Parents could get legal right to see children

From the Telegraph:

Divorced parents will be given a legal right to see their children under plans being drawn up by ministers, The Daily Telegraph can disclose

Courts will be put under a legal duty to ensure that both fathers and mothers are given access to children in divorce settlements.
Parents who refuse to accept the orders will be in contempt of court and risk serious penalties or even jail.
The news will give hope to campaign groups who have argued for years that the role of fathers in bringing up their children should be enshrined in law.
Under the present system family courts tend to leave children with their mothers in the vast majority of cases.
According to the Office for National Statistics, one in three children, equivalent to 3.8million, lives without their father.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Welfare Secretary, are understood to support the plans. The Conservatives also pledged to introduce the reforms while in opposition.
Tim Loughton, the children's minister, said: “Our vision is to establish that, under normal circumstances, a child will have relationship with both his or her parents, regardless of their relationship with each other.
“We must do everything we can to improve the system so that it gives children the best chance of growing up under the guidance of two loving parents.
“All the evidence tells us that children genuinely benefit from a relationship with both parents, with the potential to make different contributions to their child’s development.
“The culture has shifted away from the traditional view that mothers are primarily responsible for the care of children. Increasingly society recognises the valuable and distinct role of both parents.
“We are looking closely at all the options for promoting shared parenting through possible legislative and non-legislative means.”
The decision would overturn the main finding of a major family justice review, run by businessman David Norgrove, which reported in November.
Mr Norgrove dropped a plan to allow to enshrine equal access rights in law from his final 220-page report.
He said it would put too much pressure on judges to set out the exact length of time that each divorced parent should spend with their children.
He cited evidence from Australia which suggested children were more damaged when courts imposed time limits on access to parents.
However Mr Loughton said judges made the mistake of seeing shared parenting “as being about equality of time”.
He added: “As we know, we cannot carve up a child’s existence on the basis of some spurious 50:50 split in terms of time”.
Mr Loughton described the Norgrove study as “a Government-commissioned report, not a Government report”, suggesting ministers were distancing themselves from it.
The Coalition is expected to announce the plans as part of its official response to the Norgrove report by the end of this month.
The law could be changed by amending the 1989 Children’s Act to include a presumption of shared parenting. Mr Loughton unsuccessfully tried to do this when he was in Opposition five and a half years ago.
Another option is for the Government to support a backbench bill being promoted by Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, which is due to have its second reading later this month.
Mr Elphicke’s bill requires courts and councils which are enforcing contact orders for children "to operate under the presumption that the rights of a child include growing up knowing and having access to and contact with both parents involved”.
Last night Mr Elphicke, the MP for Dover, said: “Now is the time to change the law and give our kids the best chances in life. The Government is looking at whether to give children the right to know their fathers.
“Fathers should act now by writing to their local MP and Ministers about their experiences and why the law needs to be changed. Child welfare is best served by a relationship with both parents.
"Anti-dad sociologists and weak-kneed judges have undermined the welfare of our children for too long.”
Last night Nadine O’Connor, a campaign director for Fathers4Justice, said it would be a “massive step forward”.
Ms O’Connor said: “It is a massive step forward. It is saying that Dads have as many rights as Mums. I will believe it when I see it, but the reform has to apply across the family justice system."
Other measures from the Norgrove report, such parenting agreements detailing how childcare would be cared for after a divorce and information hubs to enable parents to carry out ‘do-it-yourself’ divorces, look set to be accepted.
Last night a Government spokesman said: "The Government fully supports the Family Justice Review's position that the vast majority of children benefit from a continuing relationship with both parents after separation.
"We are looking closely at all options to promote this. We will publish the Government's response to the Family Justice Review shortly.”

To read the article in full - Divorced mums and dad could get legal right to see thier childen

Like Nadine, I'll believe it when I see it. By the time such a proposal becomes law it could become so watered down it will lose any efficacy. But we should remain cautiously optimistic.

Ruby,

Thanks for this interesting article.

In my situation there is never a day goes by that I do not ask my children to see or make contact with their father. Unfortunately at 14 & 12 they are old enough to have been able identify his behaviours and make up their own minds that they currently wish nothing to do with him!

Where does it leave me, a mother who wants her children to see their Dad, encourages them to do this but to no avail?

Should children be forced or a gun held to their heads when clearly they have made up their own minds?

For families affected by adultery, as in my situation, maybe the adulterer should have thought of the consequences beforehand and been less 'me, myself and I' and more 'my wife and children first'!

Anyway, the first thing I will still do tomorrow and everyday, is encourage my kids to make contact with their Dad as I always have, even though Form F9's have been lodged with the Court and the Sheriff agreed he can not force the kids to meet with him.

Take care for now FoS x

I too will believe it when I see it.

Papers can't be relied upon. For example the attention grabbing and misleading media headlines in November that the final Family Justice Review denied fathers the right to see their children when in fact both parents have the same responsibilities and rights to carry out those responsibilities and nowhere in the review was it suggested that fathers (or indeed mothers with the minority of care) shouldn't have contact with their children.

Charlie Elphicke's bill is unlikely to be passed and the courts already have powers to enforce contact orders and penalise parents for contempt of court with fines and imprisonment. According to ONS 3.8m children live without their mother or father, not just without fathers as the article leads us to believe. That doesn't mean all those children don't have a relationship with the other parent.

In Scotland it has been enshrined in legislation for years that those with Parental Responsibility and Rights have equal rights to have their children living with them and contact if the child doesn't live with them. If agreement cannot be reached between parents like in E&W either parent may apply to court to regulate PRR. Having those rights makes no difference, we still have the same issues as E&W.

I agree that from the article, repeated today in the Mail as well as on the front of the Telegraph, it is difficult to see exactly what the government has in mind, assuming they know themselves.
The Telegraph certainly has form in getting these stories wrong; it reported that Norgrove had recommended against grandparents needing the leave of the court to make a s.8 application. Norgrove had been expected to make such a recommendation but failed to do so.
The only right parents have is to make an application; it is hard to see how this could be extended into "a legal right to see your children". There will be enormous opposition from the "as long as it's safe" brigade and others who have been so successful for years in ensuring contact between children and fathers remains at a minimum. Getting anything substantial through parliament will require considerable commitment which I doubt this government has.

Let us not be too pessimistic about this report. I am looking forward to further news coverage in the hope that it will continue to be positive.

It won't matter how the wording of the law gets tinkered with.
The divorce laws as written now are apparently not female biased.
And yet in reality when applied with interpretation they are female biased.
Because the woman rocks up in court and says he's aggressive and i feel threatened it's not in the best interests of the children to see him and the court will run with that every time.
The reason because there's been too many blokes who when they flip kill the ex wife and kids.
So the court is always going to make that the priority and that's how it works.
There's a load of women lying about this out there and a load of women that aren't but the court will always have to err on the side of caution.
All the best
Pete