Louis de Bernieres is an excellent novelist whose novels I adore, but he's a sexist, manipulative idiot who spouts a lot of nonsense. I really think FnF should ditch him as their patron.
I have a female friend who had a lot of help from FnF when she became the NRP after 13 years of being the RP herself. There is a place for FnF and it would do their cause a lot of good if they could lose the public image association they have with groups like F4J. Having LdeB as patron isn't helping that happen. Instead it's reinforcing it.
I am firmly in the camp of believing that the fathers being denied contact issue is far less pressing an issue than NRPs failing to pay maintenance (which isn't to say that I don't believe it happens). Despite the compliance figures mentioned below, my own trawl through CSA/CMEC figures show that 46% of those complying with maintenance orders are paying the £5 or £0 rate. The average figure of £440 is grossly inflated because of some mega high payers, just as the national average salary is. Those who have come to private arrangements will still be included in the figures if the RP is in receipt of tax credits, since you still have to mention this income even though it is not taken into account precisely because the government want figures on it. Sure, some RPs may not mention it, but there's no point in lying since it doesn't affect anything.
My point is that if we're going to prioritise family law in terms of what is going to have the most beneficial impact on the greatest number of children, then maintenance should be a higher priority than father's rights. And since this is being presented very much as father's rights (as opposed to the current child's right to a relationship with both parents) then why is there no mention of mother's rights? Where is the mother's right not to live in enforced poverty because the father won't pay maintenance (or the child's right to the same for that matter)?
Coming back to DV. Home office stats (and I know this because I just had a training session on it) are that 1 in 4 women experience it as opposed to 1 in 6 men. This includes same sex relationships BTW and it seems that DV in homosexual relationships is sadly quite high. Anyway, DV rates compared by gender is not roughly equal. Also, within single parent families, DV is much more prevalent (applying to about 1 in 3 in comparison to the wider population figure of 1 in 4).
I also hold no truck whatsoever with the argument that a bad partner can be a good father when it comes to abuse. DV is a factor in 75% of child abuse cases. There is an increased risk to a child who has a partner-abuser as a parent. Quite often, this risk increases, instead of decreases, as the child gets older and challenges the parent more. IMO any instance of abuse should result in mandatory supervised contact and in severe cases contact should be lost altogether.
More recent research shows that NRPs who are unreliable and sporadic when it comes to contact cause as many psychological problems as no contact whatsoever. Therefore I'd like to see contact automatically stopped if there is an obvious pattern of this. I've seen far too many resident parents (of both sexes) dealing with distraught children who have been let down yet again - often on the day - and think it's because they're not loveable enough or important enough to the NRP.
I'd also like to see greater credence put on the standard of contact. The point of contact is for the child to continue a relationship with the NRP. This does not happen when the NRP turns up with a hangover, palms of the child on GPs, friends or even a new partner, takes the child to the pub, plonks them in front of the TV or XBox. If your child matters that much to you then on the days where you are granted exclusive contact to spend time with your child then do something that matters. I'm not condoning it because bad parenting is not the same as abusive parenting, but I've seen this used as a reason why some mothers withhold contact. They are concerned about the standard of care their child receives. That's not spite, that's protectiveness, albeit possibly misguided. A lot could be done by the system (and the NRP) to alleviate those worries and so improve the likelihood of contact continuing on an amicable basis. There are RPs out there too who neglect their children and NRPs who desperately worry about this and want to see it changed. I think family law should take a lot more account of differing standards of parenting and encouraging parents to come to an agreement about standards that are acceptable to both parties. It would save a lot of aggro later on and also send a clear message about what sort of behaviour is unacceptable.
The trouble is that family law and the family courts need a dramatic shake up. THey fail a lot of people. And because they do it in such spectacular fashion, it tends to set those at either end of the debate (i.e. RPs who have useless NRPs, and NRPs who have spiteful RPs blocking contact) against each other, when in actual fact they are both bearing the brunt of a system that doesn't work while the feckless NRPs and the spiteful RPs are getting away with it and playing the system for all it's worth.
It's very very sad. 