Fathers' rights movement in the United Kingdom

Studies show the majority of the UK population support the need for change and protection of fathers rights to meet the responsibility through 50:50 contact.

Although some have been accused of being sexist by some commentators, these groups also campaign for better treatment for excluded mothers, women in second marriages, other step-parents and grandparents – all of whom suffer discrimination in respect of contact with their (grand) child(ren).

Pressure from the fathers' movement has influenced the United Kingdom Government, which published a draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill in February 2005.

It generates considerable publicity through planned actions e.g. throwing purple (its campaign colour) flour at the Prime Minister, and Batman landing on Buckingham Palace.

Tony Coe has been an articulate proponent of a singular message, and appeared in 2004 on a TV programme with Bob Geldof and Jim Parton, the editor of the FNF newsletter.

Lord Filkin,[7] the family justice minister announced at the beginning of April 2004 that there will be a green paper outlining proposals intended to improve the methods used to settle child residence disputes.

In the Queen's Speech at the State Opening of Parliament on 27 November 2004, Her Majesty said:[10] F4J achieved its main objective of bringing to the issues to the public's attention, creating fear in men who have not yet faced the dilemmas of divorce that their relationship with their children could be devastated if they fell out with their partners.

The success of the charity, FNF, for instance, in advising members to act as a litigant in person and to work towards shared residency court orders, has resulted in changing judicial attitudes.

The Labour Party has this to say on the issue in its 2005 Election Manifesto: The new system in the United Kingdom whereby the amount of child support that, in the vast majority of cases, the father pays, is acknowledged to be less fair than the old because it has ceased to take into account the other household's income[citation needed].

The main issue, however, is to do with the adversarial nature of the system, in which most parents are dissatisfied, according to a United Kingdom government report published in 2004, and the only winners are lawyers[citation needed].

In a Court of Appeal judgment in February 2005,[12] in a landmark (HOCKENJOS v. SOS JGT) ruling, Lord Justice Ward declared "To allow a father nothing for the maintenance of the child when he shares care virtually equally is so unfair that no reasonable secretary of state should countenance it."

These were attended by high-ranking members of the judiciary, including from overseas, where schemes that promote retaining both parents' involvement in childcare, but leave the courts as last resort, have been very successful.

Observers indicate that there is currently a tug-of-war between Oliver Cyriax's early interventions pilot project – which would be run by PESF (Parenting and Education Support Forum) in a low key way, probably at Wells Street (the family court in central London) – and another plan, created by the civil servants.

Duncan Fisher of Fathers Direct says Oliver Cyriax's PESF scheme could start immediately, although it is known that civil servants and politicians are prone to call for numbers of rounds of committee meetings and consultations, sometimes indefinitely.

It is arguable that the recent Consultation Paper issued by CAFCASS and entitled[15] is a recognition of the hurt and resentment caused by the existing Family Law system, and is a call for radical change, particularly by the early adoption of Shared Residence in the vast majority of cases.

[17] Only the year before, the Government had been indicating that no legislative changes in this area were planned, so this is a turnaround whose timing is generally felt to be the result of the efforts of fathers' rights activists.

The Liberal Democrats, the third major United Kingdom political party, has framed the issue in terms of domestic violence, but yet has to communicate its ideas widely.

Lord Justice Wall: A few years ago I went to address the annual general meeting of Families Need Fathers and I was actually very impressed by the strength of their feelings and their emotions.

The message I gave them – and I was not the only one doing it – was that the way to succeed, the way to get into the system, is not to sloganise but actually to get on the committees, get in with government where there is lots going on and people want to consult you, and respond to Making Contact Work.

[22] Geldof claims to be an iconoclast, calling his arguments rants which express his feelings towards British family law, as well as towards issues of a more personal matter.

Bob Geldof, and others, argue that without substantial changes, the application of current British custody law will lead to a generation of feral children.

It is creating vast wells of misery, massive discontent, an unstable society of feral children and reckless adolescents who have no understanding of authority or ultimate sanction, no knowledge of a man’s love and how it is different but equal to a woman’s, irresponsible mothers, drifting, hopeless fathers, problem and violent ill-educated sons and daughters, a disconnect from the extended family and society at large, vast swathes of cynicism and repeat pattern behaviour in subsequent adult relationships.Fathers' rights campaigners question the assumption that it can ever be legitimate for the state to collude in disrupting a loving and natural relationship between a father and his children.