The Tories betrayal of Britain’s fathers continues – By Matt O’Connor
The Parental Involvement Provision: Section 11 of the Children and Families Act 2014 has recently come into force and a few supporters have approached us about this provision thinking it infers fathers greater rights. It does not.
The legislation does not mention the ‘F’ word ‘fathers’ once. It does not recognise fathers in law nor provide them with a legal presumption to contact, nor a presumption of 50/50 shared parenting.
Never forget, Fathers4Justice was promised Shared Parenting by the Conservative Party and Caroline Nokes MP at the last election. Nokes even sat on the Children & Families Bill Committee and claimed that it was a success and that F4J should make a submission, despite the Bill failing to contain a single one of her election promises. We told her that this Bill was a sham.
We were right.
This venal piece of legislation provides false hope for dads yet is in fact a cruel scam. It maintains ‘involvement’ can be direct or indirect i.e. sending a Christmas Card once a year. These token, mealy mouthed words are a disgrace.
It is the same as apartheid South African in the 80s saying “We will give blacks some involvement in the running of their country, but they shouldn’t be trusted to have the right to vote.”
The only people you can’t trust are politicians who break their election promises with impunity, and that’s why we will do everything possible to hold them to account at the 2015 General Election.
Matt O’Connor, Founder, Fathers4Justice
http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed134285
Pic: Matt O’Connor and his son at a Fathers4Justice protest
