Family Justice

In relation to 'Welfare of the child: parental involvement' (para 11), we do not consider that this clause will make anything other than a marginal difference in contested Section 8 cases and will not be effective in meeting the Government's stated objectives.

The consultation document, 'Co-operative Parenting Following Family Separation: Proposed Legislation on the Involvement of Both Parents in a Child's Life', on both the opening sheet and in paragraph 3.2, used the phrase “retain a strong and influential relationship with his or her child” to describe the Government's intention in relation to shared parenting. This intention is not reflected in the wording of the Bill which replaces the words “strong and influential relationship” with the word “involvement”.

The Family Justice Review Final Report – November 2011 (para 4.20) states that “courts start from the principle that contact with both parents will be in the interests of the child, unless there are very good reasons to the contrary.” If this is, indeed, the case, it is difficult to see how the amendment will do anything other than codify the courts' existing application of Section 1 of the Children Act 1989 (welfare of the child).

We support the introduction of 'Child arrangements orders' (para 12) and the omission of the definitions of “contact order” and “residence order”.

We are opposed to the 'Control of expert evidence, and of assessments, in children proceedings' provisions (para13) to the extent that this may prevent judges from receiving the kinds of information that enable them to make decisions that in the child's best interests.

I agree with Clause 10 & 11. Mediation & Family therapy is positive & A child to see both parents is positive unless strong justification of the contrary is shown.
Clause 13 is important, expert evidence may be needed & could be critical in the judge understanding a child or parent's situation, physical or mental health.

When children become seperated from the other parent,the child's wishes then do not become their true wishes & they do not want to lose that parent.
They not only need support from the mother, but the father and most importantly specific emotional support, the amount my ex-wife & I have spent on lawyers would have easily afforded the emotional support my children needed to go through their parents acrimonious divorce. The critical time that the child MUST see both parents & have this neutral experiencied emotional support is immediately after the separation. This support must be there ready, could be put in place immediately, & jointly paid for by each of the solicitors to keep the children's contact under control while the divorce is going through. If it becomes acrimonious then the children should have somewhere neutral, because as always the other parent's family would not be.

At the moment the problem is, when the child is told what to say & how to feel to a CAFCASS officer. Unfortunenately some couples use the children as an asset against other assets(i.e. the Family Home) to guarantee possession. It then becomes "How much do you value your child?" to the other parent. Some can afford, but won't, some can afford, but give up. some can't afford, but will, but then can't. Therefore the only parents that gain are the one's that can't afford & won't but they're not good parents in the first place.

The only fair way for the court to see what is really best for the children is to experiment with technology & record what is really being said to a child in that critical time immediately after separation. This maybe something to think about for the future.

I refer specifically to clause 11 of the proposed bill as this personally effects mine and my families circumstances. I am unable to see my niece at all because the mother is refusing to allow my brother to see his child and doing everything in her power to stop his visits in a contact centre. It is tearing him apart and tearing us apart watching him fall to pieces unable to see his little girl. The law falls in the mother's favour every step of the way in spite of my brother being the main stay at home parent whilst they were together. It is evident that the mother is using their child as a weapon in a spiteful break up with no care as to how this is effecting the child. The child is missing out on vital contact with her father as she is growing up, and a change is needed in the law to help prevent this happening in a modern day society where this kind of inequality in parenting should not be happening.

Currently the system does not work the way we expect and wish it to. Although the previous wording of the Children’s Act may superficially appear fair, in its application the law is frequently grossly unfair and ineffective.
I support those changes being proposed in the new Bill. I have only two main points to make.
First, the law is currently applied with a very strong bias against men and fathers in particular. On the one hand we claim to be working towards some equality of responsibility for both genders. No one questions the rights of single mothers to bring up children. No one questions the fact that children grow up into happier and more stable adults if they have both parents in their lives. And yet the idea of a single parent family headed by a man is still viewed as odd. I do not want to argue the relative merits of the genders which can of course be very diverse depending on the circumstances and on who is being considered. However, I’m sure many will agree that my example shows that despite lip service, attitudes still have a way to go in order to reach the standards the majority desire.
The proposed presumption of shared parenting in this Bill is a key to such change. As the term implies, a presumption is a starting point for any determination of parenting arrangements. It is not a conclusion but rather it is the very first point to consider. If we start from the presumption that both parents should be meaningfully and significantly involved in their children’s lives we can then consider, on a case by case basis, just how much each parent is best able to contribute to the children’s upbringing and happiness. Many people advance specious arguments suggesting that shared parenting implies 50/50 participation or they pretend that a presumption is in fact an assumption. This is simply political posturing to preserve the status quo in all its unfairness.
Secondly, the law is very poorly applied in practice. Consequently not only does the law need to be updated to reflect the more modern attitudes to which the majority clearly culturally aspires, but also the government must provide stronger and precise guidance to the courts in order to ensure that the judiciary and social services apply and enforce the law in a manner which really does put children first ie preserves their right and need for the participation (not just financial) of both their parents where possible.
In my case, within about four years of our divorce, I lost touch first with my son who found his mother’s hostility resulting from contact too stressful to put up with. Not long after my daughter followed suit and contact orders were effectively ignored for years – not just by the children’s mother but by the courts that made them as well.
I know that such complex situations cannot be simply rectified. Nevertheless it is a fact that parents, even very emotional ones know what they can get away with. As with small children whose behaviour is sometimes similar when boundaries are not properly drawn, if they think a tantrum will give them the outcome they want, then that is the method they will use. It is simple human nature. Tantrums are often extended to include false allegations of domestic violence and abuse.
If the courts properly considered the long term benefits of the children and enforced the contact orders which the courts themselves have made, I am sure that many of these rather delinquent parents would almost automatically become more cooperative. The courts will need a range of proportionate sanctions to deal not just with broken contact orders but also with allegations of abuse or violence and other lies which turn out, to be fabricated out of thin air in otherwise perfectly functional families (like my own as was), simply to exclude the other parent. Such abusive behaviour must be appropriately discouraged.
We have recently seen high profile cases in which perverting the course of justice as well as perjury have been shown to be quite unacceptable in the eyes of the law. And yet every day up and down the country unbelievable lies and excuses for breaking contact are effectively believed and acted upon by judges who simply do not cope with the problem effectively. I would ask that we are provided with strong guidelines from the Minister and from the head of the Family Division to ensure that the full weight of the law is brought to bear on either or both parents if they behave irresponsibly or use delaying tactics and obfuscation to exclude the other parent.
Attitudes are moving on but they are held back in so many cases by un-cooperative parents and by many elderly or otherwise old fashioned judges and social workers. If MPs can implement these desperately needed changes, they will be benefiting a whole generation of our children to whom the future of this country is tied.

Part 2 : Family justice 8.

If the Bill is to include provisions to:
·
“send a clear signal to separated parents that courts will take account of the principle that both should continue to be involved in their children’s lives where that is safe and consistent with the child’s welfare, which remains the court’s paramount consideration”

“introduce a new "child arrangements order", replacing residence and contact orders”

And If arrangements include a non resident parent having overnight contact then the courts I feel should also send a send a clear signal to social housing departments.


It seems entirely inconsistent that in relation to family justice reform the Government are stressing the importance of both parents in a child's life and the corresponding wellbeing of children, but when it comes to Housing Benefit changes they are penalising those parents who are not deemed the 'main carer' for a child"
Social housing departments all too often do not cooperate or acknowledge a non resident parents needs, this I feel is inequality.

The situation is made all the worse by the recent bedroom tax This will have a very negative effect on Fathers and children and I feel MPs must publicly oppose this.
Its time that those in charge of social housing recognised the needs of good non resident parents with overnight contact, all too often fathers in this position are not offered adequate accommodation and many of these people are tax payers! the working poor contributing to the community.

grandparents rights should be looked into and also childrens services and how they handle cases,i had my grandson for 3 yrs i brought this child up because parents were not interested, i had this child 7 days a wk 24 hrs a day i am now seeing him every wed and every other wk end thanks to social services and not listening to anything i was telling them,this child is 4 in aug he is living with parents he does not want to be with where is the justice in that,when it comes to grandparents there is no justice,so now this innocent child is suffering because of parents guilty mistakes.

Courts MUST start to carry out enforcements regarding breaches of conditions of contact order carried out by mothers as well as fathers. At the moment courts don't punish mothers for failing to allow a child to see his father.
Courts are very biased against fathers and will find in favour of mothers even when that mother has immoral behaviour, history of violence and aggression and the father is decent caring and more able to look after his child than the mother.
Fathers are prevented from fighting for their children because they more than often do not qualify for public funding but the mother does, so she breaches orders, is in contempt of court and prevents the child having a loving relationship with his own father, all paid for by the public purse, which is immoral and wrong. Basically, at the moment the courts are allowing mothers to use their children to further hurt their ex partners all paid for by the public and fathers have no way of getting proper justice because the costs are so high. My grandson is with his mother in north scotland where she says she is "untouchable" by English law, and at the moment she is correct - my son cannot afford the CSA payments, travel costs to [Scotland] and back from [England] AND the high cost of legal fees to get contact enforced. She is not asked to prove any of the excuses she continually comes up with as to why the child cannot attend. This is wrong. Stop treating men like animals, they have feelings, they love their children every bit and more, than these child abusing mothers and the child quite often would be better off living with a decent honest loving father, than a woman who is abusing the child mentally by keeping him apart from his "daddy", purely out of malice and hatred. These women must be penalised. As soon as you put one of them in prison, it will send a powerful message aroung the country that this disgraceful practice of abusing a child to hurt its father is now illegal and will be punished severely.
If a woman lost CSA payments and/or child benefit for the child she was preventing from seeing his father, she would soon think twice. People say "that would harm the child by depriving him of money" but what must be borne in mind is that THE MOTHER WOULD KNOW SHE WAS DEPRIVING THE CHILD OF MONEY DELIBERATELY. All she has to do is comply with the contact arrangements and her money would be safe. These women only do this because they know they can.
At the moment the consensus of opinion is that Family Law is a multibillion pound industry and all the time it is as it is, solicitors, courts, social services, CAFCASS officers, etc etc have job security and are making millions of pounds. If these people, (Judges, solicitors, social workers, CAFCASS officers etc) all actually did act in the best interest of the child, instead of just saying they do, then this industry would shrink and less money would be made.
At the moment, you the Government and legal system are abusing children by allowing this practice to go ahead in the name of money!! PUT OUR CHILDREN, NOT MONEY, FIRSTMand make the law do the right thing by the children. My grandson adores his daddy and my daughter in law is abusing him by deliberately moving him [hundreds of] miles away just so she can say she cannot afford to bring him half way for contact. There was no reason to move there and the Judge refused a Prohibited Steps order to stop her going. The Judges lied to my son, saying they could bring her back (they didn't) then they said they would enforce the Order (despite breaching the order every week for 5 months, the courts have just taken my son's money and said they can do no more!) this is shameful and shows they only wanted his money. [Amount supplied] he paid in court fees and got nothing but lies from two judges. This farce you call justice must be changed.
If a woman knows she will be punished for breaching the orders, as a man is, she will soon stop the mental anguish and abuse on her own child and her ex, and learn that she must obey the law the same as everyone else must.
If tables were reversed and it was my son in breach of contact orders the law would not hesitate to come down full force on him, that should also apply to these vindictive, spiteful women who are using the law to harm their children with impunity.

The application to a Family Court is both unfair and prejudicial from the immediate. I conclude that the starting point for both parents is 50/50. Upon one or other parent wishing NOT to provide emotional support to a child then and only then is that person brought before a court to explain their reasons why they do not wish to be a support to a child. On the matter of the position as present. For the non resident parent (usually father) there is no starting point. There is nothing in law that gives a NRP a right to see a child or a right for that child to see a parent. NRP's are often (as is the public) misguided that there is provision in place to safeguard what is in the child's best interest. This being the Children's Act 1989. However in private law the CA provides no such right to maintain a relationship between a child and excluded parent. What it so generously provides and the only legal right in Family Law is the right under the CA 1989 "to make an application to the court". That allows one to file a C100 form and a £200 fee. Thats it. That is all that is available to one and other under statutory law. From then on its a lottery of what is in the "best interest of a child". One judge may be of the opinion that indirect contact of two letters a year is a sufficient relationship and another would accept time should be spent equally between both parents and two homes - and in this example both applications would have held the same merit and both NRP's applicants equally great parents. But how that application and proceedings are handled by welfare officers, judges, resident parents, and the applicant themselves whether litigant in person or represented, takes one along a nightmare path that could go in any direction, where there may never be a conclusion, and damaging to parents and child. Simply put the presumption of shared parenting has to be supported from a 50/50 starting point. Two parents makes one child.

1/ Mediation can only work if a/ Both parents attend the mediation b/ If one parent refuses to attend the process to court it should be streamlined so the child is not emotionally abused by the system by no contact with a parent. c/ If a parent for no good reason refuses to allow contact during court arrangement for contact that there should be a safeguard by ordered family centre contact. d/ Fact finding should be natural process.
It should be considered that shared parenting around the child is the best option, based on the proven track record of children being caused emotional harm by being denied the right to know both parents.

Experts used in courts especially relating to psychological/psychiatrist reports can be vastly misleading. Given that many are based on false records (social worker opinions rather than fact which can transfer to medical records, ex-partner false allegations, false police records, same name different person etc.) these records are always submitted to the expert prior to assessments with the client. Fact finding only comes with appeal. Children are being lost into care based on expert reports and all too often false reports based on untruths, misleading and inaccurate records held by social services departments and therefore all agencies.
Which leads me on to another major concern, adoption targets. Far too many children are removed from decent parents who struggle to get the facts into family courts and many have lost their children for a vast amount of time before even appeals can be arranged in a higher court. By this time the social services may have removed all family contact. So the child in care has no-one and forced to accept the life dictated by the family courts. No parents, no extended family (no grandparent rights)
So before adoptions can be rushed through, anyone working in the real interests of children should make the system of contact, family courts, social services departments and agencies are working models, based on truth and fact finding. Until that happens every ill thought out change will only worsen the situation for children. Given that 'care' has a horrific history of destroying children's lives I would have thought that preventing the breakup of families (except in serious cases of proven abuse) would be the correct thing to do. Adoption should only be a option where there is no family to work with. Lastly I would like to add some of the reseach that I based this on. 1/ The deaths caused by both foster carers and adopted parents. 2/ The emotional truama suffered by children taken from their birth families, sometimes not obvious until the child reaches adulthood. 3/ The trauma suffered by all extended family including other children within the family network. 4/ Crime by ex-care children 5/ Abuse within the care system 6/ Loss of education within the care system 7/ Constant moves within the care system.
8/ Homelessness caused by breakdown of family by family courts 9/ Suicides and deaths by truama of birth parents because of no contact or child removals by family courts. 10/ Drug abuse by ex-care children. And that is the tip of the iceberg.
If anyone in goverment wants to attempt fixing broken Britain then the first stop should be concern for our birth families and the system that is destroying them.