Why Has This Man Been So Poorly Treated?

[anotheoldgit]

/// The father – who, unlike the child’s mother, cannot claim legal aid – estimates he has spent more than £100,000 in legal costs trying to see his daughter.///

What this poor chap has been forced to go through must be a living nightmare.

How is it that men seem to be so poorly treated by our legal system in such matters.

[emmie]

i don't know, but having read the article he seems to have been let down very badly.

[daffy654]

My daughter is having the same problem but in reverse. She sent her two boys (4 and 5) to live with their dad when she became homeless because of her ex (kids dad) not paying his portion of the rent arrears in the house they used to share. As she didn't want to take the boys into a hostel she asked the dad to have them whilst she sorted out somewhere to live. He agreed but now won't let her have them back or see them. She can't afford to pay a solicitor to take him to court for access or residency order. He is now moving away so she has even less chance of seeing them.

It isn't always the mother in the wrong in these cases.

[anotheoldgit]

daffy654

How sad daffy, I do hope that your story has a happy ending.

Adults are old enough to sort their own personal troubles out between themselves, but the children are the ones that really suffer in these type of cases.

[pixie373]

Difficult to know what to believe sometimes. Mum saying child doesn't want to see Dad. Dad saying she does. It says her life has been marred by litigation, but who is doing that? What is he paying for her? I think I'll wait for the other side before trying to guess what's going on.

[andy-hughes]

youngmafbog - I appreciate you speak from personal experience, but from a wider perspective, i can assure you that the courts are all in favour of 'happy families', however inappropriate this may be.

Both my wife, who was Deputy Head of an inner-city school and had many many dealings with the family courts, and our solicitor, who is also a circuit judge, bemoan the family court's insistence that 'every child needs both parents' even when this is manifestly not the case.

This is pertinent right now, because my youngest daughter has received a court order from her ex-husband for access to their three-year-old, even though he has not been in touch for over eight months.

It is likely that he will be granted supervised access to a child who remembers him hitting his wife, and shouting and throwing furniture around.

because the court always likes to get families 'together', this is likely to be the line they will take.

So although your experience says different, I can assure you that in most cases, the courts do not stop access, quite the reverse!

[EDDIE51]

daffy654, your daughter should apply for legal aid, I know it has been restricted but I think it would still be available in your daughters case.

Fred , are you saying that in the case of a mother refusing to comply with an order for supervised access the child would be taken from the mother against her will, by force if necessary?

[boingo]

I'm sorry you're daughter is having such a hard time AH. It is so difficult when a parent, mother or father, pick and choose when they want to see their child/ren. When people I have met in the last four years (generally through school) find out that my daughters don't see their Dad, I sometimes get a comment that indicates that it's so sad and I should 'sort something out so they can get together'. That would be perfectly fine if it wasn't for the fact that they were witness to, and subjected to some pretty nasty behaviour. I shouldn't have to explain myself and give people the reasons why but I have felt like a 'poisonous mother' on several occasions and it really hurts. Protecting and loving my children is, and always has been, my main priority. Until any Mum or Dad has been in the situation, it is very difficult to explain. Using children to play head games is a terrible thing to do.

[FredPuli43]

Eddie, that's what I think happened in the one case I remember; though that might not say much for her advocate...ahem...; but I can't exactly remember what happened to the child, whether it was placed with the father or some other relative or whatever, while the mother purged her contempt, as it were.

[pixie373]

That's what I'm thinking. There may well be some evil, manipulative women around (don't know any myself). But the majority would die for their children and i believe that most of those preventing contact believe they are doing it in the child 's best interests- irresponsible, unreliable fathers, for instance. I don't think it's always straightforward- or that all mothers are selfish and cruel.