Equal Parental Responsibility = Legal Child Abuse
by Children in Britain are being physically, sexually, emotionally and mentally abused and the UK Family Courts are ordering this abuse. Mothers who try to protect their children are branded vindictive and spiteful. They are threatened with prison, community service and fines and even loss of custody of the children to their abuser if they stop contact between the child and its father.
A person with Parental Responsibility has the right to a say in any decisions regarding the child to do with their upbringing such are where they live, where they go to school, what medical treatment they receive. It also gives the right to contact with the child if they are not living with them.
CAFCASS, the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service, are supposed to put children first in the Family Courts but all too often their reports are inaccurate and strongly biased towards the father. When they speak to the children, their views are often ignored or put down to coaching by the mother. Even when abuse is proved, some form of contact is recommended and this is expected to increase over time. When a CAFCASS report is submitted to court, the court usually merely accepts the recommendations and does not listen to the evidence given by the ‘emotional’ mother.
When a relationship ends, the children become the only means an abusive father has to continue the abuse of his ex partner and continue to control her. Caring for the child is not the main motivation of the father for wanting contact. Research has also shown that as the father continues to abuse the mother, the risk of abusing the child increases. Because these abusive fathers put their own selfish needs before those of the child they will insist on contact even when the child is obviously frightened of them.
Abusive fathers are far more likely to try and get residency than non-abusive fathers. This is not only so that they can continue the abuse but for financial reasons and distorted views of their own and their ex-partner’s parenting abilities.
There are several ways in which an abusive father will continue abuse after separation which involve the children. These can include how they shape the children’s view of their mother, they don’t give the children routine, supervision, safety and care, and they are competitive with the mother and force the children to withdraw from, reject, harass or abuse their mother. They like to have financial control over the mother by withholding joint money or child support or barter contact against financial assets or child support. They also threaten to or apply for increased contact or residency.
This continued abuse and control can cause severe psychological distress for the mother and the children and undermine the mother’s ability to be the best parent she can and weakens the children’s relationship with the parent who can best meet their needs. Women forced to share care with emotionally abusive and controlling ex partners suffer from stress and the physical symptoms can be very debilitating and affect the mother’s care of the children. These problems are not seen or ignored by the professionals and the courts and law makers.
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Post CommentMr Ghaz
On November 5, 2009 at 7:37 am
Good post..well-written piece and very informative..Thanks for sharing this great infos
marie Pettigrew
On November 23, 2009 at 8:49 am
An excellent article which sums up my situation. I have just chatted to my son who is in denial that his father did manipulate him to deny his mother and tell lies to the CAFCASS officer. He believes that it was his decision at 10 years old to tell lies to the CAFCASS officer to make sure his father had custody despite the fact that his father coached him and made him uncomfortable in his mother’s presence as he asked him to keep “secrets” about his father’s affair and that they were in fact living with him mistress who was also grooming him. It is so sad as he is an extremely unhappy 17 year old with huge self-esteem issues and under constant pressure from his father to succeed when he just can’t make the grade.
The CAFCASS officer believed his every word even though a quick chat with anyone would have revealed that what my son had said was a blatant lie.
CAFCASS are underqualified buffoons who have huge power without public scrutiny.
amother
On February 19, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Thank you for voicing my despair so eloquently and painting a helpful warning picture about the damage courts do on top of the abuse. This is corroborated by other papers in google about damage to children from courts. Children are forced to side with people in an adversarial system that feeds financially on family distress and also a mediation system that feeds the court system as it is a tick box gateway to legal aid for the courts and also has a paper agreement at the end of it which the solicitors will pounce on to rubber stamp so that if a child ever changes their visitation needs or desires the mother will be in breach of the law for supporting the child’s wishes unless she has the time and money to keep on going back to the courts to beg to change the legally binding order. Today I nearly gave in and thought I would trust mediation out of despair to discover that my ex only offered to pay for it so that he could access legal aid to go to court. Nobody explains anything, even mediation services are all very difficult to understand even for someone with a phd and a job in information, and seemingly secretive about charges and confidentiality etc. They get you in and then they tell you where you stand by which time it is too late to abandon things for fear of it looking bad. What we need is more free family therapy. There is NONE for all these massive social problems of nearly half of relationships failing. Access to legal aid is also unlikely for mothers who have a modicum of savings but very little income, which makes it impossible for them to fight a fair battle (were they even to have the time), or be forced to fight alone with seld help packs from the Rights of Women organisation, for example, or be forced to spend savings or sell up and expose themselves and children to destitution. If it is not too late and the relentless abuse from all sides and lack of support with all the stigma that comes at single parenting has not already broken them. It happened to my mother at a time and in a country when only men had the right to parental responsibility, and my father ran away to be in a band leaving her with three young children. She lost her mind and he returned and took us away from her overnight, but in the end they both paid with premature deaths from heart disease.