True Stories of Family Court Failure
You have probably heard (ad nauseam) about how dads are badly treated by family courts, and how the system is unfair to dads. Groups such as Fathers-4-Justice and Families-Need-Fathers seem to go on endlessly about the same issues. Surely most of what they say must just be sour grapes – after all, you can’t please all of the people, all of the time?
Unfortunately – and it gives us no pleasure to say this – most of what you have heard is probably true.
Dads get a bad deal. It is universally acknowledged.
Of course, this is a shame. But surely we should be putting the children first; if dads get a bad deal – but the children come out on top – maybe that’s the best we can ever hope for?
We wish the reality came even close to this pragmatic aspiration.
The real truth is that dads, their children and their extended families (and ultimately the mothers and society at large) are all harmed by a failing family law system that is simply unable to put children first.
We have spoken to many parents at ‘both ends’ of the family justice system in England and Wales over several years. The stories we hear (mostly from fathers, but also from mothers, grandparents and other carers) frequently leave us stunned in disbelief and often lost for words – unable to think of anything helpful or constructive to suggest to the many victims of this inhuman and unjust system.
After speaking to so many people, it is our view that our family law system is completely broken, dysfunctional, dishonest, hypocritical and truly damaging to both the children it purports to protect and the long term interests of the nation it should be serving.
The legal industry (I’m afraid I cannot bring myself to call it a profession) benefits no-one but itself.
Here we present summaries of the stories of some parents we’ve spoken to over the years. To protect their identities, some details have been changed, but the essence of the stories remain absolutely true.
If you think these accounts are exaggerated, you can email the original person who told us the story to convince yourself they are telling the truth.
From our own dealings with family law that these accounts are entirely believable, typical in fact. (In reality these accounts have been toned down somewhat, we are afraid that people would not believe what really goes on in our so-called courts).
It will probably be appalling to any normal, decent citizen that these accounts are not outlandish, completely atypical accounts of how our justice system completely fails children and treats them with such contempt. The shameful reality is that these are totally normal cases – sadly representative of what goes on in family courts day-in, day-out throughout the length and breadth of the country.
Please read these accounts and make up your own mind. You can send an email to any of the original authors via a link at the bottom of each account.
If you feel anger and disgust after reading these, don’t worry; we’re pleased to reassure you that you are totally normal!
Family Court Judges
There are some reasonable family law judges in our courts.
Unfortunately, they are the exception rather than the rule. Most family judges are indifferent, at best, and many are too prejudiced and ignorant to ever make sensible decisions in the court.
Sadly, these people are the last line of defence in our system for the thousands of children involved in our family courts.
This is a role most judges are ill equipped and unwilling to fulfil – and certainly do not adopt with relish.
Find these stories hard to believe?
We can understand that any normal, decent person – who has not been involved with the family courts – would find it hard to believe these accounts are even close to the truth.
We sincerely hope you never have to find out for yourself.
However, you can email all the original author’s of each story if you have any questions, to convince yourself of their authenticity.
Please note, to preserve their identity we will not tell you their real email address, but we will pass your message on to them. They can then choose whether they reply to you via us or directly.
Contempt of Court?
Are we (or the original story-tellers themselves) in contempt of court for even revealing these anonymised accounts of our family law system?
If you can identify any child from these accounts then we would be in contempt.
However we have taken care to see that no child can be identified by the publication of these accounts. Details such as age and sex of children have often been slightly changed; and of course all names have been changed.
Unlike the family courts, we are determined our actions should not bring harm to any child.
However, although we don’t believe these accounts are in contempt, we regret to say we have little but contempt for the British family courts.
We believe any decent person would feel the same.
