We are still a long way off equal parental rights for fathers

Consultation on children having access to divorced parents starts today but fathers should not hope that this Sunday’s Father’s Day will bring them any closer to getting fairer access to their children.



The Family Justice Review report on family law published in November 2011 and chaired by the economist, David Norgrove, which is the basis for the new legislation, fails to give equal parental rights.



When divorce happens, it is destructive, heart-breaking, financially crippling and has a devastating effect on the children. Adults will get over the divorce, children do not. That’s why the latest piece of legislation from Children’s Minister, Tim Loughton is so important.

Unfair: Most fathers do not deserve the uphill struggle they face to see their children, and a change in the law is long overdue

The Conservatives came to government promising to strengthen the law so that children whose parents have separated get to have a proper relationship with each parent. However, the proposed legislation does not include equal parental rights and that is a shame.



As usual it’s Justice Secretary Ken Clarke who has thrown a spanner in the works by saying that the family courts are not skewed against fathers. Tim Loughton, who has long favoured a presumption of shared parenting, speaking in this morning’s Today programme said the law wants to make it "very very clear that playing the winner takes all game is just not going to happen".



He said it was "absolutely not about parental rights" but about "children's rights and parental responsibility" with the "paramount consideration" being the welfare of the child.



Liz Trinder, from the University of Exeter, who contributed to the proposed legislation and opposes the proposition because she believes the reform is "not necessary for the vast majority of parents" who don't go to court. She said that 99% of parents were given access to their children. The campaign group Fathers4Justice told me that “ … she is a dinosaur of family law and her statistics are ten years old”.



Well Ms Trinder, the majority do not go to court as they cannot afford to. Decades of women’s groups have campaigned against men with the courts nearly always favouring residency for the mother, hand-in-hand with the feminist left, led by its High Priestess Harriet Harman.



And when a judge does decree that the father should have access to the child it is not enforced. The police will not intervene considering it a civil matter and the only recourse is to go back to court. This means that the courts will continue to be clogged with fathers trying to gain access to their children. Or rather those that can afford to go to court as it can cost £10,000-20,000.



The devil is in the detail of the consultation. Words and phrases such as “… if … likely … providing the children are not in any danger …. it is safe to do so”. This is dangerous and useless language as it implies risk and the vast majority of children are not at risk. So, let us first recognise that the vast majority of men are not abusive and make loving fathers. They don’t deserve the uphill struggle they face to see their children, and a change in the law is long overdue.



It is still that case that in the vast majority of separations it is the man that leaves the family home, whether or not he is the protagonist, and women use the cover of cultural acceptability to be the one who keep the family home and the kids – sometimes rather grotesquely used as ‘human shields’ in the battlefield of the divorce courts.

Tim Loughton said the law wants to make it 'very very clear that playing the winner takes all game is just not going to happen'

I know many women who have used their kids for emotional blackmail, downright vindictiveness and to mete out retribution. They have turned the children against the men with their drip drip of poison because they have the children living with them. They offer the children treats if they don’t go out with daddy or arrange a great day out which is more attractive than dad’s offering or they just refuse to open the door to the father or leave the house with the kids before the father arrives. The children witness most of this. Fathers are excluded from school parents’ evenings, often having to make separate arrangements to see teachers.



The statistics are stark and sad too. In the UK there are 87,000 of children involved in contact orders. Of those, one third will lose contact with a non-resident parent within 2 years.



Fathers4Justice cite that 94% of residencies are awarded to mothers and 50% of all contact orders for fathers are broken. One million children have no contact with a non-resident parent three years after separation.



How does the proposed legislation deal with the mothers who continue to deny access to the children? Deterrents such as taking away their passports and driving licences, prison or transfer of residency are cited.



These already exist and the courts could impose them but they do not.



There is one example of a woman who was jailed under existing legislation. But the sad and cruel thing is that this was a woman who was denied access to her children by the father who had residency.



The Conservatives have been championing this change for over 10 years, first promised by Michael Howard. As shared parenting has been dropped from the legislation and Labour win in 2015 then we can kiss goodbye to another generation of children who will never know their fathers. The Harriet Harmanistas in Labour dislike men more than Ken Clarke seems to.

