C C Smale Family Lawyer

I have not posted anything on this website for a while.

I am supportive of men’s and fathers’ rights, which is something I have tried to express in some of the things I write.

A number of people have contacted me to say to say they are distrusting of the idea that any solicitor could work on the part of men under what they see as a corrupt system. Fathers4Justice, for example, discourage fathers from using a solicitor at all. I have also been contacted by someone who considers family law and those who practice it to be “Satanic” and I can promise that person that I took your point seriously and I read up on the things you emailed me and I thought about them for the past two weeks.

I had missed the BBC Radio 4 program, Law in Action on 22nd June which questioned the statistics which formed the basis of the Police’s campaign against domestic violence during the World Cup. It would appear that there is no such statistical basis.

The dishonesty did not bother two of the guests on the program; the Deputy Chief Constable of Gwent Police  says the campaign “was never about the reliability of the figures” and the guest from AVA admits that the Data was “very dodgy”. Both openly stated that the dishonesty was not the issue; the issue was that the campaign resulted in resources being deployed.

In other words the fact that it was all a lie does not matter as long as they justified their funding.

I am grateful for this article here.

This one too.

I think Celia Walden is mistaken in this article in the Telegraph in thinking that Cristiano Ronaldo commissioning a woman to be a surrogate mother for his baby is an act of vanity.

I know nothing about the law in Portugal, nor in America where apparently the surrogate mother lives. Nor do we appear to be told anything about what Cristiano Ronaldo’s girlfriend, Irina Shayk makes of it all. Ronaldo himself has said little about it.

Women have had the controlling hand in reproduction for forty years or so. For financial reasons planned single motherhood is all too common, while fathers in their naivety disappear from their children’s lives.

I am not particularly a fan of football as such and therefore I don’t care too much one way or the other about these football players, however in this I think Ronaldo has shown quite a lot of wisdom. Congratulations to him.

When your marriage breaks down, unless there are no assets at all, it is understandable to ask “what sort of financial settlement am I going to get”. I find that some people have more realistic expectations than others.

Unrealistic expectations are often fuelled by popular perceptions. Celebrity divorces have a tendency to lead husbands to fear that they are going to have to pay out large sums. Two cases from 2006 are significant  (not involving celebrities but wealthy people all the same).  Melissa Miller got a settlement of £5 million out of total assets of £32 million – from a marriage of just two years and nine months where there were no children. Julia McFarlane obtained maintenance of £250,000 per year, this had been a sixteen year marriage with three children where the husband’s total income was £750,000 per year. The obvious fact is that those cases which make the news or the law reports are not typical, by virtue of the fact that those people have more money than the rest of us do. Most normal people just want their financial needs to be met.

Friends who have been through marriage breakdown may well tell you their experience. Those whose settlements were amicable are likely to feel happier about what they came out with. Contested cases are more likely to be unsatisfactory to either party. A good test is to consider that if both the husband and the wife are equally unhappy about the deal they ended up with… the settlement is probably just about fair! The sure thing about listening to what your friends ended up with in their divorce settlement is this: their case is different to yours.

As solicitors we are often able to reassure people whose expectations are overly pessimistic and fearful. We are also able to caution the over-expectations of others. What we usually cannot do is to tell you exactly what you will get if you go to court.

A good start is to read my post about financial disclosure.

Some other things I think are worth pointing out are these:

There is a legal obligation to pay maintenance for your children who do not live with you. In cases of modest wealth (which is most of them) maintenance for spouses is nowadays rare. This means that if one spouse expects to be able to keep the matrimonial home they will usually have to pay the outgoings including any mortgage on the property.

Consider entitlements to welfare benefits and tax credits.

Consider pension entitlement.

Get advice from financial advisers, not just solicitors. Be practical and consider your options.

The court is unlikely to consider who has been good and who has been bad in your marriage , who is at fault or who is blameless.

This kind of thing is what really breaks up relationships.

People who think that marriage is “just a piece of paper”, or is in other ways irrelevant are wrong. Making this mistake is often financially costly. Married people have different “rights” to unmarried people and they have different “obligations”.

Since 2005 people in same-sex relationships have been able to form civil partnerships. In nearly every way a civil partnership is the same as a marriage as far as the law is concerned. However, the differences between civil partnership and marriage, even though minor, are felt to be significant. The equalities minister indicates that the law could be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry. The main differences would be these: firstly, for all official purposes same-sex couples would be able to declare themselves as “married” rather than “in a civil partnership”. Secondly, there is currently a ban on any religious element in a ceremony of civil partnership and this ban would be removed for the purpose of same-sex marriage.

For those people, like me, who are in favour of committed relationships I think it is pointless opposing the idea of gay marriage. It is not homosexuality which has undermined marriage; it is people failing to commit to permanent relationships of any sort. Lack of commitment and sexual promiscuity amongst heterosexual people is a far greater cause of family breakdown than anything you may think the lesbian or gay community are up to.

I am only surprised how long it has taken for the Domestic Violence Industry to report its results from England’s World Cup campaign.

This is the first report I have come across. I am sure we will hear much more about this kind of thing for a while.

We are told there was a 127% increase in DV as between the day England played Slovenia (a midweek afternoon) and the day England played Germany (a Sunday). I expect there will be many more dubious headlines to come over the next few weeks.

My main objection to the Domestic Violence Industry is this: It tells women that their partner is responsible for their unhappiness and that they themselves are not are not. In the meantime women keep going back to abusive relationships.

At the fag end of the previous government the former Department of Children Schools and Families were publishing guidance at a rate of fifty or sixty publications per  month – thousands of pages each month at the cost of millions of pounds.

Separately, the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA) was set up. This required over 11 million people to register their fitness to work with children or vulnerable adults.

One justification of the ISA is that if it saved one child from abuse it would be worth it. The “if” is quite a a big “if”. You could provide thousands of mosquito nets at five pounds a time to save many children from death from Malaria. Far less cost than the cost of the ISA which would doubtfully save one child.

We are obsessed in this country by paedophilia and too little concerned with thinking objectively. This is the reason I like Lenore Skenazy’s Free Range Kids website.

There is going to be a massive cut in government spending.

I  think that we have to dismantle the whole idea that normal life is a threat to children’s safety. No! Forcing children away from normal life is the reason they cannot keep themselves safe, they suffer from health problems, emotional problems and failure to cope.

Things will get tougher, not easier – for a while, at least.

Over the years there have been a number of developments in law and in society which have devalued men /  fathers. The 1996 Family Law Act is routinely used to exclude men from the family home. The 2000 Case of Re L V M H is regularly misused, to exclude children from fathers. The Police and Social Services and maybe your “friends” will take the woman’s side.

As a man, you are seen as as a threat to women and children by virtue of the fact that you are a man.

To some extent, those of us who represent fathers have found CAFCASS to be helpful because at least CAFCASS objectively considered the objections of mothers and saw through those objections which were weak and balanced them with the benefits to children of having a relationship with both parents.

Now listen to this.

CAFCASS are taking up to a year to produce reports and with public spending due to be cut by 25% one would not expect this situation to improve. It is already getting worse and I predict that with the situation as it is CAFCASS will stop producing reports at all.

157 Courts are earmarked for closure around the country.

These things will not help you. Don’t moan about it though because we are wasting our time moaning. (Yes, there are some new proposals from the new coalition government which are encouraging but don’t be relying on that right now.)

Now, more than ever you need to understand the way Family Law works and as a father you need a Lawyer who will fight your case  and who understands the system.

I wrote a few days ago about the government’s proposed change to the law to give grandparents rights to see grandchildren. The reality is that it does no such thing – all it does is it removes the requirement to obtain the permission of the court before you can apply for court orders. As permission is always given to Grandparents any so-called “change” to the law is purely technical

Fathers rights organisations, the most high profile being Fathers4Justice, seek changes to the law which they see as making the law fairer.

One such proposed change is a “presumption of shared parenting”. I disagree. There already is such a presumption as the 1989 Children Act is pretty much gender neutral. A second proposed change is to make the “secret”  family courts more open to the media. I think this is reasonable in principal but who is going to report on anything other than the celebrity cases?

In considering “shared parenting”, who is this supposed to benefit? The most likely beneficiaries are those families who can choose to arrange their lifestyles that way. It will not benefit fathers whose work takes them away from home, nor their children.

Tweaking the law in these ways will not make any difference for just as long as women, and particularly- mothers, are indulged by a culture of entitlement and victimhood.

Allegations of violence, sexual abuse and deviant behaviour are routine in the family courts. By “routine” I mean they are made in most cases and they are made for tactical reasons. The most spurious allegations will be taken seriously and they take months or years to investigate.

Any advocate of fathers’, or grandparents’ rights needs to understand this – any tweaks in the law will be defeated until we understand the truth about domestic abuse and child abuse allegations. Your child’s mother only needs to make an allegation about you and your relationship with your child is stopped – shared parenting or not!

Here are a few observations – they are from personal observation but if anyone wants to comment, posting some statistics we could have a proper debate:

• Mothers kill their children more than fathers do.
• Mothers physically assault their children more than fathers do.
• Women are more abusive than men, mentally and physically.
• More women die at the hands of their partners than women do but it evens itself out if one takes into account women who get someone else to kill the male partner – if you take into account suicides there are more male than female fatalities from domestic abuse.
• Women who abuse men are incredibly unlikely to be arrested or convicted of any offence. Sentences for any such offences, including murder are likely to be harsher for men than for women.
• There is far more sympathy for female than male victims. I posted on here a few days ago in connection with the fact that in Scotland £3,500 was spent in supporting female victims of abuse for every £1 spent on supporting men.
• There is an entitlement / victimhood culture which is sold to women. “No blame”. “You are not responsible”. Even womens’ rights organisations who proclaim this know it is a lie and in private they will tell you this. This is why women keep going back to abusive men.

Why has this man had so many marriage proposals?

My challenge here is to fathers’ rights organisations to acknowledge the real issues and stop trying to tweak the law. If this gets one of you to stop disrupting the traffic and take off your Spiderman outfit – let me know.