C C Smale Family Lawyer

Since I posted this a few days ago I have seen a commentary here.

Judges, in my experience, have refused to allow mention of the words “Parental Alienation Syndrome” in their courts. I expect this is a thing of the past following this case. They will not be able to deny it any more.

The commentary is worth analysing as it demonstrates what non-custodial parents are up against and the control that custodial parents have.

“As a result of the failure to secure a normal relationship with the father and the high level of parental conflict (the child) had suffered emotional harm.”

The child, now twelve, refused to speak to the father and put his hands over his ears during contact with the father. He says he may consider seeing his father after his GCSEs.

Let’s apportion blame where it is due – seeing as the court found that the father was blameless. Call this child emotionally distressed if you want, which is what he undoubtedly is. More significantly, this is one spoilt child and one mother who has caused serious long term problems yet untold. Credit to the father; I find it extraordinary that he didn’t walk away a long time ago; another “dead beat dad”!

Worth a listen.

“But your temper’s just as bad as mine is cos you’re the same as me.”

Not simply an issue of male perpetrators and female victims.

As I have indicated time after time, I do not buy into the often-held perception of domestic violence as pictured only by “wife beating”. The view  of men as the sole, or even the main, perpetrators of violence against women and children is questionable.

I can hardly figure out the weirdness of this report. Two people are the victims of a stabbing and are both in critical condition; a 12 year old girl and her mother aged “between 30 and 40″. The Police are “not looking for anyone else in connection with the stabbings”.

I expect a man will be to blame. If so it will be the only way this incident is included in the domestic violence statistics.

I was prompted to write this by this story in the news. Particularly as it is local to us in North Manchester.

Women kill men only about one third as much as men kill women in domestic violence situations. (If you count the number of suicides by men in abusive relationships and the number of men killed by their former partners’ new boyfriends, more men die than women as a result of domestic violence.)

You need to read the details but in brief, Samantha Brown and her boyfriend, Dean Darvil went to the home of Samatha’s sister Toni along with another woman. When Dean accused Samantha of having sex with the other woman Samantha stabbed Dean in the Groin and he bled to death over the next few hours. His life would have been saved but Samantha refused to let Toni call for an ambulance.

It is interesting that Samantha (age 20!) was sentenced to 5 years in a Young Offenders Institution. Toni got 4 years in prison.

Yes, that’s right – 5 years in a young offenders institution and 4 years in prison for the 20 and 25 year old respectively!

Men’s lives are more disposable than those of women. They die from violent incidents at vastly greater rates than women do, although violence against women incites more outrage. (In particular, as parents, men are treated of lesser importance than women.)

If men complain they are told “don’t be a baby” and to “be a man”. Men are considered to be “domineering” or “scary” if they confront a woman about her spending habits or sexual promiscuity. If they just take abuse it is because they “can’t get laid” elsewhere.

I suspect that unless some of us speak out about it women will murder men with increasing impunity in future.

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 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.

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.

I am sceptical about the ever expanding definition of “domestic violence”. Here is Women’s Aid’s definition.

Oddly enough, “sulking” is included in the definition of violence according to Women’s Aid. “Lying to you” is also included in the definition, as is “witholding information from you”.

It becomes increasingly weird. “Having other relationships” is included in the definition of domestic violence.

It seems to me that the whole point depends on the context. Anyone who engages in another relationship cannot, as far as I can see it, complain if their partner checks up on them but then “checking up on you” is included in the definition of domestic violence, according to Women’s Aid.

I was in one of my local courts with a male client recently. He was accompanied by his sister. The sister pointed out to me that she was bewildered by the posters everywhere portraying only women as victims of abuse.

My client and his sister both have a fair idea, before he goes into court, of what he will be up against.

(This is based on a comment earlier today here. )