Childrens rights v the rights of the (criminal) father. Disgusted..yes, Horrified..absolutely, surprised..Sadly, no.

[littlemisssarcastic]

Unless this article is completely fabricated?

This is just one example imo of how children are not always protected in our society, and that sometimes, the 'human rights' of abusive parents do come before the rights of the children.

Here

over my dead body would i allow unsupervised contact...what a bloody joke

SGB would you say hand on heart that if you were raped tonight that you would 100% expect justice? That you would be listened to and 100% taken seriously and that a fair trial would take place where the rapist would eventually go to jail to serve time fitting the crime?

Honest to god, do you? Because most women don't. And for that same reason I don't think child abusers do either. I see nothingwrong with saying all rapist of X kind of rape go to jail for Y amount of time. And all pedophiles lose access to all children and internet, and will be immidiatly brought back to jail if they are in violation of the court order.

Get a grip SGB Us 'dimwits' have been affected way before a newspaper article. Years before.

You should be disgusted with yourself frankly I do not even see why you are posting on this thread.

southern I understand where you're coming from but the point of this case is that there shouldn't be a blanket policy. That's right. Every case has always, and will always be dealt with on it's own merits. A seventeen year old with a a Sched 1 offence against him shouldn't be treated the same as a predatory pedophile when it comes to considering access to his kids, should he??

I am not English (or a lawyer) so I can't comment on what a sched 1 is. BUt if you mean some one who has had sex whilst underage with another underage person. Fair enough but what my comment was is that someone who commits X kind of rape or X kind of child abuse where there is a victim involved (such as in molestation or viewing child porn) a blanket ban could be put in place couldn't it?

BTW I am fucked off at SGB's comments not yours though I disagree with them. I think saying to a group of about 6 people on this thread you bunch of dimwits when two have admitted to having to protect their children from abusers was callous and fucking nasty.

Here's the relevant link again. Read it and inform yourselves of the facts before screaming and panicking. Yes, there are flaws in the justice systems and sometimes judges make bad decisions but the DM article is unnecessary scaremongering and basically loaded with the usual anti-human-rights-legislation guff.

WE HAVE ALREADY EXPERIENCED INJUSTICES

AFAIC the DM article is just the tip of the iceberg. By focusing on whether it was scaremongering or not is detracting from the fact that family courts do not put the interests of the child at the forefront of their minds when dealing with children wrt their safety or their welfare.

The fact is that many parents feel they cannot trust family courts to do what is best for their children and the new developments, regardless of where they are reported, (and a few links have been given, yes) further illustrates that giving individual judges the right to decide which paedophiles child abusers should and which should not be given unsupervised access where there was once a blanket rule in place is foolish, simply due to the human error that can and will take place.

glitterkitten 'Have any of you posters with Orders that you believe are so damaging considered taking the matter to court to vary it?'

Personally, I have taken my XP to court twice to vary the order. He asked for particular contact in both court appearances, and was granted this both times, yet he still neglects to adhere to the court order. Basically he cannot be arsed. imo, this is detrimental to my child's wellbeing and emotional growth and development. He is neglecting her needs to have both parents in her life. He also does not financially support his child whatsoever, again...neglect imo. I would not be seen to be a responsible parent if I ignored my child's most basic needs, so why is he deemed fit and responsible even though he has repeatedly breached the order.

Apart from all that, since we went to court, I have discovered that XP has got a police record for alleged child sex offences. Out of the 3 seperate allegations made against him, none were deemed to have enough evidence to take to the CPS, therefore he is seen in the eyes of the law to be innocent.

The family court will not reduce contact, even though he has not adhered to it, and I have been told he can walk back into my child's life when he is ready and whisk her away to god knows where for the weekend, because that is the terms set out in the court order.
OTOH, the family court will not take into account his alleged offences, because they didn't get as far as the CPS. Therefore, I feel my daughter has been failed by the courts. AFAIC either the court make an order if they deem him not to be a risk to my child and make him adhere to it or they should cut contact, not just allow him to dip in and out of her life as and when he sees fit!!!

If a parent does not consider the childs needs above their own needs where possible, why do the courts give them more and more opportunities to let the child down again and again if they are looking out for the child's best interests? It doesn't make sense.

How is it looking out for my child's interests to be neglected by her father, or to allow him to have access when he has had 3 allegations of abuse made against him by children?

I want the courts to do more than just stamp bits of paper that are quite frankly not worth the paper they are stamped upon, simply because there are no consequences if the order is breached??

There are cases far more horrific than mine here on this thread alone, but every child deserves the best treatment they can get imo, and that's not very good atm, but the family court could go a lot further towards putting the children first if they gave punitive measures to NRP's who neglect their children in any of the ways I have explained surely???
At the moment, no such punitive measures exist which adequately punish neglect when the neglect arises from refusing to adhere to contact orders or financially support their children, and until they do, family court in my case is a complete waste of time and public resources.

I cannot think of a single other responsibility that a person takes on which results in no punitive consequences should that person fail to live up to that responsibility, not one.
It's little wonder that some NRP's, as well as some RP's think they can do what they want when they are never punished for failing to adhere to a judge's order.

"simply because there are no consequences if the order is breached??"

Except their are consquences- for the RP- prison! Zero for the NRP

Anyone any ideas on how this is fair?

I'm glad that babybarrister and others have given the reasonable explanation of what was behind the DM article. I'd be annoyed if I'd done it and found it was a complete waste of time.

Oh yes- because it so reasonable to allow a child near a peadophile becauase they are the "wrong" gender.

I think the post simply highlighted just even more how vile family law is.

littlemisssarcastic I have worked as an expert witness in Family Courts in alleged sexual abuse cases and can absolutely guarantee that the family courts will consider alleged offences, even if evidence is not strong enough to bring criminal charges. Could you pursue this further? Sorry if you already have, just, as I said, I have seen these taken into account (and taken very seriously) numerous times.

Furthermore, are you aware that the burden of proof in the civil courts is a damn sight lower than that applied in criminal courts. As such, if an appeared abuser is found not guilty in criminal courts, the allegations can and usually will be tested in the civil courts when looking at issues of contact and the alleged abuser could be found to have done what was alledged. The matter will then be considered in the light of those findings, which despite not being proved in criminal courts, will be deemed proved in civil courts.

shelfy74 My sol told me that police records which detail the allegations will not be submitted to the family court if the objective is to reduce or completely stop contact. Sol also told me that because XP has already been granted unsupervised access, it is extremely unlikely to be changed to supervised, especially since XP has said loud and clear that he will not see DD at all if contact is made supervised, and even if it were granted, supervised access is apparently only ever a short term solution apart from in severe cases of abuse towards the DC, ie: paedophiles.

It never even got to criminal court AFAIK, because the CPS refused to take it that far.

babybarrister I am suggesting that failing to adhere to a court order should have consequences, which presently it doesn't for NRP's who don't adhere to contact, or RP's who deny contact for no good reason.
I wonder how many other court orders in the land are so regularly flouted and carry no consequences in reality whatsoever if they are not adhered to??

I think your solicitor is wrong littlemiss. If you believe that the allegations made, if true, indicate that your ex presents a risk to the dc you are perfectly entitled to ask the court to look at contact arrangements again in light of this. As pp has said (sorry on phone and can't scroll back), the burden of proof in a family court is much lower. In a criminal court things need to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, in family court proof is on a balance of probabilities. You could contact the social services children and families team in the area contact between your ex and dcs takes place to highlight your child protection concerns as a first step. Or seek advice from another solicitor? You must be frantic if you think ex will harm your dcs at contact sessions. Are the allegations sexual?

Also, if allegations are sexual and ex is saying he'd rather have no contact than supervised this may ring warning bells. Social services don't like to fund long term supervised access however access supervised by a third party everyone trusts (an aunt, grandparent, etc) as a long term arrangement often stands. Furthermore, it is nonsense that police records cannot be submitted to court, they frequently are, I have read many of them in my work. And your aim would of course be to stop contact if you felt there was a risk, you would be failing to protect your dcs if it wasn't so I fail to see your solicitors pov there tbh. Are you generally happy with your solicitor? Do they have much experience in this area? I've come across a fair few hopeless ones...

shelfy My solicitor was not that great tbh, but my case has now been costed and closed, so perhaps I will find another solicitor. My XP has disappeared for the time being and shows no sign of reappearing anytime soon.

I have had social services involved virtually constantly since DD was 6 months old (she's now 3) because of various allegations from XP towards me and my parenting, of which every single one has been found to be unsubstantiated.
SS are well aware of the allegations against XP, (not made by me btw) which are of a sexual nature, that XP has on police record, yet they still encourage XP to have unsupervised access to DD.
In fact, on one contact session, when XP bothered to collect DD as per court order, he took DD to A&E with his girlfriend the following day alleging DD had been sexually abused, although again, this was unsubstantiated too, although DD did have redness in that area. He admitted that DD had been with him for the last 26 hours, and although I explained to SW's that the last time I saw DD, she was absolutely fine, and SW's did let me take DD home from the hospital which pissed XP off no end the investigation that followed on from this latest allegation only involved me being investigated, because XP then disappeared again, and when SS tried to contact him, he told them to fuck off and leave him alone. That was after weeks of him ignoring all of their phone calls.

I asked SS at the time how could they be sure that if DD was abused, that XP wasn't the perpetrator, since he has previous allegations against him, but their response was that since it was XP who took DD to the hospital, he would hardly do that if he was the abuser.

No one has any idea where XP lives, although he is now living with another new girlfriend, and since SS can't contact him, they have now finished the investigation and have not spoken to, or seen XP or where he lives, even once since the last allegation about the sexual abuse of DD was made (by him.)

After all of this, and many other allegations, the contact order still stands, although XP has not seen DD for 18 weeks now. There is nothing to stop him from picking her up on his contact day and whisking her away.

On another note, after various different allegations had been made against me, I asked my sol to write to XP (we knew where he was then) to tell him not to harrass me any further, but alas, allegations reported to SS cannot be seen as harrassment, no matter how many of them there are, and SS have a duty to investigate every single one.
There was a time when SS were a weekly feature in DD's and my life, but luckily, since XP disappeared again, there have been no further allegations and SW's are now turning up every so often rather than weekly.

It's been a living nightmare for us, where XP still has all the rights wrt DD, and I have all the assessments, and meetings to prove myself over and over.
Of course, DD lives with me, so I get the crap XP causes, and he gets to run away whenever he feels like it and of course to return whenever he feels like it too.

The guy in the article had been convicted for posessing images of child pornography.he hasn't abused any children, let alone his own child.

Posters have reacted to what they think this means without reading it.

The men that challenged the law didn't want access that was blocked by their ex's. One did it because his wife wants to come and live with him and bring her DC's (Thai national), but this would concern me.

One did it because his brother wants him to be able to visit his house.

The other because, quite rightly it was wrong to ban him from using the internet, but he will have to sign up to have his computer checked without notice regulary and he has to show that he hasn't even tried to deleat anything. This was argued for because other forms of media or possessing printed material are not banned.

This has not been decided by the family courts, this has come from the criminal courts when setting conditions of release/bail etc.

It will then be upto SS to police any requested contact with families and for the family court to decide how contact happens. It isn't the done deal some posters think that it is.

Birdsgottafly

Sorry but disagree on all your points

1st this man should not be living with any children at all end of and I think their are lots of reasons to why he might of chosen a thi bride one of which she might not fully understand what this guy is about.

Living with a child means frends over, school runs, baby sitting so basically lots of contact with children of whom he takes sexual plesure in yuk

2nd I am sure his little brother wants him to visit and the pedophile should have thought about that before he downloaded pictures of children in sexual positions and in sexual acts

3rd it is not wrong to bam him from the net as top be fair you would have to go to some lengths to get child porn from any other type of media and would leave potential witness.

I am glad you have faith in ss to monitor these people but i am a foster carer I don't have the same faith sw have very little time, and
To be fair can only go on what pedophile says

And that fact the courts think that its ok for someone who is sexually aroused by children to live with a child is bizarre

Banned from seeing his own children because of this fact and the risk he simply by passes this by finding a new women with a child who may or may not be aware of his conviction

Birds would you let this guy live with you and your Childs?

The guy in the article had been convicted for posessing images of child pornography.he hasn't abused any children, let alone his own child

Come on Spider, it's well known that child pornography can be a 'gateway' to abuse and someone was abusing a child, weren't they, or there wouldn't be any pictures

Thanks to those of you who posted links to the judgement to save me from reading the daily hate mail.

The judgement I read did not give abusers the right to see their children unsupervised. It merely stated that the criminal court should leave the opportunity for the family court to give carefully considered supervised access.

Why

People who abuse children sexually should have no contact with children end of why should we leave it up to family court we know how they are at protecting children

The whole thing is a farce what so these degenerates can plead human rights in the family courts

The right to protect children should be paramount their is no reason why someone who has a sexual attraction to children should be near any child let lone unsupervised

And to those who thinks well they were only looking answer me this would you be happy for these people to teach in your Childs school or babysit your children