This article highlights how truly insane family policies are in Britain.  Things really aren’t  that much better here in the States.  The willingness of social agencies and the courts to intrude into the relationship of fathers and their children is truly disturbing.  One wonders just how far it can go before people fight back with violence.

A group of Fathers Rights campaigners took their message to the courts on Friday.

 

Three Cornish dads dressed in the now well-known trademark garb of superheroes adopted by the ‘F4J’ movement.

‘New Fathers for Justice’ is a breakaway movement from the original founded by Matt O’Connor, which has changed direction from superhero protests.

Lee pledged: “The main protest today is in Truro, but the Eden Project and Jamaica Inn could also be targeted in the future.

“There has been talk of a putting a superhero parrot on the roof of Jamaica Inn for some time. Expect the unexpected.”

The protestors called on the Truro Magistrates Courts where many family cases are heard and also at the St Austell offices of a court bureaucracy.

‘Cafcass’ are a nationwide network of family court officials who job is to dictate how much time a parent sees their child for.

If parents break up and a mother will not allow a father to see his children, he has to go to law, and will be forced to prove to a Cafcass officer that he is a fit parent.

This most commonly involves the officer ‘observing’ the child and father together for approximately an hour, and taking notes.

The officer then writes a report which recommends how much time the father should spend with their child.

It is a system lifted directly from criminal trials, in which probation officers observe criminals and recommend the right punishment.

But all parents applying to the courts to see their children must be scrutinised by Cafcass.

Criminals only face probation officers if they are convicted.

Another key difference between the family and the criminal courts is that the family courts are held in secret.

There are no juries, no press are allowed in, and the burden of proof is reversed.

Protestor Lee said the system was “wholly wrong” and his group planned to cause “whatever disruption necessary”.

The campaigners say opening the courts to the public and forcing them to give children equal time with parents would end their “injustice”,

They claim such a reform would ultimately see an end to a multi-billion pound bureaucracy of officials and lawyers that has grown up around marital breakdown.

One of the protestors has been made subject to a punitive gagging order by the Cornish family courts.

He spoke out but asked to be named only as ‘Paul’ because of the order, which denies him free speech.

The 28 year old said: “My ex-wife has made my life a living hell by constantly disrupting my arranged time with my son.

“He’s three, and such a lovely little lad. I love spending time with him when I am allowed, but it’s deeply wrong that I should have to fight the system in order to do the right thing.

“I feel I’m fighting a losing battle but I’m not giving up. I just don’t see why fathers should not get equality after family breakdown?”

A long-anticipated review by the coalition Government into family law rejected the demands of fathers rights groups out of hand last month.

The review was announced a year ago as soon as David Cameron and Nick Clegg gained power.

The Government appointed Treasury Official David Norgrove to conduct the review

He in turn appointed as high profile divorce lawyer as his assistant: fathers rights groups have called the resultant report, published on April 1st, “farcical”.

Lee said: “The family court system remains a pantomime. It exists purely to provide enrichment for lawyers and experts behind closed doors.

“Nothing less than an automatic presumption of equal contact with the children when the

parents split as a starting point will do.

“This will give both parents equal parity of rights to see the children. We just want dads to have equal status … same as Mum.”

via GIVE US EQUAL RIGHTS! | Cornwall Community News.

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