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Comment by Bruno D'Itri on March 18, 2013 at 20:50

The Baroness said: “I’ve heard one father who went into court saying, ‘Once this law is enforced, I will get half of the child' ”

Is she claiming to have heard this father in a case over which she was presiding?  It seems so.

And yet the Baroness retired from the Bench many years ago, and well before the Shared Parenting Bill was aired. 

How, then, was she actually able to hear this father’s comments concerning the Shared Parenting Bill? 

In fairness, she may have intended to say that she had heard of the father’s comments from a third party, or perhaps that she had heard the father speak as he went into a courtroom whilst she was hanging around outside it. 

Of greater interest is the Baroness’s undying personal belief that “a child has to live in one place”.

But is that really so?

Should we start worrying about middle-class children who spend months each year living in their parents’ second holiday home?  And should we also be closing down their boarding schools? 

Should we be removing all children from divorced parents who have happily agreed upon a Shared Parenting routine? 

There are many children who benefit from having one bedroom at their mum’s home and a second bedroom at their dad’s, and who positively thrive from having a meaningful relationship with both of their parents.  Here is just one such child:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7pmtK1_S00

Confusingly, in the same interview, the Baroness said that Shared Parenting is perfectly fine and acceptable when the parents are behaving "sensibly". 

How, though, does she reconcile this statement with her other statement that "a child has to live in one place"?

The Baroness comes across as a confused old lady with very old-fashioned, ill-conceived and plainly defunct ideas.

There are three major flaws in the views of the Baroness. 

Firstly, she makes the erroneous and very misleading presumption that those who support Shared Parenting legislation are calling for a rigid 50/50 split of parenting time. 

Most reasonable voices who have campaigned for Shared Parenting (such as Families Need Fathers and The Custody Minefield) have acknowledged for many years that a rigid 50/50 split of parenting time would be impractical in many cases. 

Instead, these campaigners have called for the 'significant' and 'meaningful' involvement of both parents, in order that the child may benefit from being properly parented by both its parents.  Theirs has always been a qualitative approach. 

Of course, in order for a child to have a significant and meaningful relationship with both its parents, it will need to spend some minimum quantum of time with both parents, but this certainly need NOT be 50%. 

Many who are vehemently against Shared Parenting legislation are finding it extremely difficult to counter the very widespread and powerful scientific evidence in favour of Shared Parenting. 

They have commissioned a handful of academics (e.g. Mavis McClean) in an effort to discredit Shared Parenting, but the evidence in favour of Shared Parenting is overwhelming.  There exists a general consensus amongst social scientists that Shared Parenting is beneficial to children.  

There are obvious parallels with Oil Companies which commission selected academics in an effort to discredit the evidence for Global Warming! 

Opponents of Shared Parenting are desperately (and rather mischievously) attempting to shift both the debate and their attack upon the notion of 50/50.  Even the Baroness succeeded in getting the Express Newspaper to headline this 50/50 notion! 

Secondly, whilst the Baroness concedes that children benefit from Shared Parenting when their parents are behaving “sensibly”, she states that children whose parents who are not both behaving “sensibly” cannot benefit from Shared Parenting, as this would be harmful. 

In the common scenario in which the court-appointed Resident Parent (usually mum) is upset and aggrieved with any aspect of the separation or divorce, does not behave “sensibly” and refuses to facilitate contact, the Baroness suggests that the Non-Resident Parent (usually dad) should NOT be involved in the parenting of his child.  His involvement would cause friction by upsetting the Resident Parent.  

The Baroness appears quite unable to perceive firstly, the plain injustice of her argument and, secondly, the long-term harm and disadvantage to the child in effectively losing one of its parents. 

She gives paramountcy to the wishes and feelings of the Resident Parent, to the obvious detriment of the child. 

Thirdly, the Baroness appears completely out of touch with the current Zeitgeist concerning 21st century parenting. 

She remains firmly wedded to the ideology of the 1960′s and 70′s which strongly held that children needed the nurturing of their mothers and the financial support of their fathers. 

In no other of the Baroness’s judgments is this out-of-date ideology so stark as in the judgment of Payne v Payne (2001). 

As a consequence of this particular judge-made law, thousands of children have been removed overseas and have lost meaningful contact with the left-behind parent (usually their father). 

Furthermore, when fathers lose meaningful contact with their children, the children's paternal grandparents also inevitably lose contact. 

Grandparents' rights have been repeatedly ignored by the Government in this respect.  The forthcoming Children and Families Bill will not legislate for grandparents. 

The 'Grandparents Association' is very aware of the difficulties faced by its members:

http://www.grandparents-association.org.uk/dc/denied-contact.html

One would imagine that the Grandparents Association has a dedicated President fighting fearlessly for the most important of all their rights: the right to be a grandparent to their grandchildren. 

Not so! 

Their President is... Baroness Butler-Sloss!  

Regards

Bruno D'Itri

Comment by Bruno D'Itri on February 11, 2013 at 22:08

The Children Act of 1989 required the judiciary to serve the paramount interests of the child.

Surely no one can disagree with this fundamental principle.

The problem is that our senior judiciary has opted to interpret this paramountcy principle by adopting out-of-date suppositions which hark back to the 1960′s and 70′s. It has done so because of its rigid adherence to the system of ‘legal precedent’.

Above all, a child needs the love and nurturing of its mother and the financial support of its father. Women are the emotionally weaker sex: if their wishes are thwarted by the court, their ability to parent their child will be adversely affected. A child can be raised quite satisfactorily without the nurturing of its father. A father may be permitted to share in the parenting of his child, but only if the mother is in agreement. If she is not in agreement, the father should not be involved in the parenting because this would upset the mother, and the resulting animosity would be harmful to the child. If a mother is found to have lodged false or exaggerated accusations of physical or emotional violence against a father, she should not be punished because this would harm her child.

If these are the suppositions written into decades of legal precedent and indelibly ingrained in the minds of the senior judiciary – such as Baroness Butler-Sloss, Lord Justice Thorpe and Sir Nicholas Wall – then it is quite obvious that these judges will opt to interpret the Paramountcy Principle of the CA1989 by adopting those suppositions.

A perfect example is Payne v Payne (2001). Butler-Sloss and Thorpe decided that the paramount interests of a child would best be served by ensuring that the child’s mother should not be upset by refusing her application to remove the child overseas. The unfortunate consequence – that the child would lose its meaningful relationship with its father – was not as important a factor as ensuring the happiness of the mother. In Re D (Children) [2010] EWCA Civ 50, Nicholas Wall refused to permit any challenge to the ideology of Payne v Payne, despite having being presented with a plethora of powerful scientific evidence in favour of shared parenting. Wall relegated the importance of that evidence.

Our senior judiciary has utterly misjudged the best interests of the child by remaining stubbornly wedded to an out-of-date ideology of parenthood.

The forthcoming amendment to the CA1989 – inserting a presumption of shared parenting – will hopefully rectify that serious judicial error.

Regards,
Bruno D’Itri

Comment by Bruno D'Itri on January 16, 2013 at 23:24

Our elected Government plans to bolster the legal right of a child to have a meaningful and on-going relationship with both its parents, post separation/divorce.  It recognises that family law, as it currently stands, all too often fails to serve a child’s best interests in this extremely important respect.  

The Children Act (1989) rightly instructed the judiciary to serve the child’s paramount interests. However, over recent decades the judiciary - Baroness Butler-Sloss included - has singularly failed to understand or accept that a child’s paramount interests are, in the vast majority of cases, actually best served by facilitating and enforcing its meaningful relationship with both its parents.  Instead, the judiciary has remained persistently wedded to the archaic ‘single parent/primary carer’ model; an approach which has, sadly, led to a generation of fatherless children.  

Relocation law is a prime example: it rides rough-shod over any notion of shared parenting by placing thousands of miles between children and one of their parents.  Plainly, a child cannot benefit from the meaningful parenting of both its parents, if those parents are living on opposite sides of the world.  Relocation law - Payne v Payne (2001) - is the work of Butler-Sloss.  

The judiciary’s approach is out of date and simply does not reflect the modern-day realities of 21st Century shared parenting.

The aim of our Government’s proposed legislative changes is to make it very explicit to the judiciary that, for most children in litigated cases, ‘best interests’ equates to ‘shared parenting’.

Let us hope that any amendment to the Children Act (1989) will be robust enough to safeguard a child’s right to be parented by both its parents. Let us also remember that this issue is not about parents’ rights: it is entirely about childrens’ rights. 

Furthermore, let us be absolutely clear that Shared Parenting does NOT, as many critics would have us believe, necessitate a precise 50/50 split of parenting time.  This would plainly be highly impractical in most cases.   Rather, it is expected to range upwards from 20/80.  The 50/50 headline is a red-herring being put forward by those opposed to shared parenting.  

Another objection from the critics is that a legally rebuttable presumption of shared parenting will endanger children. Very plainly, Shared Parenting will only be granted to those parents who are not a proven risk to their children.  Unsubstantiated allegations lodged by bitter and disgruntled ex-partners – intent on using ‘their children as weapons’, to coin a phrase adopted by Sir Nicholas Wall, a former President of the Family Division – ought not to be enough!

It is a great pity that the judiciary has failed to be proactive on Shared Parenting.  For example, in the case of Re D (Children) [2010] EWCA Civ 50, Sir Nicholas Wall was presented with 15 contemporary scientific psychological and sociological research reports which all demonstrated, beyond all reasonable doubt, the verifiable benefits for children of maintaining close and meaningful relationships with both parents.  This irrefragable scientific evidence went ignored or relegated by him.  In contrast, our Government, to whom the scientific evidence was also presented, is taking full heed.  

This is precisely why our elected Government needs to legislate. Child welfare is far too important to leave in the hands of a few un-elected High Court judges, who often seem to be out of touch with modern society and family life.

Best regards
Bruno D'Itri