Parental Alienation

[fatoldandbroke]

There is currently an open petition to introduce a law that recognises Parental Alienation as a criminal offence, that seems to be gaining some momentum. 6500 signatures and the government has to respond at 10000 signatures. This form of abuse affects Mums, Dads, Step parents, Grandparents and wider family.
Rather depressingly, twice as many people have signed a petition asking for a law to protect brown hares!?!
Hopefully this link will work, but I am a computer biff so if it doesn't please could someone who knows what they are doing post it?
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/249833

I’m loving your username!
Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to meaningful discussion of PA and many other issues surrounding the arrangements for children following family separation is the lack of transparency in the system? There are no detailed statistics (I mean about family court outcomes). There are few published anonymised judgements (Sir James Munby thinks there should be more). The smoke and mirrors approach seems to be favoured by a number of interested parties (not least the legal profession).
Meanwhile the affected parties are reduced to conflict regarding anecdotal evidence, statistical interpretation by dubiously self interested organisations (As a Father, I include Fathers groups as at times dubious), political motivations that have more to do with votes than serious intervention on behalf of vulnerable children?!?
I do not doubt your point that there are false allegations of PA. There is no data to substantiate it though?
I do not doubt your point that abusive people may use the court system to further abusive behaviour. There is no data to substantiate it though?
Just as there are no meaningful, independent, reportable data to substantiate any argument on these issues.
Even from the MOJ’s own response we can see that PA is a live, acknowledged issue. Pretending it isn’t because a bloke down the pub told you a story that would make your toes curl is naivety!

I would suggest that if any parent has to go to court to see their own children.......alienation has already begun, in some form. Any other view is wilful denial.

I would suggest that if any parent has to go to court to see their own children.......alienation has already begun, in some form

You haven’t got a clue, have you? Not one clue.

@fatoldandbroke there are so many legitimate reasons for why the RP might stop contact and only one of them is due to parental alienation.
Are you really suggesting that children who are being neglected or abused by the NRP should be forced to continue to see that parent otherwise it’s parental alienation?

What about a NRP who wanted nothing to do with their child for years comes back in the scene and wants his rights. It’s not parental alienation to not just hand that over.

Why don’t you tell us your story? It’s clear that you have an agenda.

You don't have to be a resident parent who has stopped contact to have your ex take you to court.

Mental and physical abuse is the key factors, and a child should be protected from parents or anyone else that causes harm.

That said they are still to many parents that think it is acceptable to cut of contact with a parent, the worse is when they say a child doesn't want to go because the other parents doesn't parent like them. Parents that say the support contact but with conditions.
Very rarely do children grow up and never talk to the other parent again, or never want to have a relationship. Also there is an increase in adults have strong feels against their mothers. Mother issues seem to becoming higher than the issues with fathers and are all based around mothers need for control and dictation.

I would suggest that if any parent has to go to court to see their own children.......alienation has already begun, in some form. Any other view is wilful denial.

Where the NRP is abusive, and many of them are, they are perpetrating the alienation themselves. However, as is usual with narcissists, they will always blame the RP for the child's reluctance to see them. Unfortunately, the family court usually decided that children who don't want contact must be forced to go.

As a society, we support women to walk away from their abusers, but children are routinely forced by courts to return repeatedly to abusive situations. RPs are powerless to prevent it as soon as the courts are involved.

That is bad enough. To then criminalise RPs who are simply trying to protect their vulnerable offspring would be appalling and would compound the abuse of the children.

Even when the NRP is convicted of serious abuse of the RP, the default position of the court is already that there is no proof the NRP would perpetrate the same abuse on the children, therefore contact must go ahead. The courts are already horrifically biased in favour of forcing children to have unsupervised contact with abusers. To empower those abusers further would be a dreadful idea.

I see this as child abuse if a parent does this - it’s neglectful of the child’s emotions

And it’s damaging to children , beyond words

I would suggest that if any parent has to go to court to see their own children.......alienation has already begun, in some form
Do you believe this in the case of a nrp who has been arrested drunk driving with the children at the back of the car but doesn't accept they have a problem?

As a general rule, if you can't define a crime tightly enough that people can be sure in advance that they will not be not breaking the law by behaving in a certain way, I don't think it should be on the books.

I understand it's not possible to pin down every single circumstance but if the petition doesn't even contain a working definition of 'Parental Alienation' with some sort of parameters then essentially everyone signing is in their own mind asking for something different.

It seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment to try to (and in some cases actually manage to!) criminalise vague things with the idea that someone will decide after the event whether behaviour was criminal or not, but won't be able to advise you in advance whether a proposed course of action is or is not criminal.

That's bad law in my opinion.