Let me introduce a note of optimism and of encouragement for fathers who are fighting the present anti-father legal system. We will very soon indeed be able to see fathers allowed to challenge the reports written about them by CAFCASS family court officials; reports which, in the past, have been rubber-stamped by unthinking judges falsely claiming to be acting “in the best interests of the child”.

But there are other signs that our society might be saved in the near future. Numerous female students are now writing theses on domestic abuse against men, and in the Sun newspaper yesterday I read a very fair assessment of the father’s situation in an article by Jane Moore.

On 10th June, Shannon Kyle wrote an article “Justice4everyone” in the Guardian. I quote parts of it below. The emphasis is my own.

“One of the hardest things about being a single parent is allowing your
child to disappear on an access visit. And for me that’s exactly what
my precious daughter, aged two at the time, did.

Dreads, my ex, quickly moved on with a new girlfriend, about whom I
was allowed to know precisely nothing. I didn’t know her name, where
she lived or who she was.

And every other Saturday night, my daughter would disappear to this
stranger’s house. I went to bed at night with no idea where my
daughter was sleeping. . .

. . . Life after separation is usually a pretty barren, petty place, with the kids acting as mute
referees in the ring of embittered parents.

It would have been all too easy to have stopped Dreads from seeing his
daughter. I knew the threat of a long court process would easily have
deterred my ex from seeing our child. Something another single mum
friend even urged me to do.

Yet this was something, however much I was hurt or left angered, I
never countenanced. Because denying dads their right to see their
children, I think, quite simply makes you a terrible parent.

So, even as the Fathers 4 Justice “superdads” pranced on Harriet
Harman’s roof, I felt more than a smidgen of sympathy for them. I have
little idea of why Jolly Stanesby and Mark Harris aren’t allowed
access to their children . . . But whatever the reason they are on that roof, it is about time we listened . . .

The slogan, “A father is for life and not just conception”, might make
some roll their eyes, but its succinct message should be taken
seriously. Instead of ignoring them and disregarding their stunts as
proof of an immature and unworthy attitude, maybe we should look
harder at the court system that continually, blindly, denies a father
his rights.

It’s incredible how far the courts have swung in the last two
centuries. We have moved from fathers holding all the rights to having
almost none. Studies show that four out of five women are granted
custody after a divorce, which is, arguably, right in most
circumstances. But is it right that mothers can deny their children
the chance of a relationship with their fathers with very little
recourse for them to appeal or overturn the decision?

Fathers 4 Justice might not put over all the subtleties of the
argument, but at least someone is fighting the man’s corner.”

Two women, speaking up for the rights of fathers! This has to be encouraging, and if David Cameron is serious in his assertion that it’s time for government to support marriage and the family, then it’s possible that the present anti-family and anti-man government might be replaced in a couple of years.