new rules for courts

[misi]

for all single parents with dodgy ex's out there, new rules from within the child and adoption act 2006 have been published with more to come soon,

www.justice.gov.uk/news/announcement301008b.htm

some interesting new rules a court could apply if the judge is having a good day

Forgive me for being cynical, but aren't these aimed at bashing single mothers because the courts have fallen for the FFJ propaganda?

I'd like to see the day when courts penalised fathers who don't bother to turn up but suspect I'd be waiting an awful long time.

so what it's now saying is that if my violant ex gets access and i refuse to attend one week because he has been abusive/the kids are ill/supervisor isn't available etc i can not only get hauled in front of the court but also be made to PAY HIM!

HRHSaintMamazon I would hope and expect a degree of common sense here although family court judges and common sense cannot be seriously used together in the same sentence normally!!
If there is any thought of abuse to the kids, then the usual rules would apply and I would expect the parent alleging the abuse to be able to prove it (unlike my ex who wheels out the abuse angle every time I disagree with her and has never been able to prove anything and even her own friends say she is living in make believe land) and therefore, contact would be suspended and dealt with under different rules within legislation. these rules though are aimed at cases alrwady gone through court and contact orders in place after the judge has deliberated on all the things put before them by the mum and dad. if one parent becomes abusive after this process then the case would need to go back to court anyway whether these rules applied or not.

edam, as a father myself, obviously I would like to see the rules applied to mums where it is needed to be applied, but from what I have been involved in, a lot of these proposals were generated from harriet harman, anna coot and patricia hewitt, and are primarily aimed at making fathers be involved with children or making them pay fines (to the government as well as the other parent) for not doing so. BUT, I am not into the politics of it, if these rules are applied where neccessary to either mums or dads then the really important ones in this, the children, will benefit.
I can assure you though, no court has fallen for F4J propaganda as most judges will look badly at dads who mention them etc. I, as a member of Families need fathers, an equal parentinmg group with many mums and grand mothers as members as well as fathers, was told by my old legal team not to mention FnF or that I was a member as it may go against me even though FnF and some of its senior board members and trustees are on the DCA reform board and involved in policy making and FnF being a government funded charity and is an approved body yet most in the legal proffession cannot understand or see the difference (or can be bothered to see is more like it). more judges are it seems applying the childrens act 1989 in the way it was supposed to be applied (the CA 1989 was made long before F4J came about) and many top judges are now back tracking on their own rulings as they are realising that thier biased orders are infringing section 8 human rights laws. One top family judge welcomed the chance recently to clarify a ruling he made many years ago that had been misused as precedent in other cases ever since. if this rule change allows or encourages courts to see parents as equal and the children not ''belonging'' to just one parent then the children involved will be the winners out of this, far too many parents use their kids or see them as thiers for them to dish out contact to the other as they see fit (and with that statement I am not just aiming at mums as I know a couple of resident dads who do the same thing).
I can only see these rules being applied haphazardly though, with out of touch judges still muddling along in their own little world oblivious to the messes and consequences they are ordering and therefore still allowing children to suffer.

Have just found this, am wondering how this actually works as we have a contact order with my ex husband who agreed to the conditions of the order. It states that he is to have the children for half of each holiday but, has in this last year, not turned up for the October holiday, had them for the summer holiday for 3 weeks, in the May half term had my DS, who is my son and not his for the whole holiday even though I had a email from his solicitor saying he would be returned to me half way through the holiday, the other 3 could stay for longer down to the fact they had a 2 week half term. At Easter we could not come to an agreement on dates so we refused to take them to drop off. We are constantly being accused of child abuse, he threatens us with violence if we do not agree to dates. So that's just part of it all, there are other conditions that he doesn't keep to such as having seperate beds for the children and giving us 7 days notice of the fact he is coming for the children, he's also supposed to call the children every week, but in the last 8 weeks he's called them twice. We just haven't got a clue what else to do. My question is does this new regulation apply to us? Sorry about going on by the way!