:07 PM|||colin baker|||i have residence of my son now, it took well over £20k and no less than 15 court hearings to achieve this. i remain a member of Fathers4justice because i actually experienced the bias, the degradation and the abuse aided by organisations such as womens aid who openly encourage false accusations and seperation of children from their fathers. your post shows such an extreme level of ignorance and arrogance that its hardly worthy of a reply, who would take what you say seriously? keep it up madam your doing our cause the world of good by showing what sort of man-hating idiots there are out there in government.
colin baker6/14/2005 01:23:44 PM|||Anonymous|||This week I attended parents' evening at the school of my six-year-old
daughter, Katie. Nothing unusual about that, you think. Except that on this
occasion Katie's mother was sitting alongside me. It was her first
involvement in our daughter's education, and I had to introduce her to the
teacher.

Katie's mum wasn't only a stranger to the school: until a few months ago,
Katie and I had not had sight or sound of her for over two years.

To understand this, we have to go back five years to when I left the family
home taking Katie with me, following months of violence and abuse at the
hands of her mother.

One year after we moved out, I sought legal advice at my family's urging. I
was shocked to learn that, as an unmarried father, I had no parental rights
whatsoever - in fact, if Katie's mother had called the police and told them
that I had abducted our daughter, they would have been obliged to come and
remove her from my home, forcibly if necessary, and place her back with a
woman who was not even capable of looking after herself, let alone a
toddler.

I was advised to apply for a Residence Order (formerly known as 'custody'),
and six months later, after several court hearings, I gained the order by
default - uncontested by my ex.

Only now do I realise just how lucky I was (if Katie's mother had even
bothered to employ a solicitor, the outcome would probably have been very
different), and what a narrow escape I had from the gladiatorial bloodbath
which all to often ensues in family court proceedings ...

What my legal team failed to tell me was that 93% of contested residence
cases go against the father. Given the odds against me, I would have been
better advised to keep as far away from the courts as possible, but I have
the feeling that in the eyes of the lawyers I was just another unsuspecting
dad waiting to be milked of his assets (legal fees can easily run into tens
of thousands of pounds).

Following the award of residence, my ex-partner continued to see Katie in my
presence, with the expectation that, once she had received help for her
addiction and psychiatric problems, we could move on to a proper shared care
arrangement. But, three years later, her self-destructive behaviour finally
saw her sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Her relationship with Katie broke down, as her behaviour - her unreliability
was a minor issue by comparison - degenerated to the point where she was
almost unrecognisable. Katie was scared of her.

I continued to care for and look after my daughter as any single parent
would.

I only found out how exceptional it was for a father to be the 'primary
carer' (in Courtspeak) of a young child when I ventured onto the Internet to
share advice and experiences with other single fathers around the country -
I could hardly find any others!

What I did eventually discover was to change my life, and set me on a course
of protest and activism which now consumes most of my spare time and energy.

Instead of finding other single dads, all I came across was case after case
of fathers being excluded, alienated, and hounded from the lives of their
children. If they were lucky enough to have gained a court order for some
degree of 'contact', they would still only have a 50 per cent chance of
seeing their kids (half of all such orders are breached with impunity).

Loving, decent fathers, no different from myself, were being failed on a
massive scale by the very justice system in which I had put all my trust and
faith only months earlier. Worse still, their children were suffering the
appalling abuse of being deprived of a devoted parent.

It was truly an eye-opening experience, one which led me to the first
meeting in Newcastle for Fathers-4-justice in 2003.

Two years later, and I now help in the running of the www.f4jnortheast.co.uk
website and dealing with the enquiries it generates, and in the organisation
of events around the region. I feel so strongly about this issue that I have
risked arrest (I took part in the occupation of the Middlesbrough Court by
F4J last summer) to highlight the plight of the many tens of thousands of
children, parents and grandparents whose lives are wrecked every year,
senselessly, by our inept and corrupt family courts.

As for Katie's mum, I'm just glad that she's returned to our daughter's
life. Katie knows very little about the reasons why mummy stopped coming to
see her - she just accepts that mummy has been unwell, and that sometimes
she doesn't turn up or phone when she says she will, but that she loves her
all the same.

I don't bear any malice towards Katie's mum, in spite of what Katie and I
have been through, and I hope that she has finally beaten her demons - for
Katie's sake, and for the sake of the second child she is now expecting with
her new partner.

Katie now has the opportunity to build the kind of relationship with her
mother that she should always have had, and I shall do everything I within
my means to foster it - after all, the best parent for a child is BOTH
parents. It's simple concept, but one which, tragically, our family courts
have utterly failed to take onboard.6/14/2005 01:31:49 PM|||Anonymous|||And Colin's reply shows that there remain in F4J a lot of men who simply will not read what's written. Despite clarifying that the people here are not anti-male, and clarifying that the key issue of *safe* contact is vital to both men and women alike, the typical reaction is "if you dare to criticise this one group's tactics, it proves you all hate men". What a silly argument to use for a subject so vital.

No, women don't hate men. They hate violence and control, the same as men do. There are those who hate being wrongly targeted for just trying to keep their child safe from someone violent and abusive. Women who have experienced violence don't hate those that did it, they usually despair that they are unloveable and are desperate to try to find another man who WILL love them. They wish F4J would choose their targets with more care and consideration - such as those organisations who allow parents to deny contact for NO good reason. They wish F4J would act with responsibility and consideration, and campaign with humour and PR rather than violence and threat.

That set of wishes is not a crime, and it's not proof of hatred of men. As for women's aid 'hating men' or working against them, no, they hate *violence* from men and women, not "men", a point that has been gone over time after time after time. One of the most sensible F4J members I came across asked that women's aid work with F4J to build an umbrella group, and that is a sensible suggestion. How best to go about this then? Have any of them actually tried to do this? Not to my knowledge, instead, they posted up things saying women's aid's leader was no better than Moira Hindley. Is this a responsible way to act? Any member of women's aid is called a feminazi, as is anyone who dares to stand against their tactics.

Almost 15% of womens aid groups actively help male survivors of domestic violence even though they are struggling to help even a fraction of the women and children who need help.

I've been on the receiving end of frighteningly abusive messages and emails from F4J despite me setting up a group to support male survivors, conduct that resulted in me having to involve security. Mindless, pointless abusive behaviour that actually gets in the way of finding an answer.

It needs to stop.

Matt O'Connor is realising that, all credit to him. Let's hope common sense rules and they actually get to change the law, not just launch into pointless attacks on each other for utterly wrong reasons.6/14/2005 02:01:58 PM|||Antonia|||Colin,

Where is your evidence that Women's Aid encourage "bias", "degradation", "abuse", "false accusations and seperation of children from their fathers"? From a recognised study or reputable (not-biased or ideologically opposed) source, please.

And first anonymous, I'm glad you have a good relationship with your daughter and your ex-partner, but you admit that your experience is the exception, so why does it prove in any way that F4J are not guilty of the criticisms I have made of them above?

Second anonymous, rather than working with F4J, I'm glad to see women's organisations working with reputable fathers' groups, such as Fathers Direct and Working with Men, to ensure that contact and parenting meets the needs of all parties.6/14/2005 02:26:01 PM|||Anonymous|||"And first anonymous, I'm glad you have a good relationship with your daughter and your ex-partner, but you admit that your experience is the exception, so why does it prove in any way that F4J are not guilty of the criticisms I have made of them above?"

The problem I have with your post is that it totally misses the point of what myself and other f4j'ers have been campaigning for.

All I read is violence this and violence that, no wonder f4j needs a make over if that's how we are perceived?

Membership in our area is 30% female, parental alienation is not a gender issue, we support mothers/grandparents extended families etc as well as fathers.

As a loving father with no violent convictions I campaign for truth justice and equality in family law having witnessed gender bias first hand.

In no way do I or any other f4j member support placing children in danger.Why is it that courts perceive a father being a danger after separation?Why does a mother not have to prove she is a capable parent to the court?

Maybe the conflict arises when the perception of father's roles encroaches on traditionalist view of 'mother knowing best'?A situation that capable parents like myself and Colin challenge.

In a country where 30% of childcare is done by fathers why is it that 93% of contested res cases go to mother whatever her role pre-separation?6/14/2005 02:35:27 PM|||A UK Dad|||I too am a single father and resident primary career of my child. This has not always been the case and I experienced the failings of the UK Family Courts first hand. I too went in niave and expecting a logical and reasonable outcome for a post separation parenting solution. How wrong I was and for two years I was defamed, denigrated and labelled violent, and sexually abusive. The onus was on me to prove my innocence and then suitability to even feature as a parent in my childs life.

All because the courts preferred the notion that mother had been and should continue to be the primary career, and father should be desirable if agreeable to the mother. All allegations and accusation made by the mother were believed and investigated, at great cost to me personally.

The bias is rife and the likes of F4J exist because this is the truth of the matter. I am now 3.5yrs on from my first court visit, and have been the resident parent for 1.5yrs. Yes, amazingly, I managed to turn things around and actually get the truth heard, and then finally accepted. The abuse and lies carried out against our child and myself by the mother were exposed, and her resident parent status was revoked, and now she carries the sanction of a Contact Ordered parent. In fact the very sanction a non-abusive defaulting non-resident father gets automatically. And here lies the rub.

I on the other hand believe in equal parenting and I facilitate 50/50 parenting and our child thrives between both parents homes. Mother is not empowered equally and is now unable to interfere or control the parenting relationship between child & father. I am empowered like most mothers are automatically, but like all good mother, do not abuse this power. In fact the power is very uncomfortable a burden to have, but with a mother who was incapable a parent to hold such powers, or even equal powers, this is the only solution in our case. Most cases should not have any power imbalance at all, and the starting point of all parenting decisions should be equal. Sanctions exist to remove a parents equal status, so why don’t we adopt this stance, like we do in all other walks of life, and law? F4J propose this very notion, and I fully support it.

The parenting ASBO, the Contact Order, is granted in most cases to fathers who don’t want to be a sanctioned parent. Yes, very few cases see the issuing of “No Contact”, but this is disingenuous to think this demonstrates a fair system that works for children and parents. It does not. From the 700+ Contact Orders granted each year, there is no breakdown detailing how many of these orders actually involve face-to-face interaction between parent and child otherwise known as Direct Contact. In fact a large number of Contact Orders are Indirect Contact, which can be a little as a card at Xmas sent to a solicitors office to be forwarded to the child. A father with indirect contact is guaranteed no feedback or acknowledgement that the child is even receiving the communications or that the child is even aware that the non-resident parent is still trying to maintain a parenting bond with them. Many orders just fail and never return to court, and therefore again no stats exist to show if the courts involvement was effective at all.

So figures showing how many orders are actually granted, shows a real lack of true understanding of these issues.

The second issue that I take umbrage too is the mention of DV, abusive and violent men against women and children, the minute we start talking about male parents trying to maintain a relationship with their children post separation. The two are completely different subjects and to start quoting BCS DV stats, and Women’s Aid propaganda is also disingenuous and also down right dirty tricks, trying to smoke screen over the facts.

Nothing you have said promotes the ongoing relationship of a child with both parents after separation. You have clearly shown that you do not support family values, where the key point to structured family (together or not) is the ongoing and maintained relationships and interactions of the parents with each other and with the child.

Separation and divorce should mean that adults should be adult and be responsible for their children and this includes facing the things you may not like to face…your ex partner for example. If you are from a violent relationship, then sure, any such interactions should be safe, and ensure no re-occurrences of conflict. This doesn’t need spelling out. This means dealing with these difficult cases in a well managed and also well funded way. This Government would rather continue the anti-male violent man propaganda to avoid having to make such radical investments in families post separation. If you truly care for the welfare of children you would invest in services and systems that overcome these difficulties, not continue to divide and conquer by blaming men for all of life’s ills.

Fatherless Britain is a fact not a myth. The erosion of families and the lack of involvement of fathers in the lives of their children in the last 30 years have seen the current nation we live in fall into decay. Failing student, anarchy in the classrooms, youth yob crime and the ever-growing number of teen pregnancies are the consequences of people like you continuing to stick to your argument that all men are potential abusers, and rapists.

Sorry, but you need to stop thinking that fathers fighting for their rights and their children’s rights to maintain a relationship is a bad thing, and start to see that this is exactly what this country needs. The day that dads step back into the lives of their children, and share the care and upbringing with the mothers (who have also been getting a raw deal) the better. This is not about women Vs man, mothers against fathers, it’s about this Government dividing and conquering and winning the battle of the sexes. The sooner people see through the likes of you the better.

The Family courts fail (FACT) and the efforts of F4J have publicly raised this awareness from behind the secrecy of the Family Courts. They don’t like it and your Government are having to do something, too little too late. The battle continues, and until attitudes like yours, who only see the female victim side of the argument, are shifted, will we see an end to the battle of the sexes, the condemning of parent eradication and the balancing and equalizing of parenting roles for the good of the children and society as a whole.

Tell us why this is bad. Nobody is asking women to suffer violent loveless relationships, or go back to an age where men dominated women. Get a grip of the arguments and stop using the feminist ideals to try and counter the completely different argument that parents and children should be together, and that the majority of families in this country feature no violence or abuse, yet still split up and need support to maintain a balanced and continuing family structure. This is the campaign, not the anti-feminist / male ego one you would like to paint it as. Families matter, and we as a nation support single families more than we support maintaining whole families.6/14/2005 03:11:23 PM|||Anonymous|||"All I read is violence this and violence that, no wonder f4j needs a make over if that's how we are perceived?"

Exactly, anon. Exactly.

Children's voices are lost in this mire, and F4J (run by a PR expert !!) have ended up looking like violent extremists, not like loving sad fathers denied access to their children. I would argue they have actually done real harm to their own cause. Yes, there are male victims of DV which has been stated already. Yes there are people denied good contact and parenting time for no reason, which has been stated already. The question on the table is not debating those issues, but debating why F4J uses the wrong tactics.6/14/2005 04:33:38 PM|||Anonymous|||I too am a supporter of F4J . I was just an ordinary father until 3 years ago when i discovered my wifes affair. One week i was a fully fledged dad the next week i had to go to solicitors and literally beg complete strangers to help me to see my daughter. As the years rolled on i lost complete respect for the legal system as i saw solicitors who were supposed to be trying to help me get back into my daughters life , brokering deals between each other,presenting completely irreleavnt arguments to create deliberate delay and to muddy the waters to gain more fees.

I heard how being allowed to see my daughter 4 days a month was "quite generous" , a phrase i have come to hate. Generous to who ? My daughter ? to me ? or tomy ex wife? And who was the giver of such "generocity" ?

And after 3 years of reasoning , pleading, borrowing money from anyone that wouldlend it to me ,the real bomb dropped. I was accused of DV supposedly that had been a feature of my 7 year marriage throughout. I dont know where it came from and although i had read about these nightmare scenarios never thought it would happen to me. And on nothing more than an unfounded allegation the welfare mechanism kicked in.

Thank God for any organisation that will shout loud enough to anyone who will listen. I support any group that will challenge the courst and the evil that pervades it under the banner of "the best interests of the child "

I am currentlyi lost complete respect6/14/2005 05:02:05 PM|||ms. b.|||parental alienation is not a gender issue

It's also not a bona fide syndrome..6/14/2005 06:14:54 PM|||Antonia|||Hello all,

More discussion; excellent.

Anonymous at 4.33pm - if someone is a DV perpetrator, then they shouldn't have the right to see their child. If they are suspected of being a DV perpetrator, then I'm bloody glad that the courts don't grant automatic, 50-50 contact so that perpetrators can carry on abusing their children and their mothers through them.

Anonymous at 2.26 - my original post says a lot about violence, yes - because it's about time we started taking violence against women and children seriously. But it also says stuff about the threatening and intimidating tactics used by f4j, which no-one on this board has yet repudiated; it says stuff about the disadvantages of "shared parenting"; and it reveals the truth about the F4J activists. What I don't get is this - if you're a great dad, then why on earth would you want to be associated with a group whose principal activists appear to be violent or absent?

A UK Dad - I wouldn't need to talk about DV if you didn't post about Women's Aid's "propaganda" - it's not propaganda, it's the truth, and I link to the sources, unlike you. (BTW, all posters, writing FACT after your unfounded assertions doesn't make them anything of the sort) I challenged you and all the other posters to prove your claims that Women's Aid exaggerates DV, but none of you have.

Fatherlessness doesn't cause school indiscipline, young offending or teenage pregnancy. The facts are here, from reputable peer reviewed journals. Yes, the UK government does give more support to lone parent families - that's because lone parent families are overwhelmingly poorer than two-parent families. (42% of poor children live in lone parent families - source here). Only by ensuring money gets to poor families can we really end child poverty, and we all want that, don't we?

Don't post anymore sob stories, I'm not interested in your individual experiences. Post facts that you can prove.6/14/2005 06:58:46 PM|||Richard|||Dear Antonia, I don't know if you get kicks out of blackening all
fathers reputations or not but you must stop please.
If you really knew what was going on in our world then I would
respect your comments!
Until you become a parent you can never begin to understand the
unconditional love that normal parents have for their children.
When I say normal I mean that most parents are normal but you seem
to tag all parents with the deadbeat parents tag ( yes both mothers
and fathers )! You need to realise that no father would be joining
any of these groups if all was right with the world!
I myself have had my children abducted from me by the insidious
mother and has been aided and abetted by the corrupt system.
Just because we were not compatible should not mean that post split
the father is treated worse than a criminal.
The mother in question was a very poor joint parent and would
certainly not be a good single parent. My children want to live with
me and be in their natural home and not in a council house relying
on handouts and state benefits! Their mother was offered the family
home to live with our children and refused, she uprooted them far
away and I now endure a 6 hour round trip on the worst road in
Scotland to enable me to see them.
Our children are distraught when they are returned to their mother
after spending time with me.
Antonia, can you know that I cry every day, I am absolutely
devastated with this loss, it compares with the death of a close
loved one, except.....the grief never stops!
Their mother is actively trying to block my access, asks for more
maintenance money, will not consult me on our children's welfare
issues: Schooling, Medical etc! She had signed and agreed to do this
officially but won't do it.
Their mother is a violent person, she has attacked her sister and
best friend, she also assaulted me quite badly.
"if the best interests of the children" are to be upheld then if the
world was right then our children would reside with me and not the
recalcitrant mother.
Antonia, please, please, do not think that all men are bad. I and
many other loving and devoted fathers do not condone Domestic
violence and many have been the victim of DV from the mother!
I only want what is best for our children and am up against a brick
wall when it comes to residency! Why? It is because the system is
corrupt and illegal, it is also a gravy train for the
Judges,solicitors etc that bleed the cash.
Can you tell me how a Judge or a solicitor can stand there in court
and act as "God" regarding our children? They are not qualified to
do this and this should stop immediately.
Courts are for criminals and the only thing that I am guilty of is
Loving our children!
There should be equality between parents and at the moment the
system is not treating both parents equally!
Compulsory mediation should be the way to go when separated parents
cannot come to an agreement regarding the children's welfare.
My ex refused mediation 4 times in 4 months and now she is taking me
to court to cut down my time with our children ( They are very
unhappy about this ) and yes also asking for more maintenance
money......something isn't right here Eh?
Here is another absurdity, I will be liable for her court costs!
What planet are we on? I want to sit down like two responsible
adults and sort it out, because of the system the mother finds it so
much easier to go down the court route.
This in turn will cost me a lot of wasted money on unnecessary
litigation fees etc, the mother will get free legal aid to do this!
This money would be much better spent on our children!
Antonia, the pain that I feel with all this going on can quite often
leave me drained and I find it very difficult to sleep at night due
to the pre-occupation of my mind with this torture.
It has affected my job, social life, hobbies, strained close
friendships, etc, etc.
Our children have also got extended families that they rarely or
never see, Grandparents, Uncles,Aunts, cousins, friends etc.
The damage that is being done to the children is unbelievable!
This must stop and the mothers should stop the nonsense and end the
horrible blackmail and resentment that they use against the loving
and devoted fathers, more importantly the system should also end the
misery by declaring fathers and mothers equal.
All the children want and deserve is the best start in life, at the
moment this is not happening.
Antonia, if you can? please do not condemn all the fathers and
instead please try to help the fatherless children be re-united
again.

Thank You

Richard6/14/2005 07:04:12 PM|||ms. b.|||Antonia, if you can? please do not condemn all the fathers and
instead please try to help the fatherless children be re-united
again.

Where has Antonia condemned all fathers? Maybe I failed to noticed...6/14/2005 07:07:12 PM|||Anonymous|||I have had personal experience of threatening and intimidating from F4J members, my ex is one of their 'leaders'.

Perhaps I should not have been surprised, as it was a continuation of the treatment i and my children suffered while still with him, but i did not expect others to join him in his abuse of me.

I have fought for five years to protect my children from him, so that they are no longer withdrawn insular frightened kids. During that time I have had to endure around 30 court appearances costing around £40,000 (begged and borrowed from family and friends) - even my solicitor suffered from him and has allowed me to pay my bills monthly!

In spite of him unleashing his insidious brand of nastiness (in diluted form to that which we suffered) on most of the 'professionals' involved in the case - they had to follow 'protocol' which meant most of his activities were watered down.

Earlier this year, we was caught out lying under oath and continuing to twist maniuplate control - needless to say, he is no longer able to use the courts in his attempts to further abuse the children. My misery, I fear, will continue for the rest of my life.

I am aware that a number of F4J's other 'leaders' are aware of what he has done, yet he is still there with them. Says a lot, doesn't it?

Whenever I see anything to do with F4J, i experience panic, because i know he is something to do with it, even in the background. He has bought F4J people to court hearings - they have scared and frightened me and my supporters - they glare nastily, move around me, getting so close they could almost touch, they refuse to move away. People might say i am weak - i would answer - speak to survivors and ask them what is worse - thy physical violence... or the emotional violence?

No i don't hate them - i hate what they do. No i don't hate him - i dont have enough time - i spend it all being scared.

to all in F4J: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE - leave me and my kids alone - in peace6/14/2005 08:07:35 PM|||Anonymous|||Antonia

"If they are suspected of being a DV perpetrator, then I'm bloody glad that the courts don't grant automatic, 50-50 contact so that perpetrators can carry on abusing their children and their mothers through them."

I'm not surprised some-one called you a femnazi. Your very attitude assumes that MEN (read fathers) are responsible for ALL Domestic Violence, yet something like 66% of DV against children is perpertrated by the mother or her new boyfriend.

If this is an example of your broadminded role as polotician, I am sure glad not to live in your constituency. With your narrow mind and fixed bigotries, maybe you should ask for Margaret Hodge's old job.

You (and other like you) blanketly accuse F4J memebers of hating women. How can this be so? We all have mothers, many of us have daughters who will one day become women, and we love these people to bits. It's not women we hate, it's what SOME women do, namely to our children and ourselves, that we hate, and we also despise the fact that whilst the Law is not gender biased, it practioners ARE, and that is where our repulican government lets our children down. If alledgedly democratic poloticians like yourself spoke for the avergae person in the street, rather than to further your own ego's, this country would be a good place for all familes.

Fathers 4 Justice exist because the likes of yourself created it from the foul union of selfishness and ignorance.

Dadalone6/14/2005 09:46:45 PM|||Anonymous|||parental alienation is not a gender issue

It's also not a bona fide syndrome..

That's Ok then Ms B, if it's not a bona fide syndrome it's a good idea not to believe it I suppose?6/14/2005 10:05:11 PM|||Anonymous|||Ms B said, "parental alienation is not a gender issue

It's also not a bona fide syndrome.. "

Who mentioned PAS?Not me!

Parental alienation and coaching is very much recognised in family courts today, from both genders.

Antonia said, "What I don't get is this - if you're a great dad, then why on earth would you want to be associated with a group whose principal activists appear to be violent or absent?"


As a father who is no different from many of those who have been excluded from the lives of their children, I have much empathy with the plight of any parent who is appart from their kids, it could have been very different if my ex had even bothered to seek legal advice.

As main carer for my daughter from birth I know that dads are as capable as mums if given the opportunity, I saw first hand the prejudice that exists from health profs and mothers alike towards dads with small kids.

Societies and judicary views on fatherhood must be challenged, brittish men in intact families do 30% of childcare (Source, http://www.eoc.org.uk/EOCeng/EOCcs/News/13_jan_fathers_uea.asp) so why do the family courts only typically dole out contact orders for every other weekend at best?

I want my daughter to inherit a legal system that treats both parents equally, that's why I campaign.

"a group whose principal activists 'appear' to be violent or absent?"

Your perception is based on what exactly?
A few press articles?Some questionable ambiguous testimony?

'Appear'

That is the key here, if you ever choose to delve a little deeper you may see the actual good that is done by F4J, why not visit a local meeting?I'm happy to sort you an invite to your local branch where you will receive a warm and friendly welcome, feel free to mail me at info@f4jnortheast.co.uk to arrange details.

You will find out that F4J have not and do not support individual cases, hence the court stories of intimidation are without foundation as members are barred from physically supporting others at court in family law cases.

They support each other at activist trails in large numbers yes, not at family court, no way.

If a new member turns up full of understandable frustration towards an ex partner after contact denial, he or she is guided into directing the anger in a more constructive manner, towards the system that allows and encourages the ex to deny contact, by means of non violent direct action such as protests/marches/handing out leaflets etc etc, rather than anything towards the ex.

Attendees are also directed towards lobbying MP's and writing letters to local press, before F4J there was nowhere for victims of the biased and corrupt family law system to offload and find direction and support, now we see progress after raising awareness and the start of a shift in attitude and public perception.

No way do you see violence towards ex partners or kids supported or condoned, that is a slur on the decent parents who campaign tirelessly for reform.

In fact to go further we absolutely condemn violence, we are about decent parents who wish to maintain a loving and meaningful relationship with their kids post separation.

The public perception undoubtedly varies on F4J, the public have voted in press surveys supporting our activities a resounding 80% in favour, love us or loathe us we are here to stay until the law is changed.6/14/2005 10:43:31 PM|||Anonymous|||Anonymous said at 10.05 14.06.05

"You will find out that F4J have not and do not support individual cases, hence the court stories of intimidation are without foundation as members are barred from physically supporting others at court in family law cases.

They support each other at activist trails in large numbers yes, not at family court, no way."

You are WRONG - post 15 is from me. I was there. It was a family court. It was listed only under number (no name). Yet on two days, there were F4J members there intimidating and scaring me - about 12 on the first day - i could not even begin to count on the second day, i was too scared.

So how did they get there if it was listed by number? Becuase he told his fellow F4J members, thats why. The cout had to use most of its security resources to protect me and my friend, to the point that they had to wave aside protocol and admit this friend into the courtroom for her safety becuase of F4J!

None of your comments
("Some questionable ambiguous testimony?"
+
"You will find out that F4J have not and do not support individual cases, hence the court stories of intimidation are without foundation as members are barred from physically supporting others at court in family law cases.

They support each other at activist trails in large numbers yes, not at family court, no way."
)

apply - becuase the situation was and is TRUTH regardless of how you choose to ignore it/have been brainwashed into believing otherwise6/15/2005 01:57:49 AM|||RW|||Yes, it is a shame about the cause.
Why should fathers' rights be a crusade ?
Suffragettes, yes, but why men ?
When did they earn the right ?

Antonia is right. Rights are powerful campaigning totems and so they are
best taken out of the hands of men.
Men and fathers are getting above their station and need to be slapped down.

In most cases the mother has been the primary caregiver of the children and
courts believe, rightly, that in 95% of instances, she should continue in
that capacity. If the courts had any doubts they would not do this. I'm sure
that if they looked at the NSPCC number for children abused and murdered it
would not be the mother who was the main perpetrator. If it was, by chance,
mothers who abused children more then I can't see how courts could continue
to give custody to mothers - but that isn't the case, is it, so we needn't
worry.
However, I can't help thinking that, to be consistent, the one-size-fits-all
mantra also demonstrably doesn't fit those who advocate sole residency and
so widespread sole residency must equally be rejected. From my readings of
comments made by those in the men's movement they do not want a straight
jacket of one form of custody or another but a chance to opt for a choice
befitting their circumstances - especially with more women going out to
work.

There can be bias in courts against women but unlike rape trials (criminal)
in family law courts (civil) we never know for certain because thy are held
in secret.
Steering away from any accusation of being blatantly sexist I would have to
say that if there is a rights based argument here, it is not just the right
of women to live a life free from violence but also men. As I understand it
2 women a month die as a result of domestic violence but no one mentions the
one man a month who dies in similar circumstances. We need to have a more
brotherly concern for our husbands, sons and brothers.
But everything is not all black. We should be able to take heart from recent
trends. All the British Crime Surveys, including the 2001/02 edition, show
that the level of domestic violence is actually falling. Currently it is
close to its 1987 level, having fallen year on year for 6 years. Although
there are an 'estimated' 635,000 incidents of domestic violence in England
and Wales we should remember that approximately 120,000 are male victims and
female victims account for the lower figure of around 511,000. Of that
500,000, 55% or over 230,000 are repeat or duplicate calls.
So the real level of domestic violence could be far lower than advocacy
groups would like to frighten women into believing.
Only the more gullible would be taken in by small self-selecting samples of
abused women such as the one cited from 1999. The same would be found if
abused children of fathers were sampled.
If a survey were undertaken in an insane asylum we should not be surprised
to find that our self-selecting sample produced similar proportions of
schizophrenics, manic depressives, obsessive compulsives, bi-polar disorders
etc etc.
If anything, I feel the women's movement has to do a lot more to catch up
with the accuracy of statistics produced by the fathers movement.


Yours truly,
R Whiston6/15/2005 09:23:57 AM|||paulrubert|||hello antonia and all!

my name is rubo, i'm new today, and this looks like a great blog. i would be very interested to hear antonia's and anyone else's comments on the following expereince of mine last year.

on 5 may 2004, the manchester branch of f4j held a public meeting and discussion about the subject of domestic violence, which was addressed by 2 greater manchester police officers: DI jane shackleton, who has overall charge of dv issues in the gmp force, and her colleague DC angela (i've forgotten her surname), who works on dv issues daily - visiting homes, arresting offenders, counselling, advising, etc.

the officers spoke for about 40 minutes about gmp's dv policy: how the police take dv very seriously, how dv is an under-reported crime, difficulties of getting witness statements, etc. they gave each of us an information card about dv, upon which was printed the following definition:

any incident of threatening behavior, violence or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional) between adults who are intimate partners or family members, regardless of gender, is dv.

the officers then took questions from the audience. the atmosphere was largely constructive, despite the strong views of many members, one questioner, however, managed to extract 2 very useful admissions from the officers. he first asked whether according to the definiton on the card, a mother who intentionally falsely accuses a father of dv, is herself committing an act of dv. the 2 officers replied vaguely and indirectly, bu the questioner persisted 2 or 3 times , and finally dc angela admitted that yes, according to the definition on the card, to falsely accuse someone of dv is to commit dv oneself.

the questioner immediately followed by asking whether the police would follow up a report of such dv, if made by a father against a mother in a domestic situation. again, the officers waffled and avoided replying directly; again the questioner persisted, and finally dc angela conceded that in practice, police officers would probably not take such an allegation seriously. when the questioner asked why this was so, in view of the determined stance against ALL forms of dv which the officers had boasted about earlier? he got the reply, that there was a shortage of resources that had to be targeted to the most important cases, and this type of dv would not be considered very serious.


so there you have it: gmp officers admit that to make false accusations of dv, is itself a case of dv; and further, that the police will not do anything about THIS type of dv.


i would be interested, antonia, to read your comments, and wonder if you would be willing to reply to the following 2 specific questions:

(1) do you agree that to falsely and knowingly accuse a person of dv, is to commit an act of dv yourself?

(2) do you believe that the police ought to investigate such cases of dv?


best regards

rubo6/15/2005 11:59:51 AM|||Antonia|||Everyone who is on this blog - go and look at the comments from the woman is the former partner of a F4J leader. (Anonymous at 7.07pm yesterday)

Then tell me how you can still support a group that puts a woman and her children through this, and which elevates a man such as her ex-partner to a position of prominence?

Dadalone: I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself on this blog, especially not the Labour Party. And I nowhere accuse F4J and the fathers' movement of hating women - if you look at what I have said, I've been clear that I believe they have an agenda of rolling back the achievements of the feminist movement in making sure that women and children don't have to suffer violence and intimidation, lose their children after divorce and suffer stigma as lone parents.

You also said "something like 66% of DV against children is perpertrated by the mother or her new boyfriend." This stat is bogus - it's from a 1990 NSPCC report, so it's 15 years out of date, it refers only to unemployed mothers, not mothers in general, and it's not national - it refers only to certain areas of the UK. See The Observer's readers' editor for more details on why it doesn't stand up.

Well done, anonymous at 10.05pm, you've cited a referenced fact from a reputable source. I'm sure British men do do on average 30% of the childcare. Does that mean that all fathers should get 30% custody time? No, because I've stated time and again that cookie cutter solutions, one size fits all, doesn't work, and I advocate individual decisions tailored to the circumstances of individual families, unlike the fathers' rights movement that want a 50-50 split no matter what the circumstances.

If F4J and their ilk do repudiate all violence, then why are they so quick to criticise organisations trying to prevent violence and support women and children to escape from violent situations? And why do the partners of so many of their spokespeople talk of their violence and intimidation they have suffered at the hands of their former partners?

R Whiston, you say "I feel the women's movement has to do a lot more to catch up with the accuracy of statistics produced by the fathers movement." What statistics? Where? ONE commenter has produced a reputable referenced statistic on this thread, and that doesn't even support his case!

Paul Rubert, I agree with GMP's definition of DV, and believe that all DV should be investigated. However, it's absolutely clear that where the life or physical safety of a woman or child is in danger, that takes priority. Fathers' rights groups claim that women make up DV, just as misogynists claim that women make up rape allegations - doing this gives political cover to men who actually abuse and rape, allowing them to continue doing so with inpunity. Focus on the real issues - that two women a week die at the hands of their partner or ex-partner (source) and that 12.4 million people in the UKare living in poverty, including 3.6 million children.(source)6/15/2005 12:02:55 PM|||A UK Dad|||Antonia,

Nobody will be able to convince you otherwise, and why should they, but it is my opinion for what it's worth, that you and many like you hold the view that any man who campaigns for any rights is out of order. I think you believe that the monopoly on fighting for your rights and those of children rest fair and squarely in the lap of women alone.

The links you provide to somehow demonstrate what you say is fact, are no more dubious than personal anecdotes.

If you really what to see the facts and proper Government funded research on how fatherlessness and family breakdown DOES affect youth attianment in school, crime levels and relationship & developmental problems than look no further than the Family Matter website

www.shine.org.uk/Liverpool%20st%20helens%202/Liverpool%20st%20helens%202.PPT

or http://www.familymatters.org.uk6/15/2005 01:16:28 PM|||Anon 2|||Dadalone, just in case you don't return to the original thread to read my reply, I'll repeat it here
-------
Dadalone - did you actually read my posts?!

You said:

"Anon 2: Just becuase your life was ruined and you hated your Dad, dont assume that my kids suffer how you did. Just becuase your Dad may have been a problem, dosnt mean that my kids haven't got an inalienable right to see me."

Nowhere have I assumed that you are a bad father. Nowhere have I said that your children don't have a right to see you.
I'll repeat my post as you obviously couldn't be bothered to read it first time round

"In a nutshell, what I said was, from my experience, the law wasn't biased against my father having contact (see the bit about court only not granting contact order as he wasn't there) - my second point was that I think that F4J has probably done more harm than good to its cause because it is perceived as a militant group, and is an excuse for opting out of reasonable debate about family law. Indeed, I am generally reform-minded, and might be inclined to support equality-based changes to the law - but could never support F4J."


ps my life is fortunately not ruined. But only by the chance that my dad didn't turn up to contest the contact hearing.6/15/2005 01:36:51 PM|||A UK Dad|||Anon 2, you said "Indeed, I am generally reform-minded, and might be inclined to support equality-based changes to the law - but could never support F4J."

So, OK you won't support direct action in the form of F4J, but who are you supporting?

Have you joined the Equal Parenting Council EPC? Of the moderate and longstanding Families Need Fathers FNF? Who and what are you doing to support reform, which by anybodies standards is much needed.

If anybody reading this thread believes that the law is sound and the Family Courts, its systems and services are all working fine and dandy, I'd like to hear from you. Otherwise, please state what you are doing about the state we are in, other than making negative remarks about the only campaign group who has been able to raise these issues to the polictical debate again..thanks6/15/2005 02:20:03 PM|||Anon 2|||- If you follow that logic you clearly can't comment on the policies of a political party unless you've joined another. Do we think that's a sensible proposition?
There are lots of things that need changing in the world, and unfortunately I haven't time to be involved in everything that needs changing.
That doesn't (and shouldn't) stop me commenting on the effectiveness of the actions of one group.6/15/2005 03:06:12 PM|||ms. b.||| 66% of DV against children is perpertrated by the mother or her new boyfriend.


Do you mean child abuse? This kind of skewed view of what domestic violence is is the basis for many of the spurious stats quoted by "men's rights activists".6/15/2005 07:21:29 PM|||Anonymous|||I nearly dropped my coffee when I read the comment that F4J do not support individual cases at court. I take it the member in question has never read his own message boards, attended his own meetings or indeed attended court with the myriad of individuals that F4J do indeed choose to support at court? A cursory search of the internet boards shows the F4J "decontamination squad" is regularly sent to courts during family cases. Indeed, Matt set up the organisation with promises of support at court for individual members. There has been quite a fallout over the fact that they've reneged on this promise for a lot of people, however, from what I read. Nevertheless, I have recently been present at two court hearings in which groups of F4J supporters have arrived to hold a demo outside the courts whilst the mum was in the court defending herself. In both instances the demonstrators also chose to enter the court buildings and the courts themselves (illegally) whilst wearing F4J shirts and jackets. In one of these, two of the national leaders turned up to cheer on their supporters, all of which combined to leaving the poor little mum shaking like a leaf. Hardly the most well-disguised activity when it's in public in a court surrounded by Professionals as witnesses. What concerns me is that members seem not to know what their own group is doing. Are they honestly duped into thinking it's all in a good cause and done by cheerful fun? No, it really isn't.
Another question I would be asking if I were them is "where the money"? People pay a tidy sum to join each year, all 12,000 of them, and added to other donations that's a lot of cash. Matt refuses to issue accounts from what I read. Where's the money? Simple question. Answer - presumably somewhere in Matt's privately owned Limited Company called Fathers 4 Justice. People think it's a charity but it isn't.
If I were a man with a contact problem I'd go to a decent group like FNF or EP, not F4J. At least you know what you're getting.
And before anyone says a word about being anti-the-cause, I'm part of a group that helps men with contact disputes.6/15/2005 09:36:38 PM|||Anonymous|||Mmm. All very interesting. I think that what we have here are alot of decent people who recognise how our children are being let down. When i got married i didn't need a solicitor or judge but on getting divorced apparently i need this legal system - a secret system that will not publish details of individual cases. Why? On separation when my wife told me that she wanted the kids to be with her after she broke up the marriage why was i told by two independant solicitors not to try and get residence of my kids because in 9 out of 10 cases the legal system would grant custody to the mother. Why? She wanted to break the family apart why should it not be her who lost everything like i did. Because without a presumption of 50/50 on separation/divorce everything is weighted towards the mother. If we start from a presumption of 50/50 on divorce/separation (and this is the point that f4j are arguing for and what you anti f4j people have missed) then there is no bias. If we remove the legal system from separation/divorce then an already difficult situation is made easier ( i have laughed at phrases in my solicitors letters to my soon to be ex's solicitor which are full of words and phrases i have used...money for old rope!!) Is it any coincidence that alot of MP's or their wives are involved in the legal system (My MP Damien Green's wife is a family lawyer and he has told me that there is no problem in family law because his wife told him so). Wake up to reality Antonia - oh sorry you dont understand the reality for the majority of kids as you suffered horribly at the hands of your father and therefore all Fathers are the same. Hows Jo?6/15/2005 10:58:51 PM|||Antonia|||Anonymous at 9.36pm, I don't know why you think you know about me or my family. I've got a great relationship with my dad, always have had.

I don't agree with your point on a presumption of 50-50 contact. Let's start from a presumption that the children's welfare is paramount. Then let's acknowledge that every family is different, and come up with a solution to suit that family.6/15/2005 11:37:07 PM|||JO|||Dear Anonymous at 9.36pm,

I'm fine thank you very much, thanks for asking in that veiled threat kind of a way...

Mind you, I'm a bit confused by the last few lines of your comment - methinks maybe you mistaking the name "antonia" with the word "anonymous" and getting things a little mixed up?

Either that or you are speaking in some weird code but forgot to send us the dictionary?

Either way, I really don't like your tone and suggest you get a grip.

Best wishes, Jo6/15/2005 11:37:15 PM|||Anonymous|||Antonia: If every family is different, why oh why are 99% of them treated with the same roughshod bigotry?

Anon 2: If I didn't read it the first time, I certainly wouldn't read it the following three times!

By saying what you say, you are implying that I am in the wrong for wanting more time with my kids. The only reason my kids don't see me as often as they would like is because thier mum is against it. They are told that they are naughty for asking for more time. How nice is that? How fair?

Mrs B: DV against children IS child abuse. DV against another parent infront of the children IS child abuse. Denying a child the RIGHT to see a parent IS child abuse. Dominating a child into not asking to see a parent IS (by legal definition, look it up) child abuse. Tell me why I should distinguisghe the two? Why should I not campaign for what I believe to be the RIGHT thing for my own children? Why is a manic depressive adulteress allowed to decide their fate without my input?

Like most Dads (okay Anon 2, not all) I would burn the world for my daughters if that would keep them safe: what is chucking a few eggs at despot dictators or climbing on a roof (neither of which I have done personally btw)?

How is climbing a roof violent? The Suffragettes that created the feminist movement that Antonia loves so much blew people up and euthanaised in public. Now that's violence for you, and it got you feminists just what you wanted. Feminism is in itelf a bigotry: whats wrong with equality?

Dadalone6/15/2005 11:42:59 PM|||Anon 3|||Dadalone, you're missing the point of what Ms B said.

She said Do you mean child abuse? This kind of skewed view of what domestic violence is is the basis for many of the spurious stats quoted by "men's rights activists".

And what I think she meant is what you just told her she should think- i.e. that what you are both talking about IS child abuse and that it is different from domestic violence (though they are both extremely serious crimes and neither should be tolerated by the law or by society)6/15/2005 11:52:04 PM|||Anonymous|||Then why is my children's mother not in jail? Why is she sole resident parent of my children when the KAFKA-SS reporter could find no fault with my parenting skills or the relationship between my kids and I?

I cannot see the line between child abuse from a parent and domestic violence. Am I missing something? Can only mothers and children be victims of DV from their male family member? Is it just a feminist thing? Is it heck. My children and I are victims of it, an instead of the perp being punished, she is rewarded with SRP.

Is it me?

Dadalone6/16/2005 08:17:30 AM|||Anon 2|||Dadalone says -

"Anon 2: If I didn't read it the first time, I certainly wouldn't read it the following three times!"

Fair point, I guess, but you can't really disagree with someone if you don't even try to understand what they're saying.

From what you say below, you clearly didn't read it this time either.

Dadalone says "By saying what you say, you are implying that I am in the wrong for wanting more time with my kids. . . "

Let me get this straight - by saying that my personal experience of the family law system differs from yours, and that I think F4J's methods have done more harm than good, I am implying that you're in the wrong for wanting more time with your kids?!?

Er, no, that's not what I'm implying.6/16/2005 08:23:35 AM|||Anonymous|||I can sympathise with your article. I spent several years on the run from my ex who systamatically used violence and intimidation even though it wasn't me who decided to break up the home. After being warned by the police that future instances would result in prison things seem better now. I still am very nevous when I drop my daughter off but there is nothing I can do the court decided. In fact it was presumed from the outset. I had to cripple myself financially just to reinstate the shared residency already existed since birth. Garry Clarkson6/16/2005 09:13:57 AM|||Foucault's buddy|||For a quite refreshing take on the issue of fatherhood/ parenthood there was a great article in the Guardian yesterday about the parenting customs of the Aka Pygmy people of central Africa. http://www.guardian.co.uk/parents/story/0,,1506843,00.html

No feminist paradise this (remnants of a 'glass ceiling' seems to pertain in some respects), but worth reading.6/16/2005 09:34:04 AM|||Anonymous|||The fact that you have som much crap to say about F4J just goes to show that you really dont have a clue as most women dont !!!! The courts are biased and if it wasnt for people like us stading up to get it changed, the world would still be full of hypocrits like you and your lesbian lover!6/16/2005 09:42:18 AM|||JO|||Dear Anonymous at 9.34 AM

Ah yes, when in doubt, be homophobic because that's bound to convince us of the strngths of your arguments...

No wait, that's NOT what's happening.

You're homphobic, I sit here and think "scum"

Take some advice - if you want to win people over to your cause, ditch the bigoted views.

Jo6/16/2005 10:39:42 AM|||Anonymous|||The curious thing is that some F4J members can post prejudiced things about women, those who are gay, liken people to Nazis, falsify facts, terrorise people at court, threaten CAFCASS officers etc and STILL have no clue at all why people would prefer to use more moderate men's rights groups to represent their vital cause.

I am so sad to watch some F4J members/supporters embarass themselves in the way they have on parts of this thread and other related ones. Unfortunately it is the standard response of some of this group to simply be immensely abusive to others, then wonder why they are denied contact with their child. Perhaps they should take a long, hard look at their own behaviour before blaming everyone around them 100% of the time.6/16/2005 01:37:16 PM|||Mike|||I think this page reveals very clearly why courts are often unwilling to give custody of children to some fathers. It's not because of any kind of judicial "bias"! It's because the people who complain of bias present themselves as they have in some of the posts above. Semi-literate, unwilling to present any actual evidence for their assertions, and to boot grossly prejudiced about other people. I thank God I was brought up by decent people. If I'd been brought up by some of the F4J activists posting here I'd probably have ended up a nervous wreck.6/16/2005 02:03:23 PM|||paulrubert|||hello antonia

thanks for giving straight replies to my 2 questions – I rarely find politicians who are capable of that.

i agree with you completely, that cases in which women suffer serious injury at the hands of violent male partners, are much more serious than those cases in which women make false accusations of dv against their men. however, when somebody comes to you with a problem that matters a great deal to them (and their children, perhaps) but matters very little to you, it is no answer at all to reply: i'm not interested in YOUR problem because there's a much more serious problem over here that bothers me more!

WHATEVER problem you look at in politics or life, there's ALWAYS a more serious one somewhere else. how would you feel, if the government said: we're not going to do anything about a hundred thousand battered british women anymore, because there are 10 million women raped and injured in ruanda and the sudan?

the fact is, that public opinion generally accepts there is a problem of serious violence in many homes by men on women; but as we have already seen, the police are addressing this problem.

the entirely separate problem of false allegations of domestic violence levelled against fathers by the mothers of their children, is very serious in the eyes of separated fathers, because such allegations can render the children fatherless for many years for no good reason. such allegations will always be taken seriously by a family court, but even if the court finds the allegation false, there is no sanction against the person who made it knowing it to be false. and this is despite the fact that, as you have already agreed, that accuser is guilty of domestic violence.

the usual reply from judges and lawyers to this point, is to ask: well, what do you expect us to do about it? we can't punish the mother because that would hurt the child also, whose interests are paramount.

the simple answer to THAT reply, is that all allegations of violence should be looked at, not in family, courts, but in criminal courts which are perfectly well equipped to hear evidence and then deliver verdicts.

another common response is to say that, while it is unfortunate that some children lose fathers because mothers make false allegations against the father, it happens only rarely. yet no one can possible know how many are the cases in which this happens, because gathering of data about judgments in family courts is not done and would almost certainly itself be illegal. the fact is, antonia, that an awful lot of fathers who trudge thru the family courts each year, who meet other such fathers, get the feeling that this problem of false allegations is widespread.

so let me ask you 2 more specific questions:

1. do you agree that it would be an improvement all round, if allegations of violence or abuse made by mother against father in a child contact dispute, were examined in criminal courts able to deliver a proper guilty/not guilty verdict, instead of in a family court where the matters are left largely unresolved which leads to a sort of “trial by innuendo” that can make a child fatherless for no good reason?

2. in roughly how many of the 70 thousand or so disputed child contact cases between mother and father that come to the english family courts each year, do you believe that false allegations are knowingly made by mother against father simply in order to deny him contact with his children that she has no other good reason for opposing? for what it's worth, i'll tell you my own estimate: in more than half of those cases. i'd much appreciate your estimate. after that, we can go on to examine the bases for our estimates.


best regards


rubo6/16/2005 02:40:01 PM|||Antonia|||Dadalone:
Read my original post - you might notice that I acknowledge that F4J have run a great media and publicity stunt campaign. Unlike some people, my main beef with them is that their cause is bogus, not the fact that they climb bridges dressed as superheroes. As I point out later, however, the associated violence and intimidation against CAFCASS workers and ex-partners is disgusting and unacceptable, and I'm still waiting for even one poster to this thread to condemn it. COME ON, F4J apologists, if you're not perpetrators of DV, if you don't intimidate court staff and your ex-partners, come out and condemn those who do!

Anonymous at 9.34am:
I say:
"I believe that the advances of feminism - no fault divorce, challenges to traditional gender roles, an end to acceptance of violence against women, ending the stigma of lone parenting and having children outside marriage - are good things. Do we really want to return to the days of women trapped in loveless or violent marriages, sent to homes for fallen women and stigmatised for bearing illegitimate children? The inference is that F4J and their fellow travellers do."

You say:
"The fact that you have som much crap to say about F4J just goes to show that you really dont have a clue as most women dont !!!!"

So, despite all the protestations that you're not anti-women or anti-mother or sexist at all, and all your want is to see your little kiddies that you have been unfairly deprived of, you think this is a good way of making your point, do you? You think this will win friends and influence people? And then you add homophobia to the mix? Excellent. No wonder your wife left you.

Paul Rubert:
I'm not an elected politician, just someone with politics. And I'm sorry but I just can't find it in me to prioritise the very few poor sods who have been falsely accused of DV by their former partners over supporting thousands of women and children to escape domestic violence. To answer your questions: 1. No, as it might lead to women being deterred from reporting DV, and 2. I don't think false allegations are a serious problem, although there may be a very few isolated cases.6/16/2005 02:44:43 PM|||Anonymous|||Can I ask a question in response to yours, Rubo?
You say, "1. do you agree that it would be an improvement all round, if allegations of violence or abuse made by mother against father in a child contact dispute, were examined in criminal courts able to deliver a proper guilty/not guilty verdict, instead of in a family court where the matters are left largely unresolved which leads to a sort of “trial by innuendo” that can make a child fatherless for no good reason?"

Why assume it's always mothers who make false allegations? In my experience, abusive conduct is not something that is exclusive to one gender. I have known many men who have made false allegations of abusive behaviour about the mother. I do agree that DV cases should be in criminal courts where there are proper facilities for witness protection etc, and people do not have to PAY to keep their children safe from abuse.

You then say, "2. in roughly how many of the 70 thousand or so disputed child contact cases between mother and father that come to the english family courts each year, do you believe that false allegations are knowingly made by mother against father simply in order to deny him contact with his children that she has no other good reason for opposing? for what it's worth, i'll tell you my own estimate: in more than half of those cases. i'd much appreciate your estimate. after that, we can go on to examine the bases for our estimates."

Since there are only 100,000 families with children who divorce each year, the estimate of 70,000 who contest child contact is very, very wrong. The courts estimate only 1% end up in protracted disputes leading to contact problems, which makes it 1000 cases a year not 70,000. Our figures seem a long way apart. Of these, what proportion have false allegations made? I'd need some hard facts on this, but I would say of the 1000 cases which end up stuck in court, probably close to 100% have someone who's not telling the truth, which is why the courts get involved.
What fraction of these are the mothers not telling the truth is simply not known. The suggestion that mums wake up one morning and think "gosh, although the children get on really well with dad and he's lovely, I must stop the children seeing their father" for no reason at all seems a bit strange. Why do you think they do that, then? Just out of interest. AFter all, bringing up children single-handed, or going to court endless times at huge cost to defend contact doesn't seem like a fun thing for people to choose to do for a laugh? There are undoubtedly some mums who are wrong. But how many are right?6/16/2005 02:54:50 PM|||Anonymous|||"In 2002 there were 65192 applications for contact"

http://www.womensaid.org.uk/policy&consultations/briefings/children/accountability_in_family_justice_system.htm6/16/2005 03:56:11 PM|||Anonymous|||From court statistics:
(bearing in mind a contact order does NOT have to indicate a major dispute and can be part of a perfectly normal divorce):

Contact orders granted in 1999 - 41,862, refused - 1,752
Contact orders granted in 2000 - 46,070, refused - 1,276
Contact orders granted in 2001 - 55,030, refused - 713
Contact orders granted in 2002 - 61,356, refused - 518

Figures from House of Lords: "In 2003-04 there were 40,000 applications to court connected with contact, an estimated 7000 of which were the result of alleged breaches of contact orders."

We do not know what proportion of these were resolved. We do not know what proportion were of women breaching Orders rather than men. We do not know what proportion actually did breach the Orders. We do not know what proportion are repeat applications. Even 7000 is not millions. What worries me is that the courts only refused 518. that's less than 1%. Yet domestic violence affects one in every 5 in the UK at some point in their lives. What proportion of children are forced into unsafe contact, I wonder?6/16/2005 04:04:10 PM|||paulrubert|||hello antonia and anon1 and anon2

to anon1 who asks why do i assume all false accusers are women? the reply is, that i don't assume that; it's just that a mother who falsely accuses a father of abuse or violence will stand to gain from that false accusation, insofar as the father's contact with his child will be held up for a time (if not permanently destroyed) while the family court deliberates. a father who falsely accuses a mother in a contact dispute, by contrast, will gain nothing: while that accusation is being deliberated, the children are almost certain to be left with the mother, with no contact with dad. (if anyone knows personally of any counterexamples to this statement, i would be interested to know more. an anonymised account of the facts would do fine.)

to anon1 re the number of contact applications disputed in england annually: i think that anon2 has already given you a figure for 2002. one interesting conclusion to be drawn from your much smaller estimate, is the great difficulty of arriving at ANY accurate figures in family law, partly because of the secrecy surrounding them.

to antonia: you say that to examine all allegations of violence in criminal courts (instead of in family courts) would deter many women from coming forward with dv allegations. i can see how someone would be deterred from coming forward with an intentionally FALSE allegation; but if the allegation were true, why would a change in venue for the hearing deter the accuser? we know that women are deterred from accusing their violent male partners for all sorts of reasons - emotional attachment, shame, fear of upsetting the children, fear of counter-allegations, and many more - but none of these would be affected by a change in venue for the trial. the only difference that a change in venue to a criminal court from a family court makes, is that in a criminal trial the accuser will be advised of the danger of perjury, which is a criminal offence in itself. but no one who tells the truth will ever be in danger of being charged with perjury.

please give me some examples or illustrations, antonia, of cases in which a mother who has a TRUE allegation of violence to make against the father of her children, would be deterred by a criminal court but not by a family court.



best regards



rubo6/16/2005 09:09:58 PM|||Darren|||It seems strange to me that almost every dad that I know that is having problems with his ex has been accused of either DV or abuse! At first I thought my ex must have been sick to even think this about someone she had known for 7 years but then I realised, its not her but the solicitors that get her to say this crap! Surely even you must agree that not all fathers have interfered with their own children??? Oh and if we are quoting facts ..... 300,000 children have lost contact with their fathers under labour! you must be something very wrong !6/16/2005 10:12:03 PM|||Anonymous|||"Take some advice - if you want to win people over to your cause, ditch the bigoted views."

Isnt that what some of us have being saying all along? Its all support for the system that is bigotry incarnate, but as soon as someone has a go at YOUR particular thang, then its "ooh ooh, bigotry"

I've got no beef with whatever turns you on, and think those whoever makes a fuss of it, well, thats their business. But dont do the boo hoo bit when you particularly support positive discrimination in all walks of life.

Dadalone6/16/2005 10:18:49 PM|||Anonymous|||P"erhaps they should take a long, hard look at their own behaviour before blaming everyone around them 100% of the time."

Good behaiviour has got most of these guys into the situation they are in. They have toed the legal line, followed their solicitors' advice to 'not rock the boat' under the false belief that truth honesty and justice prevailed in the Family Courts. So what do you do when that fails?

Why, you protest! FNF (the moderate equal parenting org you are no doubt on about, have been banging away at this subject for thirty odd years. They have been nice about it, so none of you lot have ever heard of teh problem.

F4J are here to show you what is happening under your own particular stone. The only reson they are not taken seriously is becuase politicians at large to to embarassed to back pedal that far when they are shown the galring holes in their nice comfy 'democracy'.

Dadalone6/16/2005 10:21:58 PM|||Anonymous|||"I thank God I was brought up by decent people"

Decent people dont bring up people who sound like you.

My parents are decent people, and I am a decent person.

Do you think all ejected fathers are chavs or something?

dadalone6/16/2005 10:28:57 PM|||Anonymous|||Illiterate?

Some of us may need a spell checker every now and then, but illiteates cannot write at all. Duh!

Dadalone6/16/2005 10:59:37 PM|||Ben|||Oh, you sure?

I thought illiteates couldn't, erm EAT?!6/17/2005 08:38:35 AM|||Anon 2|||Antonia said: "Unlike some people, my main beef with them is that their cause is bogus, not the fact that they climb bridges dressed as superheroes. As I point out later, however, the associated violence and intimidation against CAFCASS workers and ex-partners is disgusting and unacceptable, and I'm still waiting for even one poster to this thread to condemn it."

Not that it counts for anything, but I condemn it. I think there is a connection between their media campaign and the fact that some of their members will use violence and intimidation (please note here I said some not "all"). F4J preach that only direct action will solve anything, that the system is biased against them, that fathers are outsiders, and that the only way they'll be listened to is if they take action against their 'enemies'. This can be a cover and a justification for certain individuals' unacceptable behaviour.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I feel my dad probably would have joined F4J had it been around then. He was very angry he was being divorced, felt the system was against him, and he used this to justify a campaign of harassment of his family. He already felt justified harassing us - a fathers' rights group that preached that direct action was the only way for him to be listened to would have been right up his street.

Now, please note - I am not commenting on the individual cases of anyone who's posted here. I'm not saying that you're bad fathers or that you don't deserve to see your kids. I'm not saying that joing F4J makes you a bad father. However, I'm saying that F4J in its current form does provide a legitimising cover for *some* individuals to act in an abusive way.
I do think that the homophobia in some of the posts on this blog is absolutely disgusting though.

I also think it's probably turned many people away from its concerns by being perceived as a militant group.6/17/2005 06:09:54 PM|||Antonia|||Paul Rubert:
Whilst I want every woman who has experienced DV to be able to report it to the police and see the perpetrator gaoled, I don't believe that women who have experienced DV should, in disclosing it in a family court, immediately and automatically have to go through the pain and upheaval of a criminal case too. My fear is that some women might feel forced to have to agree to unsafe contact because they don't want to risk - for whatever reason - going through a criminal process.

Anon 2:
Thanks for condemning the violence and intimidation perpetrated by some members and fellow travellers of F4J against CAFCASS staff and ex-partners. I'm not sure I meant you, though!

So, Dadalone, Paul Rubert, Colin Baker, A UK Dad, Richard, R Whiston, Ben, Anonymouses various - are any of you going to condemn it?6/18/2005 03:12:51 AM|||Anonymous|||I don't think false allegations are a serious problem, although there may be a very few isolated cases


LOLOLOLOLOLOL6/18/2005 12:03:50 PM|||paulrubert|||hello antonia and all

much of what you antonia now say is uncontroversial, and i agree with it. you have, however, sidestepped my main question: for what kind of reason, other than fear of committing perjury in case she is lying, would a mother who accuses father of violence or abuse, prefer her alleagtion to be heard in a family court rather than a criminal court?

you wrote: "I don't believe that women who have experienced DV should, in disclosing it in a family court, immediately and automatically have to go through the pain and upheaval of a criminal case too. My fear is that some women might feel forced to have to agree to unsafe contact because they don't want to risk - for whatever reason - going through a criminal process."

if the criminal case were tried quickly, during the family law proceeding, the family court could quite easily suspend all contact between father and child until father is acquitted of the criminal charge. therefore the danger of unsafe contact that you foresee, simply does not exist.

the pain and upheaval that you correctly identify, usually commences with one party's application to the family court: that's the moment when the s**t hits the fan, particularly when mother is alleging dv. at that point, contact between child and father will almost certainly cease or be drastically reduced, and all the worries about counter-allegations, upsetting the children, shame within the community, etc. that we mentioned earlier, may crowd in upon the mother.

if her abuse allegations are true, she has NOTHING else to lose or fear from a quick criminal trial, if anything, she may gain witness protection, and she may save money. i ask you again, antonia: EXCEPT in case her allegations are false and she consequently risks perjury, WHAT ELSE does such a mother have to lose by or fear from a criminal trial? don't just say: "for whatever reason", please give me some real or reasonable examples of such reasons.

with regard to condemning the activist stunts of f4j, i simply refer you to the social history of the working-class movement in britain 1800 - 1900, where you will discover that rights such as education for all, votes for all men, later on for all women too, and freedom to join unions, were none of them won by obeying the police or the government of the day, but instead by civil disobedience. i personally disapprove of violence and intimidation against cafcass staff. however, it follows from your views (your insistence on the right of mothers who make false allegations against fathers, to be spared having to appear in the criminal courts) that you yourself will tolerate intimidation of fathers by mothers. and this is despite your acknowledgement that such false allegations are themselves crimes of dv. it seems we have a case of double standards here, antonia, but if I am wrong, perhaps you could clarify your position on intimidation.6/18/2005 10:10:30 PM|||Phil|||Antonia, June 14:

Don't post anymore sob stories, I'm not interested in your individual experiences.

Antonia, June 15:

Everyone who is on this blog - go and look at the comments from the woman is the former partner of a F4J leader.

I'm on your side in this argument, pretty much - put it this way, I'm definitely not on F4J's - but you don't do yourself any favours by saying you're going to ignore first-hand testimony, from any source.6/19/2005 12:28:14 AM|||Anonymous|||"However, I'm saying that F4J in its current form does provide a legitimising cover for *some* individuals to act in an abusive way."

Exactly the same can be said of the Labour party. Just look at the antics of that clown Hodge. Now that she is no longer in charge of abusing families, I notice she is enjoying herself by abusing the staff of Longbridge. Who next?

Someone, I think it was Antonia said that they thought that F4J's cause was bogus. How can that be? Unless of course that you only read the headlines without actually caring to look at a single word that people say when they are on a roof.

If you can be bothered, go here and read what its all about:

www.fathers-4-justice.org

F4J stands for equality in parenting, not 'father's rights' as so many people misread. F4J stands to protect members' children from sicko nutcases who are hell bent on revenging the misunderstandings of their marriage by using children as tools against their ex partner, whilst earning free money through the CSA.

How is that bogus?

And if you do stand against equality, and man's desire to protect his own, then you are no better than Hitler, or Stalin, or Milosevic, or Mugabe.

Does that make you proud? Does your unreasoning spite for men in desperate straits make you smile? Love thy neighbour and all that?

All you feminists are no different any other kind of bigot. You have no morals, no ethics. You live only to support the id and follow only your ethos of caring for No1, at the same level of humanity as the chav or the gangster.

The worst thing about feminism is that somehow in the backlash from the Victorian times, it has become acceptable to positively discriminate, and that makes you as bad as those whose discrimination your kind originally fought, replacing one despotism with another.

Now I don’t care about your gender, your sexuality, or religion, or the colour of your skin. But feminism is a fundamentalist issue, and ALL fundamentalists are nutters.

**

Do I condemn violence? Of course I do, and do so wherever I see it. Mostly these days I see it coming from sick puppies that pee on the carpet and then complain about the smell.

Dadalone.

PS: Any words you do not understand can be found in your dictionary.6/20/2005 02:25:28 PM|||ms. b.|||You are no better than Hitler

I call Godwin's Law; you lose.

Seriously though, how can anyone spew such bile, such completely uninformed rubbish about the evil feminists and not understand why their ex might have qualms about shared parenting?6/20/2005 05:55:08 PM|||Anonymous|||Uneducated Moron!

I say what I do BECAUSE morons like you do things like that twisted woman did.

Is logic so hard for you creeps to understand?

Dadalone6/20/2005 08:14:37 PM|||ms. b.|||Yes, I'm a moron because I disagree. Keep the simplistic views, it's doing wonders for your side of the argument. Troll.6/21/2005 06:48:04 AM|||Anonymous|||"Seriously though, how can anyone spew such bile, such completely uninformed rubbish about the evil feminists and not understand why their ex might have qualms about shared parenting?"

Does it not occur to chimps like you that we protest BECAUSE our spouses keep our children from us, rather than the other way round?

Does it impinge upon your mouse brain that protest is the last attempt at raising awareness of a person's plight AFTER having been treated like a criminal by social services and the Family Court, and seeing your children ripped out of your life by a self interetsed harlot who has no intentions of letting the children have any say in the matter becuase what they want varies with what she wants and that is not in HER best interests because she also has a mouse brain and cannot see past her own nose.

Stop sounding so high an mighty in your castle of self rightousness. Were you able to have children, one day you might learn the painful truth when some monster takes them from you. Becuae that is when most of us discover that you cannot get them back. It is like they have been killed, and the grief strikes through your very core. The only difference is, if they were dead, you would eventually get over it, carry on with your life. But no, they are actually out there somewhere, and their mother is out there trying to get them to call some other bloke Dad.

Go ask you father, if you have any idea who is is, and ask him if he would have stood for that without fighting his way through every asinine court room in England and then finally climbing a roof to shout about it.

See if your mouse brain can encompass that thought before having a go at us.

Dadalone6/21/2005 08:13:26 AM|||Mr A|||Dadalone - take your own advice about sounding "high an[d] mighty" and stop talking about your kids as possessions.

I don't know about the rights and wrongs of your personal case, but you (incorrectly) criticised Anon 2 for letting his personal experience shape his view - well, I'd say that your view of your ex is pretty much shaping how you see everyone who dares to disagree with you.
Also, 'insults' like "Were you able to have children" and "Go ask you[r] father, if you have any idea who [he] is", and in previous posts, about those who disagree with you having no morals or ethics, don't improve your argument. They just make you look like someone so angry he can't see past the end of his nose that there can be disagreement without abuse.

"Stop sounding so high an mighty in your castle of self rightousness. Were you able to have children, one day you might learn the painful truth when some monster takes them from you. Becuae that is when most of us discover that you cannot get them back. It is like they have been killed, and the grief strikes through your very core. The only difference is, if they were dead, you would eventually get over it, carry on with your life. But no, they are actually out there somewhere, and their mother is out there trying to get them to call some other bloke Dad."6/22/2005 07:00:20 AM|||Anonymous|||I've re-read my posts, and can't find anywhere that indicates that I sound like an over possesive parent (its difficult being over possessive in many of our cases). Indeed that very accusation only ever comes from people who have no idea about the plight of broken families, and has only ever been used (by the likes of Hodge) to deny children contact with a parent.

As to my 'insulting' comments: Gay and lesbians (who sound like they make up a decent chunk of the users of this blog) cannot have children (unless of course they adopt some poor bloke's kids without his knowledge- which happens, and has happened in Chester just lately). Why is that insulting to them? Its their choice...

Half the people on the blog sound like they couldn't give a toss about fathers, so I imagine that they have never had a loving relationship with their father, so probably have no idea who the fellow is...

If you think that I was calling you all a bunch of sterile ba****ds, then that must be your own paranoia kicking in. Paranoia is a condition common with bigots and fundamentalists.

I'm glad you pick up on my typo's by the way. It makes you look so petty and small, just like the bigotry that Antonia's first comment on the blog page promotes.

Dadalone6/22/2005 09:56:19 AM|||Anonymous|||I have learnt that the Labour pary has fallen for the f4j propaganda, please can you loppy your MP to address this issue:

The Government itself states in the Green Paper: ‐


ʺAnd children whose fathers have been actively involved in their lives experience better outcomes:


• Higher educational achievements

• More satisfactory relationships in adult life

• Protection from mental health problems

• Less likelihood of being in trouble with the policeʺ6/22/2005 11:01:48 AM|||Anonymous|||"On a side point, bias toward women by any court is hard for me to believe, knowing the figures of women who are raped, the tiny number that go on to report that rape, how they are subsequently treated throughout the criminal justice system and the pitful level of convictions for rape".

Having read the comments about civil courts and criminal for fathers, I beleive we should have rape heard in the civil courts, only then may women have a fair chance. Already their are calls to move fraud to these courts, removing a jury, and placing it in the hands of specialists who can deal with the issues of rape is the only way forward.6/22/2005 05:15:55 PM|||Mr A|||Dadalone, you make me laugh!

I picked up on your typos so that my post made sense. I don't need to belittle you - you do a good enough job of that yourself

"I'm glad you pick up on my typo's by the way. It makes you look so petty and small, just like the bigotry that Antonia's first comment on the blog page promotes."6/24/2005 01:16:14 PM|||A_UK_Dad|||Anon Said "Anonymous said...
I have learnt that the Labour pary has fallen for the f4j propaganda, please can you loppy your MP to address this issue:

The Government itself states in the Green Paper: ‐
-And children whose fathers have been actively involved in their lives experience better outcomes:
• Higher educational achievements
• More satisfactory relationships in adult life
• Protection from mental health problems
• Less likelihood of being in trouble with the policeʺ ""

What is there to Lobby my MP about on this? Except to say well done, for acknowledging the truth of the matter, and not listening to Feminist pro-single mother, child ownership propaganda.

I can't believe there are people on this Blog who don't believe that fatherless parenting in general increases a child's chances of a negative upbringing.

What these people basically are saying is that fathers are useless and their involment in a child upbringing is negligable. Therefore showing bias, and blatant discrimination of the highest order.

Why not come out and admit it, and just say that you think a child doesn't need a father beyond the donation of sperm?6/24/2005 11:06:31 PM|||Anonymous|||When you become a parent Ms Bance, should you choose to do so, will you care who the father is or try to think about his desire to be a good dad?

You posted this comment above:- "If there’s a rights based argument here, it’s the right of women to live a life free from violence and controlling behaviour and the fear of violence and controlling behaviour, and the right of children not to be subject to or witness violence and controlling behaviour. F4J and their advocates and offshoots belittle and question the impact of domestic violence on women and children."

Reading that statement I can see how easy it is for people like yourself to assume all the rest of us fathers, who never abused our ex.'s should lose any chance of being given any rights as parents. We are as little to blame for the actions of the men you mention as anyone could possibly be. However, those mothers did choose their abusive partners, albeit (obviously) very unwisely, but although they are the "victims" should they carry no responsibility for their choice of partner?

Although I campaign for father's rights there are many reasons I would put in place to deny rights to irresponsible dads. That shouldn't mean all dads are given no rights as occurs now in my view, so I completely disagree with your comments on this one.

I want to briefly correct an error I made in my earlier post on the first thread when I tried to quote a US group, and got their name sligthly wrong.

Here is the corrected and full quote:- "We have heard the standard response to the protests of Fathers-4-Justice in Britain, Canada and the U.S. Basically, the position is, "What seems unthinkable to fathers' rights campaigners is that their rights and desires might not be in the best interests of their children. That's the uncomfortable thought they've failed to address." Actually I agree, but for very different reasons. The real problem with this entire movement is that it doesn't argue from the rights issue, rather, it argues from the interest of the child issue. This is a mistake. As soon as you separate children's rights from the rights of parents, you create a legal environment in which the state is actually the real parent, and it decides which of the two parents is a surrogate parent for the state. That is essentially the basis for all custody decisions. This basic fact is not addressed by anyone, and it is the only one that counts.
Lowell Jaks, President of the Alliance for non-custodial parents (ANCPR)

I hope you give that opinion some thought before dismissing it out of hand along with all our other views and personal experiences.
Graham6/26/2005 06:38:51 AM|||paulrubert|||hello antonia

unless it has escaped my notice, i do not appear to have any reply from you to the last question i asked you in my post of june 18, which was: what specific reason would there be for mother, who during a contact dispute accuses the father of abuse or dv, to prefer to have that allegation dealt with in a family court rather than in a criminal court, OTHER than the obvious reason - that her allegation is false?

i read your earlier comments and those of other contributors, and i pointed out that such a mother would in fact have definite advantages if the allegation were dealt with in a criminal court.

despite the fact that i have in my postings been at all times courteous, to the point, and open to correction if any of my stated facts are wrong, you have not replied to me.

perhaps it would help you, if i were to publish our dialog elsewhere, to give other people a chance to answer my question. i therefore ask your permission to copy this page of your blog to other people. in return, i promise to copy you in on any relevant replies which i receive.

i shall assume that unless i read otherwise within one week of today (ie., by sunday july 3) then i have your permission to do this.

best regards

paul rubert6/27/2005 05:18:27 PM|||Anonymous|||Divorce mediation scheme flops

Only 23 couples take part in pilot plan to help separated parents resolve child contact disputes

Clare Dyer, legal editor
Monday June 27, 2005
The Guardian

Plans to introduce a child-friendly way of dealing with battles between separated parents have been derailed after a pilot procedure was completed by just 23 couples in nine months.
The figure is far below the 1,000 that ministers expected would use the system, which is set to be expanded in legislation before parliament. Three family courts in London, Brighton and Sunderland were chosen to try out a one-year project due to end in September, which could have become the norm in England and Wales for resolving child contact disputes after parents split up.

The project is based on programmes in the US and Scandinavia which have reduced the harmful effects of family breakups on children.

But in a parliamentary answer, the children's minister, Maria Eagle, has revealed the extent to which the project, which has cost nearly £200,000 so far, has fallen short of expectations.

Only 47 couples had begun the procedure, of whom 23 had completed the programme of classes followed by mediation - which the government prefers to call "parent planning" - to agree a parenting schedule.

The classes give information about the children's need for frequent and continuing contact with both parents and the adverse effects conflict can have on their lives. Parents are taught how to manage post-divorce battles and sit down with a mediator to apportion children's time between them.

The failure of the scheme is a disappointment to judges who backed it, and will anger fathers' groups whose lobbying helped persuade the government to set it up.

Critics say the flaw is that the programme is not compulsory and parents are simply opting to bypass it. Ministers say mediation cannot be made mandatory without primary legislation.

The government's children and adoption bill, which is due for second reading in the House of Lords on Wednesday, contains no provision for compulsory mediation. The Conservatives said they would try to amend the bill to make mediation mandatory and to spell out in the statute, as in the US and Norway, that children have the right to spend substantial time with both parents after family break-up.

Theresa May, shadow secretary of state for the family, said: "It is obvious that this pilot project was simply a sham to get the government out of a political hole. Ministers wanted to neutralise the protests from fathers' groups, and this project was the plan they cooked up to do it.

"However, while the government have wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds on a phoney project, children are being denied contact with parents who love them.

"It is time that the government admitted defeat, scrapped the pilot project and addressed the real problem, that the family justice system needs a complete and radical overhaul."

Experience in the US, where many states passed laws providing for mandatory mediation nearly 25 years ago, shows that it defuses parental battles and dramatically reduces the number of court cases.

Among those supporting compulsory mediation are district judge Nicholas Crichton, who oversees the family resolutions pilot at Wells Street magistrates' court in London, and Dr Hamish Cameron, a child psychiatrist who, with Judge Crichton, helped devise the "early intervention" scheme, which was scrapped in favour of the government's family resolutions project.

Dr Cameron, who has nearly 35 years' experience in court cases involving children, said: "We're 10 to 15 years behind best practice in other countries. We're still failing many children in this country."

The national family law solicitors' group, Resolution, and a number of high court family judges also support a mandatory scheme. Some senior judges are unconvinced that the present law bars compulsory mediation.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: "In the absence of legal powers to compel participation, we did not expect every eligible couple to take part in the pilot."6/30/2005 02:17:22 PM|||Anonymous|||MY PARENTS' BITTER DIVORCE TORE ME APART FOR 10 YEARS.. TILL I RAN AWAY FROM
MUM TO BE WITH DAD I HARDLY KNEW
Dec 26 2004

TEENAGER'S HEARTFELT PLEA TO WARRING COUPLES EVERYWHERE

Exclusive By Rachel Halliwell

PRETTY Lisa Harris has been enjoying a special Christmas with her dad - after a bitter parental feud meant they were banned from seeing each other for TEN years. Her childhood was ripped apart by an endless round of custody battles until she finally ran away from her mum to live with the Fathers 4 Justice
campaigner she hardly knew. Now 18, Lisa has spoken for the first time about her traumatic upbringing,
revealing: "It was a nightmare being pulled in both directions by my parents. "I want to tell my story on behalf of all the voiceless children whose lives are being torn apart in the same way."

Determined Lisa told how she was:

- DEVASTATED at six when her mum moved her and her two sisters out of the family home and then divorced.

- HEARTBROKEN at eight when the courts banned her dad Mark from seeing them.

- STUNNED at 10 when he was sent to prison for waving to her on the way to
school.

- HORRIFIED when she saw him on TV picketing as a Fathers 4 Justice campaigner outside a judge's home.

Lisa vividly recalls the Saturday in November 1993 when her nightmare began. She said: "Dad had gone to the football. As soon as he left, relatives turned up and my sisters and I were taken off to the house of an auntie we hardly knew. "One minute we were normal kids living a normal family life. The next we were in a rented house with dad hammering at the door demanding to be allowed to see us." At first Lisa and her sisters, aged four and two, had regular contact with their dad - but it was not to last. Lisa recalled: "When he came to collect us I'd see him and mum talking and pray that they were sorting things out. "I was desperate for them to get back together. I wanted him back putting me in the bath, reading me bedtime stories and helping me with my homework. Instead we had to cram our relationship into the few short hours we spent together. "Then a few months later we suddenly lost even that. Dad stopped seeing us and being a child I thought it was because of something I had done wrong." In fact, Mark Harris had been banned from seeing his kids by law because their mum believed his visits were upsetting them. "I didn't know that dad wasn't allowed to see us," said Lisa. "I started to feel angry with him for abandoning us." Lisa started to recognise a pattern in her mum's behaviour. "Every time she came downstairs in her suit it meant she was going to court to argue about us with dad. "She always came back with a headache and didn't want to play with us or talk. I felt guilty, wondering if it was all because of me." Over the following years, Lisa's parents went to court more than ONE HUNDRED times in custody battles. To show the kids he loved them, he started slowly driving past the house. And he'd stand on a street corner and wave to them as they went to school. But his actions breached an order forcing him to stay away - and he spent 45 days in jail. "I was 10 and it was too distressing for me to think of my dad behind bars," said Lisa. "So in my head I turned him into the bad man I thought he must be to have gone to prison. It was easier that way." Lisa had to endure a parade of social workers quizzing her about how she felt about her dad. She said: "They'd ask if I wanted to see him. They said I didn't have to if I didn't want to. "I started wondering if things might get better if I went along with that. Maybe then the social workers might leave us alone to get on with our lives."Most of all I thought it might make mum happy again. So I forced myself to hate him - it was so much easier than loving him." Mark came out of jail, only to be sent back inside for a further 84 days for
a new breach. This time he went on hunger strike - and joined Fathers 4 Justice. Lisa recalled: "One night I was watching the news and there was my dad on TV. He was protesting outside the home of a judge who'd banned another father from seeing his kids. "I felt ashamed and embarrassed and just wished my dad would let it go." More recently another Fathers 4 Justice member protested as Batman at
Buckingham Palace. But at 16 Lisa had a change of heart towards her dad. She said: "I had a row with mum - I'd started rebelling and staying out late. I marched out and rang dad from a phone box. "I was only going to do it to hit out at mum. I was sick of her running my life. "But as soon as I heard my dad's voice I wanted to cry. I blurted out I wanted to see him and I loved him." This time a sympathetic judge ruled that Lisa was free to live with her dad, a driving instructor in Plymouth, if that was her choice. Lisa said: "Finally, after all those years, it was over. "It was hard at first. The last time I'd seen my dad I was 10 and still
wearing knee socks. Now I was a young woman with a boyfriend. He looked older and worn down by it all, but our love for each other was stronger than ever." Mark, 45, says: "The battle to see my children broke my heart and I worried about the effect it had on them, but giving up was not an option." Lisa's mum still feels her own pain. She said: "Anything Lisa has said has been influenced by her father. I do not believe anything she has to say should be published. She has only just turned 18 and is still a minor in my eyes." Lisa said: "I love BOTH my parents. Surely I'm allowed to do that - isn't it every child's right to love their mum and dad?

"I would tell any parent fighting over their kids to put your pain to one side and listen to your children."7/01/2005 08:28:25 AM|||Anonymous|||Extract from autobiography "Sword and Wig" by a former UK High Court
judge, Robin Dunn.

Note how judges made up the law as they went along and after the legislation
had been enacted.

Note how Roger Ormrod (the judge you can thank for creating the custody
regime we have today) set about whittling away the 1st requirement of the
law, namely the 'paramount consideration was the welfare of the child'.

Note too how he made up his minds the fathers could not look after children.



________

" .... George [Baker ] was a sound judge, a good administrator and very
supportive of his judges. But he did not have the vision required for the
development of the law following the reforms of 1970. This fell to Roger
Ormrod who, practically single-handed for twelve years, both in 'the Family
Division and the Court of Appeal, revolutionised the whole approach to
divorce law and moulded the present law of divorce. He refused to regard the
Family ...

Page 202

Division as a court of morals and was essentially concerned with the
practical consequences of divorce: the custody of the children, the
provision of a house and proper financial provision for the wife and
children. The first difficulty was presented by the use of the word
`conduct' in the 1973 Property Act. At first time-consuming trials were held
in chambers, where all property proceedings took place, akin to the former
defended divorce cases. The purpose of these was to apportion blame for the
breakdown of the marriage, rather on the lines of contributory negligence in
an action for tort, so that the wife's share of the property could be
reduced if she had been found to have been substantially to blame for the
breakdown. I never heard it suggested that her share should be increased if
the husband was to blame. As the financial cases were always heard after the
decree, this sometimes gave rise to difficult questions of estoppel and
resulted in many defended divorce cases which the reforms had been designed
to prevent. But a more serious objection was that in almost all cases there
was simply not enough money to go round and if a discount for conduct was
made from the wife's share she would not have enough to support herself and
the children.
The judge had little enough room for manoeuvre as it was, without having to
make some arbitrary deduction for `conduct'. In 1973 in a case called
Wachtel, Roger boldly announced, as was the fact, that in almost all cases
both parties were to blame, usually in approximately equal shares, so that
in financial proceedings conduct should be disregarded unless it was `both
obvious and gross'. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal and had
a dramatic effect on subsequent financial proceedings. Matrimonial conduct
could be ignored and the judges were able to concentrate on the practical
problems facing the family after the divorce.

Roger did not confine his reforming zeal to financial considerations.
Although for many years in children's cases the law had required that the
first and paramount consideration was the welfare of the child, the judges
had whittled this away by seeking also to do justice as between the parents
and by giving weight to the wishes of an `unimpeachable spouse'. When he was
in the Court of Appeal Roger succeeded in sweeping away all these old cases,
saying that there was no such thing as an 'unimpeachable' spouse and that
justice between the parties could only be done after an exhaustive inquiry
into the marriage, which would not help the resolution of the issue of
custody. As the years passed many began to say that the pendulum of reform
had swung too far in favour of wives; that the courts were too biased in
favour of wives being granted custody of their children; and that it was
wrong that a promiscuous or nagging wife should have the same financial
provision as a faithful loving wife. This criticism did not deter Roger, who
had had nine years experience of trying defended divorce cases before the
reforms and knew that in the great majority of cases the wife, whatever her
defects of character, was the more suitable person to bring up the children,
especially if they were young. It followed that she must be able to provide
a home for them and must have sufficient financial provision to enable her
to maintain as nearly as possible the standard of life which the family had
previously enjoyed.

Page 203

He was not sympathetic to husbands who maintained that they could bring up
the children as well as their wives, saying that such men usually either
neglected their children or gave up their jobs and became so engrossed in
the childr