A monstrous regimen
Not before time, a family judge has fired a broadside at the way in which the English family courts enable decent fathers to be persecuted by vengeful estranged mothers. The Times reports that Lord Justice Ward gave vent to his feelings after telling a father that there was nothing he could do to help him to re-establish contact with his teenage daughter who had been turned against him by her ‘vicious’ mother.
The ‘drip, drip, drip of venom’ poured into the daughter’s ears by the mother included accusations of sexual abuse against the innocent father after the couple divorced, the judge said. The former wife’s tactics were so successful that the daughter wrote to her father when she was 9 saying that she wished he was dead… Lord Justice Ward told the father that the case was bordering on scandalous but the court was compelled to act solely in the best interests of the child. The girl would be too distressed if she was forced to spend time with her father after her mother’s ‘corrupting’ campaign, he said.
‘The father complains bitterly, passionately and with every justification that the law is sterile, impotent and utterly useless — we have to acknowledge there is a degree of force in what he says,’ the judge told the Court of Appeal Civil Division. ‘But the question is what can this court do? The answer is nothing. This is a truly distressing case. It may not be untypical of many, but in some ways it borders on the scandalous. It certainly is tragic.’
As I wrote back in 1999 in my book The Sex-Change Society: Feminised Britain and the Neutered Male (published by the Social Market Foundation) such abuses (surely the human equivalent to the female mantis eating her mate as in the picture above) most certainly are not atypical of the family courts. But no-one listened then —and with politicians of all parties still either signed up to or cowed by gender politics, they are unlikely to listen now.
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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'Londonistan', published by Encounter and Gibson Square.
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Paul
May 1st, 2008 8:06pmMy brother is in a similar situation to the one described. He does have access to his children still but only because he is prepared to pay good lawyers and fight a never ending battle countering every accusation. If he didn't have the money contact would have ceased long ago.
Raptus regaliter
May 1st, 2008 8:38pmAnyone taking bets on whether our New Labour government is about to redress this most appalling aspect of our gynocentric legal system any time soon?
Dave_G
May 1st, 2008 8:48pmI Haven't seen my youngest son for 12 years now.All the court procured for me was a ten minute phone call once a month, great way to maintain a relationship.I didn't have the money to pay for barristers either. It's a national disgrace.
ThomasR
May 1st, 2008 9:22pm>the court was compelled to act solely in the best interests of the child
Here's the problem. We ought to listen to the _wishes_ of a child instead of trying to determine his or her interests for him.
We're not in a position to confidently determine another's interests, anyway. Nevertheless, we can try and persuade a child what we think his interests are, and give him opportunities to change his mind later.
However, it reminds his life and his choice who he lives with.
Verity
May 1st, 2008 9:27pmSocialists hate the family. It is too strong and resistent. Socialist women are the most vicious.
Laura
May 2nd, 2008 10:53amThe gender politics lunacy will never stop.
Men cannot speak up in public because they will be decried as being sexist and so it is left to fair minded people like Melanie to fight their corner.
Feminism has not just degraded men, it has degraded women too, who routinely exploit their gender to get what they want in situations like these.
And, in situations where the relationship between fathers and children is healthy, it degrades the children who are deprived of a healthy influence.
But nanny New Labour couldn't give a flying toss, because with dad out the way, it's all the more easy for the state to exert even more infuence over the family and fill chilren's heads full of mind controlling rubbish.
Sisters - ruining it for themselves.
Leslie
May 2nd, 2008 11:38amWe need to put our children's welfare first.If we love them,why would we want to hurt them by depriving them of their father?
misandrope
May 2nd, 2008 2:35pmSomehow the court has all kinds of leeway when making oddball rulings in favor of the mothers, but when a man's relationship with his children is damaged or suspended by the usual misandrous operations of the court, they find themselves hamstrung by various pretexts, such as the purported 'well-being of the child'. Hasn't this judge seen the statistics on what happens to children raised in fatherless homes? Isn't raising a child in an environment consisting of lies and deceit considered abuse? What is even more disgusting is how 'abnormal' it is for a judge even to speak out, albeit while sitting on his hands.
Ian G
May 3rd, 2008 2:02amSurely the interests of the child are best served by the truth? It cannot be good for any one to be brought up with lies. One day they might learn the truth - and then what?
davo
May 3rd, 2008 11:48pmVerity
there is much truth about your brief statement.
marriage and family are a challenge to the total control that so many of the hard left wish to exercise over the proletariat. Religion, moral values, patriotism, marriage, family etc are a cocoon that prevents individuals from being manipulated or coerced.
That is why they are incessantly under attack by the left wing loonies.
Dipper
May 5th, 2008 10:00pmSo Verity should the State always keep out of families? what about forced marriage? Female genital mutiliation? Drug addict parents who are too stoned to care for their children?
Clearly on some occasions the state has acted wrongly, and this one would be a good candidate, but glib sweeping statements don't help move the debate forward.
phillip
May 5th, 2008 10:34pmCurrently in Australia, there is a well coordinated effort being made by womens groups to discredit the idea of Parental alienation syndrome in the context of family law.
A psychologist recently was disciplined by his association for the use of PSA in the family court.