This is an interesting article out of Britain concerning an incident that took place some months ago involving former children’s minister, Margaret Hodge, and two Fathers’ Rights protesters who are members of Fathers4Justice.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Manchester | Ex-minister ’shocked’ at protest
Margaret Hodge was left in the handcuffs for 40 minutes
Former children’s minister Margaret Hodge has told a jury she was “shocked and distressed” after being handcuffed by two fathers’ rights protesters.
Ms Hodge told Manchester Crown Court she was “completely taken aback” after the ambush at a Law Society conference at The Lowry Hotel in Salford 2004.
Jason Hatch, 35, of Cheltenham, and Jonathan Stanesby, 41, of Ivybridge, Devon, deny false imprisonment.
Both were members of the group Fathers 4 Justice.
Ms. Hodge got a taste of what it is like for many fathers after emerging from divorce court. They feel “taken aback” and ambushed. One minute they are a loving father, whose every waking moment is occupied with concerns of taking care of their precious family and child, and the next minute, it’s all over. Now they are talking about “visitation”, and child support. The care and intimacy - that special, and oh-so-vulnerable relationship between father and child - it’s all over.
The difference, of course, between what Ms. Hodge felt, and what a father goes through, is that for the father, it is much more personal, and more permanent. It is for the rest of your life. It is you whole life that is affected.
This is what is never communicated in news reports and in most studies on the issue of custody, child support and divorce. It’s a system that fails to treat families and individuals as real people, with real emotions and feelings. Some would say that there really isn’t an alternative, that in the modern era, people grow and change, and they just need to get over it. The problem, for many fathers, is that they don’t just get over it. The experience leaves these men ripped apart and turned inside out. When you treat this many individuals this cruelly and heartlessly, there are disruptions.
The problem is that people like Ms. Hodge, and there are many thousands of such people in the child support and divorce court industry, just don’t get it. They don’t look at these fathers as fathers, as real people. Also, there is an arrogance exhibited by these people that simply won’t allow them to see the evil that they are perpetrating. “It’s all for the children” after all.
1 response so far ↓
1 Gerardo // Sep 28, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Oh how I know and feel their pain with a child held captive for ransom in Poland. I have always said that part of the world needs a real push that can get peoples attention and I think the revolution has started. This is a part of the world that had a major protest in allowing Fox hunting to continue; men were bleeding by clubs from the police with their protest. If only they had men going much farther for their own children. I think they are finally getting it; God bless them all!
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