This time last year, the government promised a new law to strip anyone who rapes any child of parental responsibility (PR). It sounded like common sense: if you rape a child, you shouldn't have legal control over any children—right?
But now? They've quietly watered it down.
Under the new version of this proposed law, a convicted paedophile can still keep PR unless:
- The paedo has seriously sexually abused their own child
- And was convicted
-
And was sentenced to 4+ years in prison as a result.
https://righttoequality.org/statement-on-victims-and-courts-bill/
Given that only ~1% of sexual assaults end in someone actually getting found guilty and sent to prison, only a tiny minority of cases would meet all three criteria.
But even if all those criteria are met, and the paedo has literally been convicted of raping their own child, under the new version of this proposed law, courts could still let the paedo keep PR anyway if they feel that it's "not in the interests of justice" to remove them: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3968 .
This matters because “parental responsibility” means a paedophile can legally abduct their child from any setting (school, the supermarket, outside their house ..etc) as a quick way of getting full custody and, unless the safe parent can fight it in family court, there’s nothing the police will do.
I just can’t get my head around why anyone would want paedos to have this much power over children. It’s still only a proposed law, and is currently in the early stages of consideration. What do all of you think about this?
YABU- Paedos should keep their rights over their kids, and be able to abduct them and have full custody if they feel like it
YANBU- Paedophiles shouldn’t have rights over children, these new alterations to the law change are nuts