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Will runaway mum face jail in contested custody case?

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A mum who disappeared with her three year old son to prevent the family court from transferring custody to the father has been making headlines. Should she be jailed for abduction? Michael Robinson of Custody Minefield provides an expert analysis of the case.

The papers and social media are full of discussions on the mother who has abducted her child following residence having been awarded to the father. A number of questions have arisen which we want to comment on.

Before we do, it’s worth noting that we support how the court has acted throughout from what has been said in the press. Matters appear to have been transferred from magistrates to the higher court when contact broke down. Social workers and a psychiatrist involved to carry out an in depth assessment, with the court taking robust action. The expert involved was Dr Mark Berelowitz MB, BCh, MPhil, FRCPsych. Dr Berelowitz is one of the most highly regarded experts in his field. We recommend him. So we don’t believe any additional scrutiny of the court’s decision as to residence is required when the judge followed the recommendations of a man known for his impartiality, ability, fairness and expertise.  

Should the mother have run with the child?

Absolutely not. Some are advocating this on social media and hoping the mother has left the country, citing a LibDem MP’s comments last year about a lack of justice in the family court. It’s a foolish thing for people to say. You can get justice in the UK family courts, but you have to remain calm and take a sensible approach.

We can also assure you that today, it’s impossible to disappear forever (or for long). It may take time to track down a parent with their child, but it invariably does happen (and especially when you know the adult’s details!). We won’t share the means of tracing parents in this article, but there are many.

What should the mother have done?

Stating the obvious first, the mother shouldn’t have made false allegations and should have supported contact for the father. Parents who make false allegations do not have their children’s best interests at heart. Their motives are selfish. While there are no shortage of social media forums where parents are told “oh the courts won’t do anything“, as we’ve seen in this case, that doesn’t always hold true.

Prior to the abduction, even when fact was found against the mother in respect of her allegations and residence awarded to the father, matters were not hopeless for her. Had the mother shown contrition at making false allegations and gone through a period of having contact supervised, then matters may (and likely would) have progressed. Supervised contact can be very useful for evidencing that matters have progressed. Following a period of supervised contact, and having volunteered for counseling to address her difficulties, the mother may then have applied for contact restrictions to be lifted, moving to unsupervised contact and then overnight stays. We’ve helped many fathers achieve the same. What it requires is a degree of swallowing pride, and being prepared to jump through hoops to build trust with the court. Being a parent requires sacrifice sometimes, and if that is the only way to move matters forward (and has a good prospect of success) you’re foolish to ignore it. Following this, the court may even grant shared living arrangements once it can be demonstrated that your mindset, behaviour and circumstances have changed.

Such an outcome is invariably in the child’s best interests, where they have the benefit of both parents in their life without the warfare.

This strategy appears to have been in the court’s mind. It appears the judge hadn’t ordered no contact, he had ordered supervised contact, and the facts of the case supported that decision. Supervised contact is rarely ordered if the court does not hold hope that matters may progress to unsupervised contact.

Should the mother have been jailed for perjury?

We were critical of Judge Wildblood’s case management in another case last week, but not in this one. The judge could not be expected to know that the mother would run. Most people do not abduct their children when residence is awarded to the other party. There had been consequences to her lying in court and not supporting her child’s other relationships. As we said in an article earlier this week, that the decision on residence was as much (or more) likely about awarding residence to the parent most likely to promote contact and act in the child’s best interests as one related to punishment.

So back to the question ‘Should the mother have gone to jail for perjury?‘ The absence of punishment for perjury means that:

  • more people feel they can get away with lying;
  • more victims of false allegations are created;
  • more children affected;
  • the court loses authority and credibility with both parties;
  • the accuser sometimes will keep pursuing the allegations for years to other agencies or when matters return to court because the court has presented no reason why they should not.

The motives behind perjury have to be a factor though. Are the allegations entirely malicious and selfish? If so, then jail seems appropriate. There are times though when allegations are made due to genuine anxiety or as a result of mental health difficulty. Where this is the case, therapeutic support is not only far more appropriate, but more likely to reduce the chance of difficulty in the future. Dr Berelowitz’s analysis would no doubt assist which course of action is more appropriate.

Should the mother be jailed for abduction?

With so public a case, I think the mother should (subject to psychological assessment), as should any family members who have withheld information in relation to her whereabouts. The message must be clear to both the mother, family and public that when an order is made it must be followed, and compliance is not optional.

The most aired comment in the past two days has been “if a father had abducted the child because residence was granted to the mother, they’d be locked up“. I wouldn’t disagree, and because a mother abducts the child it shouldn’t affect how the court responds.

Should the mother never have contact again?

The maternal aunt, Caroline Minnock has (unhelpfully) commented in press reports “I know for a fact now that she won’t see him again. She won’t even get visitation.” Others have written she shouldn’t. Caroline Minnock does not know this for a fact. It’s another unhelpful, emotionally charged and subjective comment as are comments claiming conspiracy or unfair treatment of the mother.

No one quite knows what will happen next. Personally, my belief is the mother should be punished and then the court should return to its original strategy of supervised contact, however this is said without sight of the case history and reports. It may be that the court orders that until the mother has undergone therapy and has evidence she has changed her position, contact will not move from unsupervised. Also, that if the mother behaves inappropriately during supervised contact sessions, then contact may cease entirely. Neither would be unreasonable approaches given her behaviour.

Other family members are defending the mother’s actions. “She’s a great mum and she’s done nothing wrong.” Being a great parent includes supporting your child’s relationship with the other parent. Until that fact seeps into people’s consciousness, they’ll make similar mistakes. In a case involving alienation and a female child, Lord Justice Ryder made the following comments “The submission made on behalf of the mother that her care of the child had in all (other) respects been good or even better than good simply misses the point. More than that level of care was needed to protect this child from her own mother.” Contact denial without good cause is child abuse, and not done through love, but for selfish reasons. Her family does little to help her by not acknowledging what she did was wrong. If anything, their public comments of support and lack of criticism shows that the mother’s environment is one where her unacceptable behaviour is supported by family, raising concerns as to whether it will change.

Despite this, we don’t fall into the “lock the mother up for life” camp. Our hope is that the mother can learn and change and then the child can have a full relationship with both of their parents. The mother first will have to regain the court’s and father’s trust, and she’s the one who bears the responsibility for this being a more difficult task. She may face jail for her actions and we’d support that decision because there must be consequences for breaking court orders and especially in relation to abduction. Regardless of the punishment, the issue of contact should remain separate, although is now made more complex when considering safeguards for the child.

—Photo Credit: Flickr/Jon Seidman

Michael Robinson is one of the UK’s leading experts on family law and runs the Custody Minefield website.

To see the court ruling on this case see the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website.

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Why deliberately alienating a father from his child is domestic abuse

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Mark Brooks, chair of The ManKind Initiative that supports male victims of domestic violence says it’s time that separated mothers who use their children to control and abuse their ex are recognised as perpetrators of domestic abuse.

The ManKind Initiative recently responded to the Home Office’s review to make domestic abuse laws tougher by creating a specific offence that included coercive control in an intimate relationship.

It can be argued and may have that there are already laws covering this including stalking and harassment legislation so why would should there be new laws? It is a fair point but to ensure there is clarity for the police, prosecutors and juries that coercion was an act of domestic abuse we took the view that it needed to be spelt out.

The key features that we put in our submission were to call for the inclusion, definition and recognition of a number of key issues that are male victim centric. For far too many fathers across the UK these themes are all too familiar, yet unrecognised. As if they are taboos and anti-PC so you are not allowed to say anything, but the ManKind Initiative has never been afraid of speaking truth to power.

The three themes we demand are included:

1)             It will reduce the ‘believability threshold’ for male victims to the same level for female victims. This is broadly because while the statutory sector will recognise physical injuries on a male, they will not so readily accept or recognise non-physical ‘controlling or coercive’ behaviour on a man.

2)             The threat and actual use of false allegations of domestic abuse is itself a domestic abuse crime. This also includes the threat and actual use of false allegations of child abuse.

3)             Parental alienation by the parent with “custody” (normally the mother) when couples separate

On the last point, the charity believes that where a family court has issued a contact order that provides for a parent (normally a father) to have prescribed contact periods with his children and that there is a clear pattern where the contact order is deliberately broken and repeatedly so, this should be classed and recognised as a ‘controlling and coercive behaviour’.

It should therefore be deemed as domestic abuse. This is because it ‘regulates the everyday behaviour of the victim’ and also ‘punishes the victim’. As the Home Office domestic abuse definition includes partners who have been in an intimate relationship, we believe this will apply.

The effect of repeatedly breaching contact orders is that it forms a pattern of control and coercion by the perpetrator (the person with custody of the children) and the victim (non-custodial parent). At one level, this includes the continual and purposeful disruption of the life of the non-custodial parent. This ranges from the continual last minute cancellation of agreed appointments (agreed by the Family Law court) for child contact, to the constant need and cost of going back to the Family Law court to enforce already agreed contact orders. This controlling and coercive behaviour will also have a negative effect on the children and the relationship they have with the non-custodial parent.

Our view from the experiences on the helpline which takes 1500 calls every year is that the threat and use of false allegations and the use of children as pawns are becoming “weapons of choice” for female perpetrators of domestic abuse. We recognise it and fathers recognise it – our job is to ensure the justice system recognises it too.

—Photo Credit: flickr/Mike Licht

Mark Brooks is Chair of The ManKind Initiative, a charity that helps and advocates for male victims of domestic violence. Follow them on twitter @ManKindInit.

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The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to to join the conversation about men, masculinity and manhood. Our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

Why I staged a father’s rights protest against “real family” statue

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Bobby Smith is a lorry driver who campaigns for fathers’ rights. Last week he made headlines by staging a protest against Birmingham’s new “real family” statue that features two mums, two sons and no dads. Here he explains why.

—This is article #51 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

In September I spoke with Nick Clegg about how men are treated differently to women in the family courts simply because of their gender. I explained all the details of my case to the Deputy Prime Minister and cases of other people I know. He seemed to listen and begin to understand that men really are getting the short end of the stick.

Then he agreed to be photographed in the Feminist T-shirt. At this point I realised there is no hope for my generation and maybe I should give up hope.

About a week later I saw in the national news Gillian Wearing’s “Real Family” Sculpture being unveiled celebrating “A family that is not nuclear”. For me this was the final straw. Over the past four years I have been excluded from my children’s lives completely, simply because I was not needed anymore. The government have done nothing to help me or my children.

This statue embodied everything about my situation and was, in my view, paying homage to the fact that after seperation children are only seen as needing the mother. The father is optional. I decided I had to go to Birmingham and do something about this.

I prepared myself for verbal abuse 

I was joined by a friend, Carol Wheeler,  who has also experienced the family courts. Although she’s a mother,  she was adamant she wanted to come and protest about this statue. I thought at the time that she is probaly the only woman who objects to it. I was soon to learn that in lots of women are just as offended about this as the men I know.

We arrived at the statue at around 8 am on Saturday morning, I immediately put pictures of me and my two Daughters on the faces of one of the mothers and the two children and covered the remaining mother with a white sheet. The reason behind this was that if it is so acceptable to depict a real family with no father then there should be no problem with the exact opposite.

My intentions were to take a picture of this set up then when the police arrive to hold onto the statue for as long as possible in a non aggressive manner. This statue would be here for hundreds of years with no father, but for that day whoever saw or photographed it would see it in the way it should of been, inclusive of a father.

I expected to get a lot of verbal abuse especially from women, But I was prepared for that and had my arguments in defence ready to repeat to everyone who opposed what I was doing. I was adamant I had to let Birmingham Library know this was an unacceptable use of public money and it was sending out the wrong message.

The man who commissioned the statue shook my hand

The police arrived then quickly left without removing the pictures on the statues or threatening arrest. Over the next eight hours I did not stop talking. So many hundreds of people wanted to hear why I had done this. Nearly everyone I spoke to regardless of age or gender agreed that the statue should have a father.

Most were very angry that the cost of this will come from their council services. Jonathan Watkins the Gentleman who commissioned the sculpture came out shook my hand and said he was glad that I came there as it gives rise to debate about what the actual statue means.

I also met Richard Hay who was part of a family who were in the final 4 runners up, The Hay/Wooldridge family. Ray is a black man in a relationship with a white woman. They have a mixed race daughter. He seemed completely confused as to why the sisters were picked over his family and so was I.

They would of been a true representation of Birmingham in 2014, much more worthy than the eventual winners. It is worth pointing out that when the process started she would of not been pregnant, By the time they won and the measurements were taken she was by then pregnant yet no mention of the Dad, almost as if he was not relevant.

Two parents are better than one

Apart from around 10 people, everyone we met over the days we spent in Birmingham were fully supportive and were disgusted at the absence of a father in the statue. A number of local and national papers printed the story of my protest and also ran articles  online. Thousands of comments were in complete agreement with me and my reasons for the protest.

The council missed out on the perfect opportunity to promote a strong family unit or at the very least reinforce the undeniable fact that a child is better off with two parents and for a normal upbringing actually needs two parents.

Instead they allowed Gillian Wearing to use this as a self promotion platform for her latest “controversial” piece of artwork. No doubt she is smiling now at the many articles in national and local press her sculpture has generated and I dare say already doubling her fee for the next one.

By now she has settled back into her life and condemned Birmingham with a lasting memorial that is a permanent reminder that if the whole city was to be summed up in one statue, it would be of two single mums. This type of family is no longer considered out of the ordinary. Thanks to Gillian Wearing this is now something for young people to aspire to, it is after all a “real family”.

—Picture credit: Birmingham News Room 

Bobby Smith campaigns for New Fathers For Justice.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Why UKIP is backing 50:50 shared parenting for separated dads

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UKIP gave its backing to 50-50 shared parenting for parents who separate, at its party conference in September, a move that has proved popular with many fathers’ rights campaigners. We asked the party’s Deputy Chair, Suzanne Evans, to share her personal reasons for supporting fathers’ rights.

—This is article #32 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys

Why is UKIP putting a commitment to 50-50 shared parenting in its Manifesto for the 2015 General Election? Because, quite simply, it is the right thing to do.

It is also long overdue. Do we live in a society where – in principle at least – there is gender equality, or not? Do we live in a society where fathers are increasingly being encouraged to take a more active role in children’s lives, by taking paternity leave and so on, or not? Of course we do, so why the status quo on this key issue should currently be so inadequate is beyond me.

I first encountered the problem of fathers being excluded from their children’s lives over ten years ago when I was dating a lovely man who had a daughter he had not seen since her mother had started a new relationship. He would show up to collect his daughter as per their agreement, but no one would be at home.

Mum’s new partner was less than friendly; he went to quite extraordinary and frightening lengths to put pressure on him not to see his little girl for no other reason than he and mum would find it inconvenient.

My father died when I was six

Even when he was diagnosed with cancer, his ex-wife still refused to let him see his daughter. The court process was utterly useless, not to put to fine a point on it, and he died having not seen his own child for some three years. Attending his funeral was bad enough; under these circumstances it was utterly heartbreaking.

My own father died when I was six. While my mother was brilliant – everything a good mum should be – it was tough growing up without a dad and in a family where life had suddenly been turned upside down.

While I’d be the last person to suggest warring couples should stay together ‘for the sake of the children,’ as I think that too can do horrendous psychological damage to young minds, it seems to me common sense that in most cases children will benefit from having two parents in their lives.

http://youtu.be/aNH5wH_J_F0

Everyone benefits when dad’s involved 

Parenting is a tough job at the best of times, even when two people share responsibilities. As a single mum myself, I know it can sometimes be overwhelming doing it on your own.

Frankly, not only do children benefit from having two responsible, loving parents, the parents’ will benefit from continuing to support each other through shared parenting after divorce or separation too.

Of course there will always be fathers and mothers who for very good child protection reasons should not have unfettered access to their children, and UKIP’s position should not be seen as watering this down at all.

A child’s welfare must always come first and we would certainly not shy away from depriving any parent proven to be abusive or a danger to children of their rights.

Grandparents need better rights too

Our policy is purely to address the imbalance in current parenting arrangements; to make sure good fathers are treated equally by the system; and to back up parents refused access to their children by former partners for no good reason.

A UKIP government will also give grandparents visiting rights. They too have built up often very strong and loving relationships with their grandchildren and to be suddenly cut out of their lives does neither them or the children any good.

We know we can’t stop families breaking up, and we know we can’t force all parents to take their responsibilities seriously after relationships break down, but at the very least we can stop penalising those who want to do their right thing by their children.

 —Picture credit: Flickr/David Precious

To find out more about UKIP’s support of 50:50 shared parenting see Suzanne Evans speech to the party’s Doncaster conference “a safety net not a hammock“.

insideMAN does not support a political party and we are happy to receive articles about men, masculinity and manhood from writers of all political political parties 

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Why new changes to family law won’t make a difference for dads

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New laws governing the role that mums and dads play in their children’s lives in England & Wales following separation will not make a difference for dads, says Nick Langford.

—This is article #15 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

October 22nd 2014 marked the introduction into Section 1 of the Children Act 1989 of what for brevity we can call the presumption of parental involvement.

Judges are now advised that a parent’s involvement is likely to further their child’s welfare; “involvement” means any kind of involvement, direct or indirect, but not any particular division of a child’s time.  Since the division of time is about the only thing a court can rule on, this doesn’t offer desperate parents much hope.

This reform represents the culmination of decades of family campaigning and the end of the road for the presumption of equally shared parenting.

Lest we are in any doubt why reform was necessary, let’s remind ourselves of a few facts.  More than half of children will see their parents separate before their 16th birthday and more than half of those will lose contact with one parent. Absent parents are overwhelmingly fathers and residence is overwhelmingly awarded to mothers.

Campaigns for 50/50 shared parenting are doomed to fail

Most applications for contact are by fathers, and while a mother’s parental responsibility (the official recognition of parenthood) depends on her relationship to her child, a father’s depends on his with the mother, and can be taken away again by the court.

It isn’t surprising fathers wanted this situation to change.

While the effect of reform remains to be seen, it seems likely it will merely increase delay, while misinformed parents try to assert rights they do not have, and may hand the courts further justification to disenfranchise parents.

Many will continue to campaign for a 50/50 presumption, but they won’t succeed, for two reasons.  First: as the progress of the Children and Families Bill proved, opposition is just too strong, too well-funded and too well-organised.  Second: however desirable such a presumption might be, it is inseparably associated with the hectoring and intimidation of the less savoury fathers’ groups, and no government can afford to be seen to surrender to them.

Family breakdown costing UK £46bn 

Sadly, there’s no simple legislative solution: no quick fix.  The reality is that the courts have become increasingly irrelevant: applications have fallen by a quarter.  Contrary to government intention, the take-up of mediation has also fallen by 45%.

The vast majority disputes were once settled by negotiation between lawyers, but since the loss of legal aid this option, too, has evaporated.  Most parents will need to resolve disputes themselves.

Not all of the £46bn cost of family breakdown can be laid at the door of the courts.  As a society we need to treat fathers better, to value them more; to learn that a couple of nights a fortnight isn’t parenting, that mothers have no place to “allow” fathers contact, that a father can care for a sick child as well as a mother, that staying overnight with Dad won’t cause a child any harm, that Mum’s level of child support is determined by her child’s need for contact, and not the other way around.  Only then, only when this has been learnt, can we expect the courts to catch up, and by then perhaps, just perhaps, they won’t be needed quite so much.

—Picture credit: Flickr/Steven Depolo

You can buy Nick Langford’s new book, An Exercise in Absolute Futility: Whatever happened to family justice? from Amazon.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Help! How can I stop my wife chopping off our baby’s foreskin?

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An Iranian father-to-be from London has written to insideMAN to ask for help stopping his wife circumcising their son. His letter to our readers is printed below. 

– This is article #96 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys

Dear insideMAN Reader

Please can you help me?

I am an Iranian man living in London just days away from becoming a father for the first time.
I feel so special about his birth. I feel he is going to be a very precious gift to me. I can’t wait to see him and hold him tight in my arms. As a proud father I would like, to the best of my ability, to protect and nurture him and that includes protecting him from being circumcised.

Unfortunately, my wife disagrees with me and insists that she will have him circumcised just like her son (my step son) from her first marriage. I feel powerless and cannot sleep at night because of this issue. My wife will not listen to the reasons why I want to protect him from circumcision. I have tried to approach her from different angles but I keep hitting a brick wall.

So what can I do?

I come from a diverse family, my mum is an open-minded Muslim, my dad is an anti-religion atheist whose parents came to the UK from Iran in the 1970s, just before the Islamic revolution. I started living in the UK permanently myself 14 years ago and while people think of me as Muslim, because I was born in Iran, I am not. I am an atheist and only believe in balance and justice in the universe.

And now I need help to make sure my son gets the justice he deserves.

As parents I believe we should not stamp our religion, culture, tradition or opinions on our children without their consent. I find circumcision totally barbaric. I strongly believe circumcision trauma leaves a deep blueprint on the subconscious mind and soul of a baby. I believe that  human beings are born in a complete form of perfection. If there is a nose to breathe through or a pair of eyes to see, there is certainly a reason for the foreskin to be there. A boy’s penis is the very centre of his manhood, why would anyone want to mess with it and reduce it? I feel very strongly that we should ban circumcision, especially in Europe.

Sadly, for some strange reason, most Iranian women support male circumcision. A good friend of mine who is a highly educated lawyer, born to a Iranian family and raised in the UK, recently gave birth to a lovely little boy. I could not believe her strong views about circumcision. Her main concern was the beauty and the similarity of his penis to her husband! It seems Iranian women take the same approach to circumcision as they have to plastic surgery. They think it’s a nose job!

My mother also supports circumcision, even though she is a very open-minded, flexible, modern woman for her generation. She heard me trying to explain to my wife why I want to prevent our son from being circumcised and she told me afterwards that I should “give in gracefully and let her do it”!

My mum’s thinking is that my wife is going to do it anyway and there is a positive side to circumcision which, according to my mum is this—my baby’s willy will look the same as mine and my stepson’s and prevent any confusion he might feel in future if he compares his penis to ours!

I was so angry and frustrated at the same time, that I couldn’t stop laughing.

I said to her, ”Mum, how often do see me and my brothers and Dad sitting at a dinner table, comparing our bits with each other?” We are, of course, all circumcised. I have never questioned my parents about this because they did what they thought was right at the time. I don’t have strong feelings about being circumcised myself, as long as I can remember I have always been this way, but I have always wondered how it would feel it I wasn’t circumcised and I never heard of an uncircumcised man who wants to have it done.

But now I have the knowledge, I am conscious and I know the fact my father is against it too. I feel I must do everything I can to protect my son. I won’t have any issues if he decides to do it when his is older but that his decision to make, it’s his body and it’s his choice.

But my wife’s mind is made up. She is a Christian woman of Iranian background, so her reasons are not religious, I would say it’s more cultural and mainly cosmetic. She plans to have him circumcised in a private clinic in Harley Street. I cannot begin to describe how distressed I am about the whole thing. It’s almost taking away the excitement of having a baby and becoming a dad.

I am in desperate need of help and support. I’ve been in touch with the charity NORM UK and insideMAN magazine and I’m going to try the NHS too. I’d welcome support from any organisations or charities who understand my point of view and I’d like to know my legal rights as a father. I’d also like to hear from other parents who have been in a similar situation.

Please help me, I want to protect my son from circumcision before it’s too late.

— Picture Credit: Flickr/bgottsab

We have kept this father’s identity anonymous to protect the identity of his son. If you can offer help, advice and support please leave a message in the comment section or email us at insideMANeditor@gmail.com and we will forward your message to him. 

This article features in our crowdfunded book of men’s stories, to back the project click below:

The government’s latest campaign won’t prevent family breakdown

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The Government’s new initiative to tackle family breakdown in the UK won’t  won’t save a single child from the devastation of fatherlessness says Nick Langford, author of a new book on family justice in the UK. 

Recently the Centre for Social Justice – the think-tank established by Iain Duncan Smith – published its report “FULLY COMMITTED: How a Government could reverse family breakdown”.

For 10 years the CSJ has studied family breakdown, and it understands both the causes and the solutions; we might not always agree with it entirely (no mention of the role played by the family justice system) but it has earned our respect and the right to be listened to.

It pointed out that after decades of political complacency and shilly-shallying Britain now leads the world in family breakdown, which now costs the economy an eye-watering £46bn.  More children have a smart phone than live with a father.

Although the CSJ recognise this government has spent more on family breakdown than any other, the spending is piecemeal and unfocused; we are rapidly heading away from Cameron’s commitment to make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe or to apply a family test to every policy.

We can stop family breakdown 

The CSJ made a number of recommendations which a fully committed government could employ to reverse family breakdown:

  • Cabinet-level minister for the family
  • Re-branding children’s services as family services
  • Relationship education in schools
  • Family hubs (this is such a good idea it has been championed by people as politically disparate as campaigners Fathers4Justice, solicitors Mishcon de Reya and feminist academic Liz Trinder)
  • Relationship support for couples
  • Greater involvement of fathers from birth and especially after separation.

These are all good ideas which have had wide support for years, so we have to wonder what is going on when we learn that a group including One Plus One, Dad Info and Netmums is spending £45,000 of taxpayers money (from a Department for Education fund of £2.7m) to collectively come up with yet another vacuous website.

Presented as a virtual fruit machine (is the Government subliminally encouraging gambling?), a press of the Spin button reveals pearls-of-wisdom such as, “My dad makes my mum a cup of tea every morning” or “I go to the cinema with her to see a film I really don’t want to see”.

They claim scientific justification for this nonsense, but as each “nugget” is sent in by the public (these guys don’t do more work than they have to), none has any validation, and watching a film you really don’t want to see hasn’t been proven to enhance your relationship.

Beneficiaries are ideologically driven

There is a sense here that the Government isn’t taking this desperately important issue very seriously; this is a sop, a pacifier, but it won’t save a single child from the devastation of family breakdown, of fatherlessness, of poverty, of the destruction of potential.

There are organisations which could spend £2.7m more wisely, which are crying out for funding – the CSJ itself, which could spend it on some more much-needed research; the Marriage Foundation, who aren’t afraid to extol the merits of committed relationships; Wikivorce, who are so good at providing support after relationships have broken down.  Instead, it is always the same collective of ideologically-driven, ineffective beneficiaries of governmental largesse; as Karen Woodall said recently:

“Forget children’s psychological adjustment, ditch the concerns about mothers who alienate, away with the idea that children benefit from the relationships between their parents and off with the heads of anyone who thinks that fathers are necessary.”

Oh, and did I tell you the name of this astonishing waste of tax-payers’ money?  It’s “Love Nuggets”.  What a load of bollocks.

—Photo Credit: flickr/daquellamanera