Proposed home curfews/ travel bans for Mothers banning their ex's from seeing the children?

[WorraLiberty]

AIBU to think that the proposed amendments to the Children's Act is a bit strange when they're talking about 'Home Curfews' for Mothers who break court orders over contact?

How would this help?

I'm absolutely all for fairness and equal parenting but how will a Curfew help and I wonder how it would be Policed?

Link here

What are they going to do about all the men who can't be bothered to see or support their children financially?

Nothing.

When is it ever raised as a political issue?

Never.

Breaching a court order is an unlawful act. These are a range of possible sanctions for committing an unlawful act.

I'd imagine that the sanctions such as curfews and removal of passports are intended to be used in circumstances where there is a clear indication that the mother plans to take the child abroad, in contravention of an access order.

"I think they do need to come down hard on the arrogant resident parents who play God with contact and blackmail the NRP."

I agree

"I think they do need to come down hard on the arrogant resident parents who play God with contact and blackmail the NRP."

And what about the NRPs who use contact to blackmail and control the RP?

Having read the article I'm too angry to actually type anything. How dare they put all the blame on mothers. .

If abusive XP ever shows up and wants to see the children I will fight him tooth and nail to protect them and keep them away. The damage he would do would be heartbreaking.

Meglet does your XP have access granted by a court order?

No, he doesn't.

Having been on MN for a couple of years now, and seeing what ordinary women go through to get there ex's to actually give a shit, then yes I agree that this is a ridiculous policy.
I'm lucky, ds16 has had his dad in his life since we separated, and I wouldn't dream of stopping their relationship.
But I bet there are far more useless dads out there than mums stopping access.
The whole thing just makes me so angry.

Then this won't apply to you. It clearly states its to deal with parents who breach court orders granting access.

Why are people talking about abusive partners?!

It doesn't say anywhere it can be enforced willy-nilly against anyone wanting access!

I'll say it again - it's a sanction for breaching a court order!

*for anyone wanting access

If he tried to get a court order I would still have to stop him. My only hope is that he probably has no money for solicitors (whereas my family does) and the crime references would go against him. I know how bad he is .

But this legislation won't affect whether or not he would get access rights in the first place meglet (although from what you've said I hope you never have to deal with that :( )

"I think they do need to come down hard on the arrogant resident parents who play God with contact and blackmail the NRP."

Completely agree.

This is not anything about abusive nrp or nrp that dont give a damn. This is about court orders being broken by rp when the court has ordered contact.

I understand why these decisions have been made. To get a court order enforced is difficult in this situation where a nr parent denies access when an order is in place.

The options are a fine -which the court will not do as it effects the child/ren or prision which also a court will not do as it will effect the child/ren.

Well here is the consultation document in full:

www.education.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1825&external=no&menu=1

Section 7 deals with enforcement.

Courts will be no more keen to "come down hard" on RP's or NRP's who flout contact or maintenance orders than they are now - so my guess is nothing will change.

As I suspected, it's a big fanfare about not very much!

and I think feckless nrp are a bigger problem volume wise than spiteful withholding of contact - surely tackle the bigger problem 1st!

I'm not sure 'volume' make that the bigger problem for the children though.

If they tackled that first, it would be too late for the children to have a relationship with a parent who wants to see them, has been granted access by a court but the resident parent is stopping them.

They could be adults by the time the 'bigger problem' is solved.

Well there is a court order in place for my ex to see dd for 6 hours a week, he does not always turn up and as stated in the order I always ensure dd is available during that time. We also have it in the order that we may change contact if I have plans that interrupt it e.g a holiday that he can be offered the missed time but does not have to accept it. If he chooses not to turn up then that seems to be ok according to the law but if I say she is not going I could face this??it's insane, if there is a court order in place there should be the same sanctions for both parents regardless of who is the rp/nrp.

My separation/divorce was painful, as these things are.
But never in my dreams would I have separated my ds from his Dad.
How many women actually do this?
IMO the majority that refuse access have very good reasons, and the very tiny minority do it out of bitterness.
Instead of Parliamentary acts to protect the father's rights, how about one to protect the mother's rights.
Fuck it, I really should be joining the Feminist board on this subject.

Oh no I have to say that over the years I've known of Mums who may feel they stop contact for a 'very good reason' but a lot of the time it's just petty shite and jealousy.

IME the biggest reason had been that they've either met someone else themselves and want to 'erase' the past, or they simply don't like the new woman in their ex's life.

Out of those two 'reasons', other 'reasons' have cropped up that are often nothing other than petty too.

This is obviously not the case for everyone but over the 17yrs I've been a 'school Mum', I can tell you it crops up time and time again.

My ex SIL took my BILs 2.5yr old DD 110 miles away when she met a new man and only rang and told him two days before he was due to have his weekend contact.

Why aren't they putting travel bans on parents who pay nothing for their children?

Agreed.

splash This is not about csa, maintenence or how much the nrp pays the rp. it is about court orders being breached.

Well, what is actually being proposed doesn't sound too bad: sanctions are only going to come into place against people who repeatedly and unreasonable withold contact - it doesn't look like it will apply when contact has been stopped because of allegations of abuse, for instance, at least not until the allegations have been thoroughly looked into.

However, the tone of the whole business is 'Get those bitches back under control. they needn't think they can escape male ownership this easily.' When time and time again, the reason children of separated parents lose contact with their fathers is because their fathers are either dangerous to them or (more commonly) really can't be arse. These are the fathers who cancel contact at short notice because they want to go out on the piss instead, or simply don't turn up, time after time, so the kids have years of disappointments, the mother eventually gets sick of having to deal with the little crying faces when Daddy hasn't come to get them yet again and puts a stop to contact altogether.
Given that it's all supposed to be about the rights of the children, where are the sanctions against men who let their own kids down time after time out of sheer selfishness?

Why don't they do something about dead beat dads who cant be arsed to see their children or pay anything towards their upkeep?

I have never known a father fight and fight in court for access only to not show up once it has been granted but if that is the case then there should be laws against that too.

I can't see how this doesn't contradict the Human Rights Act.

Surely if they want to place people under house arrest, they should use criminal law and existing powers?

Theres all sorts of potential pitfalls when one of the other problems of abusive/potentially dangerous exs are granted access under such circumstances, and the other party is basically under house arrest. Utter madness.

Why target this problem with such draconian measures, and not say, a tendency to steal, or drive without insurance?