At a time when the problem of fatherless children has been rammed home by feral youth rioting in London, we saw last week an example of how the state has actively sought to exclude fathers from their children's lives.

The case in the NSW District Court of sperm donor John Williams*, whose name has been deleted from his 10-year-old daughter's birth certificate in favour of the biological mother's estranged lesbian partner, has made news around the world.

Judge Stephen Walmsley acknowledged the deep attachment between father and daughter, and expressed "considerable sympathy" for Williams, 58.

But his hands were tied. He had to comply with a retrospective amendment to the Status of Children Act in 2008 by then NSW attorney-general John Hatzistergos which asserted the parental rights of lesbian couples over a biological father.

Even though Williams had been an enthusiastic part-time father who loved his daughter and had contributed tens of thousands of dollars to her upkeep, he was legally cut out. Now the little girl officially has two mothers, but no father.

Williams hasn't seen his daughter since April 14 and is contemplating life without her.

"I'm told by the law that she's no longer my daughter and I'm no longer her father," he says. "I'm a stable influence on my daughter. But the law's all in favour of the non-biological lesbian mother."

The saga began in 2000, when Williams, a gay, single, successful real estate agent, decided he wanted a child and "heir".

He placed an advertisement in a gay magazine: "Sperm Donour (sic) Professional male mid 40s would like to meet lesbian lady to view of producing a child. Full health details available involvement and financial assistance offered."

The lesbian couple who answered his ad had coincidentally placed an advert for a sperm donor in another gay magazine at the same time. "Lesbian couple seeks donor, view to being "uncle" figure to child. No financial obligation."

So, as Williams wrote to them, they were writing to Williams, and the deal was sealed almost before they met.

He travelled more than an hour from his inner-city Sydney home to ejaculate into a large syringe in their spare room, before "quickly" exiting the house while the women attempted insemination. After about four attempts, they were successful.

Williams was involved in the pregnancy, at least financially. By the time the baby was born he had spent almost $10,000 on the midwife, on weekly naturopathic and chiropractic treatments and shiatsu massages for the birth mother.

But relations with the women grew testy over their frequent requests for money. Six weeks before the baby was due in August 2001, both women had given up work, and Williams questioned why they were spending between $135 and $155 a week on alternative health therapies.

Although Williams tried to become involved with the baby, and his 88-year-old mother lent the women her Rover car, his relationship with them continued to deteriorate.

When his daughter was one, he went to the Family Court and won the right to see her every second Saturday for five hours, and on Fathers' Day, Christmas and school holidays. He also paid $150 a week in maintenance and even bought a house near her school to make visits easier. Williams estimates he has spent $50,000 in legal fees trying to retain a meaningful relationship with his daughter, now 10.

He resented the control the women placed on his visits, in part because of his daughter's restricted diet of vegan meals every two hours.

One email from the non-biological mother sets out the child's food routine. On waking she is to be given Chinese herbs and "homeopathic cell salts Acidophilus mixed with filtered water half an hour before breakfast. Breakfast is noodles cooked with kombu seaweed in water first in bowl full (cooled down) with hatcho miso and phyt-aloe supplement mixed to a soup in filtered water, 1.4 tsp miso mixed with one capsule phyt-aloe powder, mix to a paste with a little filtered water (not heated) and then add more cool water to make 3/4 cup. Corn thin with cashew nut butter and 1/4 ambrotose powder mixed into it."

Obsessive though it appears, the list of instructions does show that the little girl was well loved and that her mothers put an enormous amount of thought into every aspect of her care.

Williams' partner of two years, writes in an affidavit that the girl's "time spent socialising with [Williams] is severely restricted by bizarre diet restrictions".

But he adds that "all three parents are very loving and well meaning".

Williams, in a letter before the court, also compliments the two women as "wonderful" parents.

Even after the lesbian couple split up in 2006, the three households had managed to keep up a workable custody sharing arrangement.

But it was the law that came between them. Williams says as soon as the law was introduced to parliament in 2008, "I knew [the women] were planning legal action to have me eliminated".

The non-biological mother wrote to Williams last year asking him to remove his name from his daughter's birth certificate.

"I am not wishing for your relationship with [the child] to change in any way. You always will be her biological donor."

Williams was furious, writing back: "I take offence of this description. As far as I'm concerned I am and always will be [her] father."

The relationship soon become so poisonous that Williams returned a letter to her solicitor with "See you in Court bitch" scrawled across it.

He hasn't seen his daughter since April 14. And after last week's court decision he feels he has been officially banished from her life.

The amendment to the Status of Children Act that was quietly passed through the parliament three years ago was social engineering at its most potent.

What it said, for the first time, was that in defiance of biological reality, the legal rights of a non-related lesbian in a relationship with the child's biological mother trumped the rights of the biological father.

Even if that father had a committed relationship to the

child, he could be cut out as if he never existed.

The inevitable consequences of this injustice are clear in Williams' case. Whose interests does it serve to alienate a father from his daughter by law? Certainly not the child's.

* Name changed for legal reasons

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