Daveyone is ONE!

Well not quite but today marks the first anniversary of my original blog and as well as reproducing my very first blog I thought this would be a good time to annalise what has happened in that year via my Campaigning blog which you can view if you click the above title* and my Political blog here :
http://world4justice.wordpress.com/

It is sad that the motivation for this is more from a Government seeking cost savings and cutbacks rather then the pursuit of Justice, I would say however, that both questionnaires did ask all the right questions, including the last question (30) which was what question should they have asked. All my answers can be found on my campaigning blog but the answer I gave to this was what about all the suicides this appalling law and its associated organisations have caused which runs into hundreds of thousands a year worldwide and I would invite you to view the video on my 'Lest we forget in 2010' Political blog.

I am reassured that some of the first steps has been to disband CSA and CAFCASS something I have petitioned for for some while. I believe this review will ensure a more open court using safe guards such as Child A, Child B or Family XYZ in particularly sensitive cases, but better still I would call for a reform of the workings of social services with the immediate withdrawal from Family Law cases where children who have not been deemed at risk, suddenly empowers a parent (most often mothers ) to abuse this for their own ends.

I am also dismayed at the latest revelations of the Baby Peter Connelly story;
http://www.talktalk.co.uk/news/pa/uknews/2010/10/26/report-reveals-baby-p-case-details.htmlI would call upon the Children's Secretary Micheal Gove to separate the schools from the social services portfolio and above all to make a full review of OFSTED that oversees both Schools and Social Services and a top to tail review of the working practises for all Social workers, managers and other child welfare officials who's over stretched and ultimately incompetent departments are costing children's lives, disjointing normal family relationships and ultimately braking society!

The one campaign above all I have taken to heart in recent months is Parental Alienation Awareness, having contacted friends in Singapore, Australia and from New York to Texas in the USA we share an empathy for what I can only describe, as I entre my 38th month, as a living bereavement and can only applaud Glenn Sack's report http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=8632 that US authorities who now recognise this as a serious condition and one thing all of us who endure this nightmare is that it is child abuse (why would you want to impose years of regret on your own children?) and should be outlawed along with false allegations NOW!


Children are our future,invest in them wisely!
First published Thursday 29th October 2009
http://daveyonefamilylawman.blogspot.com/2009/10/children-are-our-futureinvest-in-them.html


Whenever I see that young face in a blue jumper looking up from the newspaper, I see two small milk teeth and realise he never had a chance to grow a full set, and just wonder how many of his 440 days of life those eyes did NOT cry?
Baby Peter was murdered, what part of that does Lord Justice Hughes not understand? The 3 people Peter had no alternative but to put his 'trust' in, as he surely could not run to another family member or a neighbour or even phone Childline, as they were 'responsible' for his care but they betrayed that trust with systematic torture and abuse, not a fall down the stairs or walk into a door!
As any parent will tell you if your child cry's out, even if you think they are joshing, you still take the time to make sure they are OK! So how on earth can this poor innocent soul sustain 50+ injuries and so called professionals could not spot one with the same number of visits as he had injuries? So to this end I believe Sharon Shoesmith who was ultimately responsible should not be windging about a loss of her lucrative job, she should be thanking her lucky stars she is not being prosecuted for neglect and dereliction of duty as I surely would if, at the wheel of a 40 to truck. I ploughed into a car killing the occupants and whilst my momentary lapse of concentration also would show no intent, as in this case, I would still expect to receive a 6 to 24 month sentence!
Sadly this story is only the most tragic tip of a far deeper failure affecting Social Services throughout the land and this poor system touches every council to a varying degree and whilst Ed Balls is content to make cut backs on Education on the one hand, he will throw in the region of £800,000 at each council just to employ more social workers into the failed system rather then the reform of working practice he assured us of in the wake of the Baby Peter, Victoria Climbe and Khyra Ishaq horror stories besides the ones that never make the National headlines!
It should also be noted that Family Law Court Judges rely too heavily in my view (and many others) on reports from this self same industry of incompetence so children are going into care on the first visit (unlike Peter) just because a neighbour has complained of a dog barking in the house nearby, and whilst cruelty was never proved the small daughter has been lost in the irreversible, it seems, system ('Jenny' on the south coast). The judge never makes a judgement as they cannot enforce their own court orders anyway but they have become and administrative extension to this appalling law. It should also be noted that OFSTED gave Haringay Council a clean bill of health the week Baby Peter died but, but had to back track very rapidly with a damming report soon afterwards;


HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THIS BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE?

My inaugural blog on this subject is dedicated to my friend the late Ian Mackay who supported me as a McKenzie friend when the money ran out in my case, and worked so hard to see a change in this failure of a system, He is the first person to speak in the following film.





I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my friends at Antimisandry.com who instantly reproduce this blog on their site and to date has proved my most successful in the form of recorded hits though some way behind my mentor Guido Fawkes and I would thank Percy from Hobart, Outdoors from Canada and Marx here in the UK among others for their encouragement. http://antimisandry.com/justice4children/The injustices I have witnessed first hand in Family Court for me epitomises all that is worst in inequality and antimisandry.com seek to redress the balance and equality in parenting as well as other aspects of everyday life. (* AM readers click on 'my blog' bottom left to be directed to more on this) http://www.daveyonefamilylawmanblogspotcom.socialgo.com/magazine/read/progress-international_325.html

From Fudge to Fruitcake?

Lawyers to be kept out of divorce battles!

My first reaction when these 2 items slammed on to Davey's newsdesk this morning was has the world gone mad? Is it possible this Government may just be getting a few things RIGHT? I am grateful to RFFJ for alerting me to these stories and much more. (click on original blog title for more of RFFJ)


Lawyers will be kept out of thousands of family dispute cases every year in a shake-up of divorce laws.

By Nick Collins Telegraph
18 Oct 2010
A government review is to recommend the introduction of a compulsory mediation stage before any financial or custodial dispute is heard in court.

The plan, to be published at the start of next year, will also introduce briefer and simpler hearings for cases that cannot be resolved by mediation.

David Norgrove, who is leading the review, described the "tremendous strain" being put on the current system by the rising number of disputes coming before the courts.

The number of divorce cases rose 16 per cent to 137,000 last year, with the average childcare case taking more than 12 months to be completed.

It is hoped that the new mediation stage will reduce legal aid costs by up to £100 million, while fewer expert witnesses would be required to testify before the courts.

Mr Norgrove told The Times the family justice system costs more than £1.6 billion, but that nine in every ten cases could be dealt with out of court.

He said evidence showed that: "If you can get both parties to learn about mediation, the great majority will go on to use it."

Sir Nicholas Wall, the most senior judge in England and Wales, said the system should be made "less adversarial" as he attacked selfish parents for failing to consider their children's wellbeing.

Under the new system, couples could be forced to take parenting classes as well as being referred to mediators, with court rooms acting as a last resort.

Judges would also be able to advise parents early into legal proceedings what the likely outcome would be, in an effort to force through an agreement and avoid long and expensive cases.

As we have always said money is the driving force here and it is only thanks to this Coalition Government seeking cut-backs that finally justice may actually be WON!

Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission to be scrapped!
(Thats CSA to you and me!)

The government has announced this morning that the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC) is among 192 quangos that are to be scrapped.

Specific details of what will replace CMEC have not yet been announced, only that it will be brought under more direct Ministerial control as an executive agency of the Department of Work and Pensions who will have responsibility for its functions. The government intends to introduce a Public Bodies Bill that will enable the reforms to be implemented.

The Commission formally replaced the Child Support Agency (CSA) last year and has the responsibility for the child maintenance system in Great Britain. The CSA had been beset with problems which led to its demise. In June 2006, the National Audit Office revealed that it cost the CSA 70p to collect every pound of child support and £3.5bn in payments had not been collected since 1993.


The government also confirmed that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is to be scrapped by the end of the current Parliament and its functions will be transferred to other regulators.

As previously announced, the Legal Services Commission is to be abolished and its functions moved to the Ministry of Justice. The Legal Services Ombudsman, which oversees the handling of complaints about lawyers in England and Wales, is also to be completely abolished by 2011.

Non-Departmental Public Bodies to be retained on the grounds that they perform a technical function which should remain independent of the government include the Family Justice Council, the Family Procedure Rule Committee, the Law Commission of England and Wales and the Legal Services Board.

However there is still some doubt over the future of Cafcass pending the outcome of the Family Justice Review Panel which is due to produce their report on the family justice system in 2011. Also under still under consideration is the Office of the Children's Commissioner which is subject to a formal review to be finalised by the end of November.

At time of going to press Davey is of the understanding that CAFCASS is to be disbanded and all I would say to those prospective redundent Court reporters is I hope you endure just 10% of the misery and heartache you and your appalling service have inflicted on parents and more importantly the children you were supposed to have served over the past 10 years!

Parental Alienation Awareness : Worldwide!

Focus on Singapore!
Wee Cheng is the first friend I came across when I became one of the 500 million community on Facebook and his heart rendering story has been played out to me almost on a daily basis. I have never met Wee, who lives 1000,s of miles away, but I feel strongly for this honourable, honest and above all caring and devoted father who appears to have been alienated from his son Adriel for the past 6 months by the State and wonder if the Government and law makers in Singapore could show a lead in this global failure and help reunite Wee Cheng with his son as early as this week and show those of us across the world the way of reforming these atrocious laws. As I was in mid flow on this blog and searching for more eloquent ways to describe my friend I referred back to the aforementioned Social Network and low and behold only 12 minutes earlier another friend had posted this rare but valuable reminder that this goes on everyday throughout the world, which for me along with the you tube featured toward the end of the blog epitomises the cruelty that is Parental Alienation which most right minded people now recognise as child abuse or even state sponsored kidnapping!!

This is a sad state of affairs that unfortunately plays out all across America each and every day. Good, fit, willing fathers like Dr. Wardner should not have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to share equally in what is the true best interest of our children, both parents sharing equally in their lives.

If this mothe...r has in fact willfully and deliberately alienated these children from their father, she should be imprisoned for the crime of child abuse and custody of these children should be changed to the father, as studies prove, the father is far more willing to share equally in custody matters than the mother.

Furthermore, if attorney Richard J D'Amico or any other organization was complicit in these acts of child abuse, he should be disbarred and imprisoned as well. There should be no leniency shown for those who abuse our children.

JUSTICE IS COMING!!!

Donald Tenn
Fathers 4 Justice
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39412789?ocid=twitter



http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=157041714327784

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rxiXGYMicM


http://www.daveyonefamilylawmanblogspotcom.socialgo.com/magazine/read/do-they-look-like-extremists-cassandra_192.html (click on original blog title for more)

What happens to dads (and Grandparents) after a split?

Recent research shows that when a marriage ends, most fathers are left without the family home or primary care of the children. Men who feel they were mistreated by the system tell their stories to KATE HOLMQUIST

EVERY NIGHT before he goes to sleep, Joe, a separated father, looks at a picture of his children on his computer screen and tells them he loves them.

When Tom’s marriage broke up, he slept in his car near the family home because he wanted to be close by in case something happened to the children.

Cathal weeps when he speaks of how he came home from hospital after being stabbed by his wife to find his house emptied of “everything” – including his children. His wife had left a solicitor’s letter on the counter accusing him of being mentally ill and telling him she wanted a divorce.

All three men have struggled for years in the courts to gain access to their children and believe that they should have been made primary carers, in their children’s best interests. They tell of being so alienated from their children by their ex-wives, they’ve had to watch their children’s first holy communions and confirmations from the back of the church. They speak of telling social workers about their ex-wives’ abusive behaviour and of not being believed.

“I was really, really depressed before the separation, sleeping in the back sitting room. You weren’t walking on eggshells, you were walking on razor blades,” says Cathal, who showed The Irish Times an extensive psychiatrist’s report that declares him under stress due to the separation, but well mentally otherwise.

“I know men who killed themselves because they lost contact with their children,” says Declan Keaveney, a retired garda who spent €50,000 fighting through the courts to be made primary carer of his two children and even contemplated suicide himself. He eventually succeeded in becoming primary carer.“Men have no voice – we have nothing,” he says.

Keaveney, who is now is a volunteer with Amen, a support group for male victims of domestic abuse. He listens on a daily basis to men driven to the edge by rancorous separation wars in which children are often used as ammunition. “Parental alienation syndrome”, where one parent turns the children against another, is common, he says.

A report by One Family, an advocacy group for one-parent families, finds some fathers who, despite contact orders, are refused contact with their children by their wives and cannot get the HSE to intervene and enforce their rights.

Court delays also mean fathers can go months without seeing their children. One father says he “just gave up because it was too stressful . . . [my ex-wife] was on legal aid and I had a private solicitor which cost a lot of money and I just gave up”.

There is “no deliberate bias” against men in the family law courts, believes Anne Egan, a researcher who sat in on 158 in camera cases (where cases are heard in private) for her PhD, though the court “reinforces stereotypical views” that children need to be with their mother as primary carer – the result in 88 per cent of cases.

Another PhD researcher, Róisín O’Shea, found only 2.23 per cent of 493 cases had the children living with their father. While many fathers asked for 50/50 living arrangements, O’Shea saw this ordered by the court in just two cases.

Egan, who also interviewed fathers, says most accepted the mother as primary carer, but “they would have liked more contact rather than specific times and dates”. These fathers missed the daily informal involvement with their children over breakfast, the school run or even just a few minutes in the evening to hear about a child’s day.

The second major complaint was being left out of decision-making. “Most were not happy with the situation but it was working for them,” she says.

If a father wants to be primary carer, “it’s not always fair. There’s a battle royale if you are acting for a father,” says Marion Campbell, a private family law solicitor who has been dealing with separation cases since 1981, when she started her career in the legal aid board.

Due to the recession, a growing number of men have become stay-at-home fathers whose wives work full-time. It’s often the wife who wants to separate, yet if the father wants to remain in the home as primary carer, he needs maintenance paid by the wife and her agreement to leave the family home, which is practically unheard of (O’Shea’s study found not one case of fathers receiving maintenance).

Jobless and rejected men may have no choice but to move home to their parents’ house, Campbell says. Would a stay-at-home mother be asked to leave her house with no maintenance and limited access to her children because her husband wanted a separation? The question just doesn’t arise, Campbell points out.

Another unfair perception is that men are not physically assaulted by their wives, she adds. “I’ve come across a lot of cases, but women are much stronger and more proactive in issuing proceedings. Men bury their heads and come in at the last minute and quite a number are upset because they don’t want the separation,” says Campbell.

ONE FATHER WHO WAS physically abused says he never told anyone because “it’s embarrassing”. When parents fight in court over property and children, lawyers’ briefcases heave with psychiatrists’ and social workers’ reports, although hearings can be so brief that judges don’t always see everything.

Keaveney says the men he hears from often feel social workers have sided with their wives and barely listen to them, and that the wives’ allegations are always believed.

Joe says he experienced years of false accusations by his ex-wife before he finally received a verbal apology from a social worker who said he’d been right about his wife’s fragile mental state all along. For example, his wife went to gardaí accusing Joe of exposing their son to pornography during an access visit. Gardaí investigated and The Irish Times has seen a copy of a letter from An Garda Síochana telling Joe they found no basis for the allegations. For Joe, this was just one episode in a long campaign by his ex-wife to “destroy” him, even though she had left him for another man.

“Because she’s a woman she can say what she likes, do what she likes and is getting away with it. Because I’ve moved on, the only way she can get to me is through the kids. I know guys who have not seen their kids in five to 10 years.

“One father I know, hadn’t seen his son for eight years. Then he got a call through a solicitor to say his son had attempted suicide. Can you imagine how he feels?”

Tom weeps when he speaks of living “in limbo”. After years of court battles costing in the region of €50,000, he has good access to his children but still worries about their safety. At the height of the conflict, he would drive by a place where he knew his children would be, just to see them from a distance. “I’m trying to move on, but last week, I broke down leaving the kids back to their mother. I was leaving them to somebody I don’t trust.” Sleepless nights have become routine, but he keeps going, trying to rebuild his life and his business, “for my kids”.

Some names have been changed
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2010/1005/1224280399159.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4cac9f9c81c6172f%2C0


We grandparents suffer too as our sons despair over their loss!



I pray my husband and I will live to see our son reunited with his child

Letter to the Observer following this news item http://www.realfathersforjustice.org/news/index.php?itemid=421
The Observer, Sunday 3 October 2010

Our son has been going through agony in the last 10 years and the knock-on effect has devastated our entire family. We grandparents never got to see our only granddaughter at birth. Why, after paying thousands in solicitor's fees and eventually getting a contact order, are things not enforced?

Two weeks after the order he arrived at his former home to find the mother had moved away. More fees to hire a private detective. She was found and eventually had to comply with contact.

Over the next four-and-half years, contact was 14 hours a month. Our son was never allowed to take his daughter on holiday and had her to stay only one weekend in his house.

All contact has been refused since 2006. He receives no school reports and has had one photograph. Parcels, gifts, cards and letters are sent regularly to her from Dad and family and maintenance has always been paid.

Changes must be made to support fathers who desperately want to see their children. Mediation is now the only option.

I put on a brave face most of the time and I pray that my husband and I will live to see our son reunited with his only child. Somebody out there help these fathers, please.

Name and address supplied


My parents separated in 2001, when I was eight and my sister five ("How a new age of fathers' rights is taking hold", In Focus). Both my parents wanted us to retain a strong relationship with each of them and so it was decided between them that they would "share us". We spent every Monday and Tuesday nights and alternate weekends with our dad and the rest with our mum. After eight years, my sister and I felt we were constantly in limbo; we felt as though we had no real home.

With the support of our mum, we spoke to Dad and told him we wanted the situation to change. Although he was upset he could see this was affecting us and he valued our happiness. Although we now tend just to see him alternate weekends I feel that our relationship is now stronger as we value our time together more.


I am greatful to Toon of RFFJ for both of these items : James Whale suffered the sadness of seeing his own son going through Parental Alienation at the time he was diagnosed with Kidney Cancer. James devoted a chapter of his book to this time and if you click on the origional blog title above you can read more on James's battle and remisson from Cancer. Davey

We grandparents suffer too as our sons despair over their loss! (James Whale)

You said: "Only about 11% of children from broken homes go on to spend equal amounts of time with each parent", without speaking to any children in this situation. After eight years of living this "ideal" scenario, it became complicated and impractical. The happiness our parents were trying to create turned to unhappiness.

Leah Sharman

Bournemouth

Last week, I received a telephone call from a policewoman threatening me with arrest. My crime? Sending three cards to my grandson telling him I love him. He had his third birthday last week and as my son's former partner will not allow me to see him I put birthday wishes in our local newspaper. My son is fighting through the family courts to regain the access he had with his son until March this year but he still is not seeing his little boy.

My son's ex-partner saw my cards as harassment. Don't you think the police have more important things to do than threaten a 67-year-old grandmother?

Name and address supplied

I'm single and not a parent, but I noticed that none of the concerned fathers you quoted made any reference to their children's feelings.

That the men you interviewed seemed incapable of putting their children's feelings above their own is illustrative of a bias in the home of the very children those men purport to wish to protect.

Vivian Frew

London EC1

"Home" needs to become a space that is healthily shared by women and men, not a battleground.

Alongside the gains of feminism in making the space "out in the world" a much more healthily distributed one between men and women, there needs to be a similar recalibration of power and perception in the shared space of home. This has to be in the interests of us all.

Phil Goss

Senior lecturer in psychotherapy

University of Central Lancashire


For more on Grandparents check out my friend Jimmy's blog.
http://chatterboxblogforyou.blogspot.com/

Solicitors called to account "In the child's best interest!"

New Legal Ombudsman warns rip-off lawyers!

Lawyers who bring the industry into disrepute by charging huge prices for services will no longer get away with it, the new Legal Ombudsman has said.

I would suggest this accounts for the majority of family Law Solicitors , so whilst those nice people over at the Ministry of Justice are reviewing the nightmare we have reveiled to them we should now concerntrate our efforts on bringing this lot to account and submit our £30,000 claims! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11473197


Government blamed for resignation of online child protection chief
Campaigners believe home secretary's move to merge Ceop with other agencies forced Jim Gamble to quit
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23627885-payne-to-be-victims-commissioner.do

We need to protect or kids from the likes of Whiting and the Jim Gamble at CEOP offered our best hope!




">http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/05/government-resignation-online-child-protection?CMP=twt_gu

A possible breakthrough in Parental alienation awareness from the US conference;

Action Alert: Tell Major Media Outlets, DSM Committee that Parental Alienation is Real and Harms Children

http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/enews/cv/enews-20101005.html

Psychiatric Experts Assess Parental Alienation!

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=11776668
The American Psychiatric Association has a hot potato on its hands as it updates its catalog of mental disorders — whether to include parental alienation, a disputed term conveying how a child's relationship with one estranged parent can be poisoned by the other.

Davey asks 'will they consider the financial implications for the so called legal professionals too?'


"Now that the media frenzy about Andrew being found in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) has settled down, I am concentrating all of my efforts onto having him returned to Australia as quickly as possible under the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Convention)".Ken Thompson!
http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=text.display&tid=21

Parental Alienation is child abuse and should be outlawed NOW!

"A lot of our members are not men with great careers but ordinary men who go out to work in order to bring home money for their families. When they lose that family, everything breaks down for them. We have had five suicides so far this year," said Mike Kelly, spokesman for Real Fathers For Justice.

http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=text.display&tid=21

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/26/family-courts-fathers-custody

(Click on original blog title for Facebook campaign on this.)

Father.