This is what F4J are fighting against:
As thousands of British parents and grandparents take to the streets protesting Britain’s secret family court, high-ranking judges have begun issuing a series of arrogant disclaimers (“We were just following orders”) and calculated misinformation (“It’s not so bad as all that”).
In The Telegraph of 3 July 2004, Mrs Justice Bracewell - who, on countless occasions, has ordered minimal contact (2-3 hours per fortnight) for normal parents and their children - claims that the family court’s failures amount to little more than “what is in essence a small group of obdurate mothers.”
Under current practices, once a parent (usually the father) has been classified as “non-resident,” he can count on the following from British family justice:
- Years of expensive litigation while seeking (and probably never receiving) an order for normal contact
- Judges who rarely tell a mother it is wrong to prevent normal contact, or enforce contact orders
- Judges who routinely enforce no-contact orders and almost-no-contact orders against fathers
- Judges who criticize fathers that seek normal contact with their children for “loving their children too much” or for being “in need of therapy” or for “confusing their own needs with the needs of the child” etc
- Judges who rubber-stamp reports prepared by CAFCASS, no matter how widely the deficiencies in CAFCASS are acknowledged
- Judges who routinely minimize, or cancel, all contact between a father and his children for any reason, however trivial, that is put forward by the mother
Mrs Justice Bracewell was involved in the recent dismantling of the Early Interventions Pilot - a project proposing that normal contact between parents and children should be established as soon as parents separate - unless a compelling reason exists otherwise.
…
A Typical District Court Judge [case in progress], in dealing with a normal father who for four years post-divorce had been enjoying almost daily contact with his child, as well as full weekends and holidays, has recently made the following orders:
a) For almost no contact (at the mother’s request) until the full hearing - some six to nine months after the father’s initial application
b) A full CAFCASS report on the risks inherent in any future contact between father and child - in the absence of any substantive charges made against the father
Lord Justice Thorpe, in a recent interview in Times Law, characterised the outrage of tens of thousands of families across Britain - most of whom have lost all meaningful contact with their children and grandchildren for no good reason - as “ignorance and disturbed emotion.”
Mr Justice Munby failed to order, or enforce, any contact for what he termed a “wholly deserving father,” whose case was " far from unique," who had been cut off from all contact with his children since 2001. Mr Munby went on to extol the virtues of the Early Interventions Pilot, which proposes that normal contact should be established immediately after separation, on the presumption that normal contact will be ordered (and enforced) by the first judge who hears the case. (Can you spot the problem? Munby can’t.)
Lady Justice Butler-Sloss informed a parent and grandparent that she could do little (if anything) to overturn a lower court decision restricting contact to unbearable levels, even in cases where the preceding judge may appear to have been grossly negligent in his duty.
Judge Masterman reduced a father’s contact with his 4-year old son (who had been living with the father for the previous year) to 1 hours supervised contact per week on the grounds that the father might say something to turn the child against the mother.
Mr Justice Wall, in a case where a father had been denied all contact with his 12-year-old son for five years, criticized the father in open court for continuing to conduct appeals on his child’s behalf.
Lord Justice Ward, in hearing the appeal of an order allowing a mother and her female partner to move two young children to Australia without any defined contact for the father, stated that the Court of Appeal had no power to intervene in a case where the higher court felt it would have come to an opposite conclusion.
Mr Justice Singer ordered that a ten year old boy spend the weekend with his mother despite the boy’s long-held claims that the mother had physically abused him, and had threatened to kill him claims which had not been disputed by the Court Welfare Officer assigned to the case. When the boy refused to leave his father, the judge told the child (in the hall outside court): 'If you don’t go with your Mum I’ll put you in a place where you can’t see your mother or your father how would you like that?"
Lord Justice Ward warned a father who was seeking more than five hours contact with his four year old son per fortnight that he should write neither his MP, nor the media, regarding the state of Britain’s secret family court, for to do so might harm his case.
Judge Goldstein, responding to a father who sought improved contact with his daughter partly on the grounds that he wished to help her learn more about her Palestinian culture and language: “Spending time with a child is all about fun, going to McDonald’s, etc., not jamming her throat with Arabic text books and Holy Book.”
8 District and High Court Judges: In a three year case extending over more than twenty hearings, none of the presiding judges have told a mother who has broken a contact order more than one hundred times either a) that contact is a good thing, or b) that breaking court orders is wrong.
Dame Justice Hale: in a case where a father was appealing an earlier decision of only one hour contact per month, concluded that “this appeal is unmeritorious”.
Judge Catlin: a) when a mother refused to obey an order for shared residence, he ordered the cessation of all contact between a father and his two sons in response to unsubstantiated charges of abuse; b) at a subsequent hearing 12 months later, when all charges of abuse had been dismissed by the investigating officer, he ordered 1 hour of contact between father and son per month.
Mister Justice Sumner: ordered costs against a father who sought any summer holidays with his child.
Mister Justice Johnson: ordered a father declared a vexatious litigant for seeking more than one overnight per fortnight with his 5-year old son. Upheld on appeal by Thorpe.
Mr Justice Sumner: “It is simply not on” for any parent to return a 3 1/2 year old child home as late as 6 pm on a Sunday.
District Judge Kenworthy-Browne: A child of 3 “will have developed no Christmas associations with the father, and even if he has spent Christmases at the father’s home, he will not remember them. As such, he will not expect increased contact with his father over the holidays.”
District Judge X (case pending): ordered the cessation of all contact between parent and child, with no review, “in order to try to move forward and restore the relationship.”
Judge Segal: cancelled after 30 minutes a full hearing at which the father sought any summer holidays and rescheduled it for after the summer. Upheld on appeal.
District Judge Lipman: ordered that a father be allowed only 2 weeks of holiday (out of a possible 13) per year: “You have the midweek contact (3 hrs per week) instead of this.”
District Judge Hindley: dismissed a father’s application to phone his 7 yr old daughter on Christmas morning calling it “too disruptive she would be opening her Christmas presents.”
Judge Milligan, to a parent who had been unsuccessfully trying to see his child for 2 years: “This is a father who needs, in my judgment, to think long and hard about his whole approach to this question of contact and to ask himself sincerely whether in fact he seeks to promote it for his own interests dressed up as the child’s interests.”
District Judge X (case pending): ordered that a father who had not been allowed to see his children for 4 months should have his case deferred for another 4 months pending investigation of an unsubstantiated 1972 domestic disagreement from a previous marriage.
Mr Justice Cazalet: in hearings spaced over 2 years 1) ordered end of Friday overnights on grounds that the child had to rest after school, and 2) ordered end of Saturday overnights on grounds that she had to rest all day Sunday before school on Monday.
Deputy District Judge Pauffley, in raising a father’s contact to 18 hours per month after 11/2 years of litigation: “What will never be helpful is for the father to see his contact in terms of mathematical division. Apparently he is running at a disadvantage of 999 to 1 … The court does not look at it in those terms.”
District Judge Thomas, in reply to a father who had been cut off from all contact with his three children for six months: “And I see that you would like me to grant an Order that the mother file a statement to show good reason why there should not be normal contact. Well, I’m not going to do it!”
Judge Calman ordered that a father, who lived within 300 yards of his son’s primary residence, should never answer the door when his son rang.
Rt Hon Lord Justice Thorpe, in rejecting the appeal of a father who wanted to cross-examine a Court Welfare Officer (whose evidence prevented him from seeing his children), affirmed that “there is no right of cross examination of Court Welfare Officers.”
Mr Justice Wilson, acting against what he called “the deep wishes and feelings of three intelligent, articulate children,” ordered the end of all direct contact with their father. Upheld on appeal by Butler-Sloss, LJ.
Judge X (case pending): after repeat applications about serial breaches of a contact order since early 2001, ordered that the issue be reviewed in late 2002.
Mr Justice Munby ordered the end of all direct contact between a father and his three children while noting that the mother “wished the children could have contact with the father. She said there was no need for all this litigation. The children should see the father.”
Judge Segal postponed a full hearing in order to obtain a Court Welfare Officer report on two parents who had brought no charges of misconduct against one another by stating: “Well, I think both parents have fallen over backwards to avoid causing the child any sort of harm, but a child always suffers when a marriage breaks down … You see, it is possible to kill with kindness by doing too much.”
Mr Justice Sumner reproved a father who had made one application to the court over two years of litigation, and sought more than twenty-six nights of contact with his child per year: “You feel better because you can put pressure, you can bring everybody to court.”
Judge Turner, in reply to a parent who sought to question a Court Welfare Officer’s report: “That confirms my suspicions. This is what members of the public do when they disagree with the recommendations. I believe that its totally wrong that members of the public can challenge Judges and Court Welfare Officers. Officers should not be subjected to it. There is a procedure outside the Court about making a complaint against the Judge. Members of the public should not have the right to make complaints.”
Judge Agliomby, on refusing overnight contact for the third consecutive year: “The point that struck me most was that the very first question the father asked the mother was whether they might not get on better if she let him see the child.”
Judge Lamdin dismissed a father’s request (after three years of litigation) for any overnight contact with his six year old on the grounds that “the child is growing up knowing his father, and that what we are talking about, i.e. overnight staying contact, is something quite different.”
Judge Kenworthy-Browne, known by the staff at First Avenue House for repeatedly bringing his dog to court, rebuked a litigant-in-person for not wearing a tie.
Senior District Judge Angel misinformed a complainant that “there is an unrestricted right of appeal” in contact cases. (There is, in fact, little if any right of appeal.) When this was brought to the attention of the President of the Family Division, her office replied that she “considered the matter closed.”
Mr Justice Munby sentenced a father to four months in prison for giving his children Christmas presents (a bike, a camera and a walkman) during a scheduled contact meeting. Upheld on appeal by Thorpe LJ and Butler-Sloss LJ.
Judge Goldstein, after a father filed a complaint against him, ordered all contact between that father and his children stopped for three years. Overturned on appeal by Butler-Sloss LJ, who described the judge’s behaviour as “outrageous.”
Judge Plaskow rejected a father’s request for overnight contact with his 4-year-old, and ordered court costs against him, on the grounds that the child might require a special diet.
Judge X (name withheld by litigant) told a father who sought more than 2 hours contact with his young child per fortnight that “it may well be that the father is being too possessive.”
Judge Agliombi warned a father who was arguing that costs should not be ordered against him because the mother was depriving their child of a father: “If you go on like this you stand in great danger of never having staying contact with your son.”
Judge X (case pending) ordered that a father, who had waited seven months for a full hearing without seeing his children, be permitted for six months to write them no more than one card/letter every three weeks, without any direct contact.
Judge Lloyd ordered that an ordinary father be permitted to write his child once per fortnight on the condition that the letter’s contents be reviewed by an officer of the court.