Really? we think that "that organisation" are representative of fathers in general? really?

LineRunner, are those penalties for non-paying NRPs, or contact-withholding RPs? Thought the two issues are supposed to be separate, why does the CSA website mention it?

Not doubting your experience at all, btw.

Only caught end of this thread but I was advised by solicitor to let ds see df as if it went to court it would not look good as I withholding contact as the df only tuned up twice a year. It wasn't fair on ds as ds needed consistency and df would often not turn up and I was left with 2-3 days of meltdowns:(

So I allowed the contact as df promised to see ds....df stopped after 3 regular contacts ds age 5yrs saying didn't want to see ds for foreseeable future. I later dicover I let my ds into the hands of an evil monster who was physically violent to a defenceless non verbal autistic child, whom must have been terrified and unable to tell his mummy for 3 years who finally had enough language to say last year 'mummy why did you make me go their?'
I will never get over it my heart is torn to shreds and the evil bastard got away with it as SS/CPU thought I was a vengeful ex after payback:(

I pray to God that Kama paybacks this evil man in the next life as allowed to walk free from the sins on his hands. The system is so screwed up it is appalling.

The CSA web site amongst others talks about orders, injunctions, contempt of court proceedings and the risk of imprisonment in extreme cases. Figures will be collected centrally by government agencies but I do not believe they are in currently in the public domain. I do know that the literature I was sent about my ExH's pursuit of the world's most pointless contact order did mention threat of imprisonment. Of couse it could never have happened - he couldn't look after the DCs more than two days a month (his words) let alone full-time so it was either 'good old me' doing all the parenting or the DCs going into care.

Aha! It's only a proposal, that'll be why you can't give stats. (Sorry it's a Mail link.)

You said, "women certainly need to stop being criminalised". This suggests that women are currently "criminalised" ie dealt with via the criminal justice system. There should, therefore, be public records, and statistics available. Since you made the statement, you need to back it up. Where can I find the number of women fined or jailed in the UK for withholding contact?

the simple fact is if someone took my child and buggered me around over seeing him there is no way on earth that situation would be unresolved a year later - regardless of game play, small gestures of short lived improvement etc. i would have been in court within a month, whatever it took.

the trouble with leaving it and leaving it is that you appear not that bothered.

evidence of?

i talked about criminalisation and fear of prosecution/prison/fines - never made any claims about numbers.

You really haven't read anything I posted, have you? And you're still not answering my questions, any of them.

Oh well.

Btw, I've been googling for women jailed for withholding contact, and can't find even the one I thought I'd read of. Where is your evidence, please?

and your description of him raging and you worrying he'd commit suicide didn't give me much confidence of his parenting either i'm afraid.

tbh i'm trying to avoid saying what i really think because you kicked off last time i did.

but frankly i don't see how waiting a year without getting to court and not wanting to go to court because you won't like the outcome of being made to organise regular contact times because you want it on your terms fitting around your changing shift patterns is anything to do with a system failing you or you being hard done by or any innate sexism in a legal system you haven't even used.

i know you won't like that opinion so i have avoided giving it.

I have heard of one woman jailed, but she was witholding with no good reason afaik. (And I do understand there may have been unreported DV, I used to work with WA)

Xpost with sunshine, will read you now.

I have noticed you never answer my questions. I wonder why.

However, to answer yours, I have no idea and it is probably unanswerable. There should, however, be stats on women fined and jailed via our (public) criminal courts. You raised the idea, can you back it up?

I think it's only 1 or 2 OLKN who have been sent to prison (don't know about fines), but the point is you can still be held in contempt of court (which does happen even though it might not result in a fine) and therefore subject to a criminal record, whereas repeatedly breaking contact orders if you are a NRP has no such equivalent.

And it doesn't matter how many times you've been abused, if you can't prove it with a police record or medical notes, you are considered to be making it up out of malice. Never mind the fact that 9 out of 10 don't report it and those who do may be subject to more than 35 assaults before they report.

But I'd wholeheartedly agree that the courts need an overhaul. Reports are written about parents without proper meetings with the parents, attention to background evidence from GPs, SWs etc. And the whole thing moves at a snail's pace.

I'd like to see no blanket rules/precedents whatsoever and have each and every case judges on its own individual merits.

how many have complied and handed over their children for contact through fear of being jailed or having their children taken off of them and the father given full custody? it doesn't take many convictions to make people toe the line.

How many women have been fined and jailed for witholding contact from an abuser?

i never said it didn't - though i agree it needs to stay with children's interests at the centre.

i definitely think there is room for improvement - currently domestic abusers and all sorts are given access because everyone is falling over themselves not to offend the father's rights brigade. that needs to stop and women certainly need to stop being criminalised for not sending their child to a child abuser for unsupervised contact.

So you do agree that the system needs an overhaul?

i also think that where a father has done nothing for his child or has been long absent in his child's life a mother should have the right to undergo a gradual testing of their competence and earning of her, and her child/rens trust. re: supervised contact which if done well and kept committed to leads to half days which if well executed and committed to leads to an overnight etc etc.

currently he goes to court and the court says yep he can have every other weekend and an overnight and she's expected to just hand over her child that weekend to a man it hasn't seen for years or who has never done a thing for the child. that must be terrifying.

then there's little things like knowing your ex is living in a shared house with drug dealers and crack all over the place - can understand not wanting to send your child there.

or knowing that your ex gets pissed and drives the car with the kids in.

or your child balling their eyes out and begging you not to send them to daddy's house because they don't want to go and have good reasons for not wanting to.

there are so many things!

it's not just dv (and that's frequent enough in failed relationships).

Christ, if my X was a halfway decent parent, I'd be more than happy to share the DC 50/50. I'd practically kill for some more time off.

I wouldn't care if he fed them McDonald's twice a week, let them stay up too late or play computer games for too long (well I would, but that wouldn't stop me letting them go there). I might just have a slight problem with the fact that he's an abuser though.

Bearing in mind that something like 1/3 of single parents have experienced DV and that only about 1 in 10 victims of DV report it to the police, I'd say the figure of parents denying access for good reasons is much higher than 20% Xenia and that's just for abuse - let alone other good reasons for denying access that have nothing to do with abuse.

Then we have the low level alcohol/substance abusers. Maybe not enough for a full-scale breakdown of their life or to attract agency involvement, but enough for a mother to be legitimately concerned that the child may come to harm.

Then, we have relationship where the mother has done all the childcare (e.g. bathing, dressing, feeding, HCP appointment, school requirements/level/communication, etc) she may have genuine concerns that the father won't know what to do. This doesn't mean the father should be denied the opportunity to learn nor that he's incapable of handling this perfectly well, but if he couldn't do all these things when the parents were together, why would the mother have any faith that he'll take it any more seriously now they are apart?

I do think that some mothers deny access unfairly but with good intentions - i.e. they believe that they are acting in the best interests of the child even though they might not be. For example, if a couple split because the father hasn't changed his lifestyle to accommodate for having a child.

Examples of this might be still going out with the lads every friday night and so missing half the weekend with his child because he's hungover. Or spending his leisure time playing on the computer/playing golf to the detriment of interacting with his child. Or when mum goes out and it's his turn to look after the child, ropes in his own mother's help rather than be solely responsible. I can totally understand why a mother would deny contact under these circumstances. If the behaviour is enough for the woman to refuse to tolerate (thus ending the relationship) why would she consider her child has to tolerate more? I'm not saying she's right BTW, but I understand it, and quite frankly if the irresponsible behaviour of the father is the cause of this, I'd say the onus should be on him to explain why that won't apply to his post-separation parenting. Mediation can help a lot with this of course.

above what.s fair to them
wretched phone

i can only imagine how miserable my son would be being shipped back and forth between two homes every few days. let alone if he was expected to do that based around his father's shift patterns rather than what worked for the child and their life.

most people who have been through arrangements like that as a child do not speak well of it.

it has to be about the children imo.

where do you get your figures from xenia?
50 50 is only "fair" if you think of children as possessions to be shared, not people. it is really tough, but fairness to adults have no place in decisions about children. many of the problems about contact etc are because adults can't cope with putting their child's welfare about what's fair to them. time for us all to grow up.

i think that given most people have at least some part of them that is selfish and wants an easy life and given how hard it is to have children 24/7 52 weeks a year and how wonderful it is to have some regular time off very few women would forgo that without good reason.