Judge
backs angry fathers over contact with children
By Clare Dyer, legal correspondent
The Guardian - Friday 2nd April 2004
http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,1074,1184360,00.html
Call
for sweeping changes to family justice system after 'shameful' court
failures
A
high court judge yesterday launched an extraordinary attack on the family
justice system for failing separated fathers and their children.
Mr Justice Munby, a respected judge of the Family Division, said he
was going public with a judgment following a private hearing, while
keeping the parties anonymous, because judges needed to "face up
honestly" to the failings of the system so as not to forfeit public
confidence.
He
called for sweeping changes to the system after a father had to abandon
his five-year battle for contact with his seven-year-old daughter following
43 court hearings in front of 16 judges. The "wholly deserving
father", who last saw his daughter in December 2001, had left court
"in tears, having been driven to abandon his battle for contact".
The
delays in the case were scandalous, added the judge, who said he felt
desperately sorry for the father, whose case was "far from unique".
The
judgment follows a number of high-profile protests by fathers who accuse
the family courts of treating separated fathers unfairly.
Mr
Justice Munby said the last two years had been, from the father's perspective,
"an exercise in absolute futility".
It
was "shaming to have to say it" but he agreed with the father's
view that he had been let down by the system.
The
judge suggested that the way the courts dealt with contact applications
might even breach the European convention on human rights, which guarantees
the right to respect for family life, the right to a fair hearing within
a reasonable time, and the enforcement of court orders.
He
said he could understand why there was disappointment that a pilot scheme
announced by the government this month to try to divert contact disputes
from court only encouraged mediation rather than making it mandatory.
Fathers'
groups have condemned the scheme as "doomed to failure".
The
judge called for a new protocol for handling contact disputes, with
every case allo cated to a single judge who would set a tiMETAble for
cases to be dealt with in weeks rather than months. Even serious and
complex cases would be finalised in months rather than years.
In
difficult cases, an independent social worker could be appointed who
would be "on hand on Saturday morning to make sure that the handover
takes place" or even act as go-between if the mother could not
bring herself to meet the father.
Where
mothers were determined to flout contact orders, a "flabby judicial
response" encouraged them to believe court orders could be ignored
with impunity, he said.
A
judge might stipulate in an order for Saturday contact that the father's
solicitor should notify the judge on Monday if there were any problems,
so that the mother could be summoned to come to court on Tuesday and
an order made committing her to jail, but suspended.
Then,
"the mother can be told in very plain English that if she again
prevents contact taking place the following Saturday, she is likely
to find herself in prison the following week".
He
said the mother in yesterday's case had obstructed contact with threadbare
excuses and made groundless allegations that the father had frightened
the child, forcibly fed her and threatened not to return her.
Despite
the court rulings, the mother continued to obstruct contact until the
father snapped and lost his temper with her in December 2001.
Mr
Justice Munby said that although it was the father who made the first
move that day, it was the mother who carried the legal, parental and
moral responsibility for what happened.
The
judge ended with a public apology to the father, who was described as
a warm and caring man, and his daughter. "We failed them. The system
failed them."
He
added that the debate in the newspapers on problems in the family justice
system made uncomfortable reading for the judges. "We need to take
note. We need to act. And we need to act now."
