I was back in court again on 15th Jan trying to bring a private prosecution against my ex-wife for harassing me by damaging my relationship with my children.
An earlier post on this site reported I had won a Judicial Review of the Magistrate’s decision to refuse to issue a summons. The Magistrate’s decision was quashed and the matter was referred back to the Magistrates for reconsideration.
The 15th January hearing was to reconsider it, and unfortunately it was again refused, this time for a different reason.
I take a number of …

3 of us were arrested in 2008 during a peaceful, orderly protest against draconian Police actions against fathers. Here is a link to the original story. Following an internal Police investigation and a claim for damages, the Police have finally paid up and admitted they were in the wrong. To arrest us during a peaceful protest simply because fathers rights protesters have a reputation for climbing on buildings was, as the Police report put it, “too great a leap of faith.”
It is a small victory, but an important one.

A survey of 4000 parents and children from broken families, conducted by the Centre for Social Justice on the 20th anniversary of the Children Act, found that:
* a third of children lost touch permanently with their father
* a tenth of children felt suicidal
* a quarter of children had been asked to lie by one or other parent
Leading Family Lawyer, Sandra Davis, commented “”The adversarial nature of the system invites people to come and use the courts system as a punch up and the children get used as pawns.”
See Daily Telegraph …

I have recently won a small legal victory in my fight to stay in touch with my children which may help others – private prosecution for harassment.
The effect on me of losing my children is simply not addressed by the Children Act, which discounts the interests of any party other than the child. Even when a father is driven to suicide by the loss of his children, that is held to be a matter of no concern to the Family Court.
So, how are the rights of parents to be protected? …

The Mail ran a story in August about a woman solicitor who lost custody of her children to her ex-husband. The article said that half of women now lose custody, and incorrectly cited the EPA for this figure. The following correction has since been published in the paper, setting the record straight:
Correction
Ref Sue Reid’s article “The courts took my children away from me because I’m a working mother.” (Daily Mail 28th Aug)
This is a heartbreaking topic, but it is important to publish what goes on inside Family Courts, and …

ITV are looking for volunteer families in London or Essex for a new TV project in which a team of experts (including a family lawyer and a psychologist) will be guiding parents towards a peaceful and amicable arrangement.
Would you like help to work through a difficult relationship with an ex? Are you and your ex struggling to agree about access to your child(ren)? Are you a Mum who wishes Dad was more involved in his child’s life? Or a Dad who would like to see more of your kids?
Is …

Ray Barry was interviewed on Premier Christian Radio today about the role of traditional families. The interview was about whether traditional family structures are still the best for bringing up children and for wider society at large. Ray (and the EPA) believes that they are. The interview lasted fifteen minutes but unfortunately we only have a one minute excerpt from it online.
Listen to a summary of the interview (about one minute).

Our thanks to Robert Whiston for bringing this BBC podcast to our attention. Ruth Alexander investigates why the published conviction rate for rape is so low, at 6.5%, compared to other crimes where the rate is 50% +. She learns that the rate for rape is calculated as the number of convictions as a percentage of initial complaints to the police, whereas the rates for all other crimes are convictions as a percentage of prosecutions. Why is rape calculated differently? Ruth Alexander concludes it is in order to move rape …

Following the recent divorce from his 3rd wife, John Cleese complains bitterly about the effect which the terms of the divorce have on their children from previous marriages: “What I find so unfair is that if we both died today, her children would get much more than mine.”
Friend of 30 years, Michael Winner said “It is an extraordinary world which means John is left with much less than his former wife even though he is the star who did all the work. The settlement defies human belief.”
Read the full article.

Dads not the Demons
20 July 2009
Recent data from the Department of Child Protection in Western Australia (WA) has debunked a common misconception about fathers and violence. The data shows that natural mothers are far more likely to abuse children than their natural fathers, other than in sexual abuse, where mothers were responsible for only 13% of cases.
The past practice of lumping together de factos, live-in boyfriends and overnight male guests together with fathers as “male carers” has led to skewed beliefs about who abuses children. In releasing these recent figures …