FATHERS’ RIGHTS – SLOW BUT STEADY PROGRESS

The Civil Registration (Amendment) Bill, 2014 was published within the past few days and if it is ultimately passed, it will mean that the father’s name, even an unmarried father’s name, must appear on every child’s birth certificate.

It is however extraordinarily disappointing that there is still no progress being made on the right of every unmarried father to automatically be their son or daughter’s guardian. It is quite extraordinary that this continues to be an issue our government refuse to deal with.

Having said that, I suppose you can argue that slow progress is better than no progress.

 

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – MEN SUFFER TOO!

While it is often portrayed as such, domestic violence does not always involve a female victim and male abuser. A National Study of Domestic Abuse found that 213,000 Irish women and 88,000 Irish men have been severely abused by a partner at some point in their lives. Yet only 5 per cent of those men reported it to the Gardai - a much lower percentage than women (29%). 

It is not hard to understand why. The Domestic Violence Act, 1996, is ‘gender-neutral’ in that it is legislation there to protect anybody affected by abuse; spouse, partner, man or woman. The reality is very different. For a long time domestic abuse was as a gender issue. In the patriarchal society of times gone by, men were the heads of the household and women the subordinates. Men were therefore the usual perpetrators of abuse when it happened. That much is fact. But times have changed. And so must our response to this issue. 

Domestic violence is no longer a cross only women bear. One in six men will be severely abused by their partners at some point in their lives! That is a shocking statistic. And we’re only talking here about severe abuse! Though issues like stigma and shame play a big role in why men are reluctant to report cases of domestic abuse - the worry that they’d be seen as ‘less of a man’ can be a huge obstacle in accessing support. 

Worry about child custody is another common reason why men may choose to ‘stick with it’ rather than leave their abusive relationship behind. If they leave the family home, such is the unequal state of family law in Ireland, there is no guarantee that these fathers will be permitted regular contact with their kids, never mind custody or joint custody. 

For unmarried fathers, the position is even worse. There are, however, things that can be done that afford fathers – married or not - some rights such as applications for guardianship, custody or access. For men who have suffered any type of domestic abuse there are also remedies available to them - barring, protection and safety orders for instance. 

Male domestic abuse is on the rise and in the first instance the extent to which it exists needs to be recognised.

Kevin Brophy,
Brophy Solcitors

NEVER HATE YOUR EX MORE THAN YOU LOVE YOUR CHILD!

‘My kids don't go back and forth; none of this 50/50 time with the mums and dads. My children live with me; that is it’. This comment, made by Kate Winslet during an interview with Vogue magazine, inspired a controversial Christmas ad campaign by UK rights group Fathers4Justice. 

Their ad features a picture of Kate under which reads the slogan ‘Kate, every child deserves their father this Christmas’, followed by details of her interview. 

Also featured in what’s been termed the ‘Crummy Mummy’ campaign are Halle Berry (‘Halle, a father is for life, not just conception’), Katie Holmes (‘Katie, do you believe in equal parents, equal love?’) and Kim Basinger (‘Kim, never hate your ex more than you love your child’). 

Fathers4Justice are fighting to give fathers equal rights to see their children after separation. They are a proactive group who use publicity to increase public awareness of fathers’ rights issues. Their campaign succeeded in attracting significant media coverage and drawing attention to these issues at a time of year when it is especially difficult for parents who are unable to see their children. 

The group have been criticised for their tactics not only by the lawyers of these celebrities but by certain UK media sources who claim that the campaign is misogynistic and disingenuous given that some of the women now have amicable custody arrangements. 

Regardless of their custody arrangements, Kate and others in the public eye must realise that they are role models and that their actions and comments can be damaging. Fathers4Justice are challenging inequality and anti-father discrimination including the commonly held belief that a child having a relationship with their father can be disruptive. 

In the UK, as in Ireland, the law favours mothers. Too often, fathers are unnecessarily prevented from having regular contact with their kids. I hope that 2014 will see an improvement in outcomes for separated fathers but I think there’ll need to be more proactive, perhaps controversial campaigns before this will be achieved. 

In case you were wondering, Kate is threatening to sue, while Halle and the others have refused to comment. 

Kevin Brophy,
Brophy Solcitors

SAFETY ORDER? IT’S ALL PART OF THE BATTLE

Over the years I have often written pieces finishing with the sentence “I wonder could this possibly have happened if this man was a woman”.

Here is another one.

A woman walks into a District Court and tells the judge that seven years ago, my client had a row with her because he suspected she was seeing another man. He was accused of touching her in a way that constituted an assault.

They separated shortly afterwards and ever since then my client has been fighting to gain access to his son, with whom he has a terrific relationship.

There have been many court hearings since and this alleged incident has never been mentioned. It was mentioned a few weeks ago and the judge, without hearing anything my client had to say, granted a protection order pending the hearing of a safety order and then granted her a safety order for three years.

My client was not represented at the safety order hearing because he could not believe that this completely contested incident, which was supposed to have happened un-witnessed by anybody over seven years ago, could possibly result in a negative finding against him. I have been in court with men over the years and I have been in court with women over the years where my clients have been soundly criticised by judges because they waited two weeks to come in to court to complain of an incident, which they said put them in fear.

My client has now come to me and we are appealing the matter. It will result in my client incurring substantial legal fees but he feels he has no choice because he cannot have a black mark like this against him.

All I will say is – it wouldn’t happen if he was a woman.

Kevin Brophy,
Brophy Solcitors

IT WOULDN'T HAPPEN TO A WOMAN FAMILY LAW IN IRELAND 2013

A man marries a woman. They are both self employed earning the same money. They both decide to work three days week so they can look after their new born son. Prior to the marriage, the man built up a substantial property portfolio in the UK by remortgaging the house that was to become the family home. Most of the properties are now in substantial negative equity. 

Problems occur. Mother will not allow father to have anything other than a minimal input into looking after their son. She leaves home. She moves in with her mother in a mortgage free house registered in her name. 

What do you think will be a fair outcome? 50/50 on everything? I am only giving you a very potted history here but I couldn’t blame you for thinking that this should be a good example where in 2013 there is a degree of equality between the sexes both in relation to parenthood and in relation to financial assets. 

All wrong. The woman gets the mortgage free house free of any claim of the man. The man gets all the debt ridden properties. The one that has the heaviest negative equity is ordered to be transferred into the sole name of the husband so he now has to look after this property which is unlikely to become an asset for about 15 years. 

The children’s allowance was to be used to fund the child’s third level education. It now goes to the mother. 

Please don’t be shocked or surprised. This is just a day in the life of the Dublin Circuit Family Court.

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors

WHY DO FATHERS HAVE TO FIGHT TOOTH AND NAIL TO SEE THEIR CHILDREN?

The following is probably the most regular scenario I come across when acting for fathers of young children.

A father (we will call him Stephen) comes in to me and says that his daughter is 3 months old but he separated from her mother (we will call her Anne) and she will not allow him see his daughter. I issue a summons and the case comes to court. The other side will not negotiate with me and they say that baby would not be safe with their father because he has never changed a nappy and he wouldn't know what to do with an infant. The judge agrees to some extent but orders that access will take place for two hours on a Saturday supervised by mother. Stephen comes back to me on a fairly regular basis, generally once every six months or so looking for further access. He hopes to get overnight access but after a year and a half he has only managed to increase access to four hours on a Saturday unsupervised by the mother. 

Stephen then looks for overnight access. Anne says that the child is too young but that she will consider it when the child is 3 years old. The judge agrees.

It is at this point that I would not blame Stephen, given that he is 22 years of age and given that he is now in a relationship with someone else, if he were to simply say that he does not want to continue to fight to have a relationship with his daughter particularly given that he will shortly have a new family. However, he does not want to give up on his daughter and he continues to press for more contact.

Fast forward to last Monday. We were in court six months ago and we got one overnight every two weeks. 

On this occasion Stephen was looking for two overnights every two weeks and the mother said that she thought this would be too disruptive and that her daughter was only just about able to handle the current access arrangement being one overnight every two weeks. 

Eventually the judge made an order granting my client an increase in access but less than he was looking for and mother was very unhappy leaving the court.

What is the problem with young mothers? I have known my client for the last three years and he is clearly entirely devoted to his daughter. Not one complaint has ever been made about him not turning up for access or about anything happening during access. The only time something acrimonious happens is when mother refuses to agree to a further access. I really would like to know what is it in mothers that make them act in this way. It happens so regularly and the arguments used are always identical. “Access is too disruptive”; “she is too young to be spending so much time away from her mother”; “she is always upset and disturbed when she returns from access”. It’s always the same. Fathers like Stephen have to fight tooth and nail to have any sort of relationship with their sons or daughters. And I have yet to come across a situation where I have had to review my thinking about these fathers. 

All they want to do is have a relationship with their infant sons and daughters. Their sights are low. They do not tend to look for joint custody or 50 50 joint parenting. They just want to have a reasonable relationship with their child. Is that too much to ask?

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors

ALL MEN ARE VIOLENT ANIMALS

I attended a conference last Monday at which I was told that 90% of all domestic violence was perpetrated by men but that the real figure was probably closer to 95%. This was the position even where domestic violence was described as using emotional abuse, the silent treatment, using coercion and threats, intimidation, using the children and minimising denying and blaming the other side. So it was certainly not limited to physical violence. Despite this very broad and in my view entirely accurate description of domestic violence, the speaker said that the real figure was probably 95% men using violence and 5% women. 

I was then told that where parental alienation occurs i.e. where children express unreasonably negative feelings and beliefs towards one of their parents, this is generally a 50/50 situation between the sexes. At the same time I was told that the parent responsible for parental alienation is generally the person who has custody of the children.

I have been working in the area of family law for almost 30 years and I absolutely reject these figures. 

In addition to all of this, a report was contained in today’s Irish Times stating that violence against children and women is continuing during access visits arranged by the courts. Reference was made to children, who had “seen their mother being beaten, seeing their mother being raped, seeing their mother being punched”. There was talk of a “tsunami of work” being dealt with by the Dublin Family Law Court. The implication here is that the courts are being overwhelmed as a result of evil violent men continuing to abuse their former partners and even their children.

All I can talk about is my own personal experience as a family lawyer. I can say based on my own personal experience that I have lost count of the number of men who have called to my office saying that they have slowly felt frozen out of their marriage and that for a long time they had suspected that their wife was having a relationship with someone else and then they receive a solicitor’s letter looking for a separation and accusing them of having a drink problem or a gambling problem. In the last year, I have advised four or five men, who have been accused of sexually abusing their children in circumstances where I am absolutely convinced that the reason behind the accusation was to prevent the father having contact with a child, not to protect the child from the father. I have to say this is an absolutely dreadful accusation to make but I am convinced that it is happening more and more often, particularly with young women, who just want the father out of their lives.

Over the years, I have sat in front of men who have cried as I read sections of solicitor’s letters to them where they have been accused of bullying, aggressive violence. They have told me that the exact opposite has been the case and that their wives would punch them and taunt them and invite them to respond in kind stating that they know their rights and they will have him barred within 24 hours. This last example is a very regular feature of the family law cases I handle on behalf of men. 

I would also say that based on my personal experience over 25 years that parental alienation most definitely does take place but that in my experience, 90% of the victims of parental alienation are men. Does this count as domestic violence? Does continuous nagging and belittling constitute domestic violence?

I have no doubt that the majority of physical violence in the family home is perpetrated by men. Even a very substantial majority. However in my view the “tsunami” referred to above should not refer to work being dealt with by the family law courts but the statistics that are poured out in our media every day painting men as the sole perpetrators of violence and any form of abusive relationship. 

The media continue to portray men as almost exclusively responsible for the ills of family life in Ireland. It seems that I and 95% of the male clients I act for are the only non-violent, non-raping, non-abusing men in Ireland. We should therefore be treated like a protected species.

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors

VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN DURING ACCESS VISITS

I recently commented on an article in the Irish Times where Women’s Aid spoke out about the ‘tsunami of cases’ involving women and children being abused by men during access visits. 

I said that I have been working in family law for nearly 30 years and these statistics in my view are grotesquely distorted. I have absolutely no doubt that very many women attend Women’s Aid and have been victims of violence at home but to portray men as the exclusive oppressors is infuriating and is simply wrong.

My client Mr. A did not attend Women’s Aid. He is a man who was threatened by his wife and more particularly by his wife’s family, that he should stay out of his wife’s and children’s lives. His life was threatened. He stayed away but then felt guilty and missed his children and wanted to be part of his children’s lives and he contacted his wife again but she said that she would not agree to him seeing the children. 

He brought an application to court and outside the court the other side said that they would agree to one hour supervised access in her family home. This was a quite outrageous offer to make and I strongly advised my client to let the matter proceed to court because there was no reason why he could not have the children with him overnight on a regular basis in his own home. Quite incredibly however my client decided to agree to the proposal on the basis that he did not want to fight his wife in court as he feared for the consequences if I made certain allegations against her and against her family. 

There then followed a period of six months where the access was not actually supervised by the wife but was supervised by her father and by her brothers. The supervision consisted of my client being required to sign his name when he came in through the front door and if he was even five minutes early he was not allowed in the door. He then had to sign out at the end of the access visit. On his daughter’s birthday, he brought a camera to take photographs and he was told he could not take photographs. He was told that taking photographs was not permitted by the Court Order (the Court Order was silent on this point). On sunny days he asked could he go outside and bring the children to the park but this was refused. He was allowed in one room and access was physically supervised by his wife’s father or by other male members of her family at all times.

Matters came to a head when on another child’s birthday he attempted to take a photograph with his mobile phone and he had the camera removed from him and when he objected, he was beaten to the extent that he received serious injuries and was detained in hospital for three days. 

He now has unsupervised access outside the family home but that is the price he had to pay. 

Another problem here is that as far as Women’s Aid are concerned, my client does not actually exist. He reported this violence to nobody. He is not therefore even a statistic. He tolerated the access restrictions just so he could maintain contact with his children. We all know that 95% of the victims of domestic abuse are women. My client does not exist.

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors

HOW AN UNSCRUPULOUS IRISH MOTHER CAN PREVENT A FATHER HAVING ANY CONTACT WITH HER INFANT CHILD

If you are an unscrupulous Irish mother or for that matter an unscrupulous mother living anywhere in the western world, this is your lucky day! 

I have an absolutely fail-safe way of ensuring that the man you recently separated from never gets to see his children. It works every time. Take out your pens and pencils ladies – this is what you do:

First of all you have to take these steps before your child can talk properly, although that is not absolutely crucial. It does however help that the infant is so young that he or she cannot talk because if they can, they might tell the truth and then you could be in deep trouble.

The first thing you have to do is not change your child’s nappy properly for a few days. Undoubtedly a rash will develop. You then bring the child to your GP and you tell your GP that every time the child comes back from an access visit, he/she is upset and crying and always seems to be sore and irritated in the groin region. Then make a comment about how your ex used to watch pornography on his computer. You don’t actually have to go that far because in the current culture, the GP will almost certainly refer the matter on to the local health authority – in Ireland the Health Service Executive. 

The HSE will then appoint a social worker and because of government cuts and general under funding, nobody will be able to look into these allegations for several months. In the meantime you can just tell the father that the GP has worries and access has to come to an end. If the father takes the matter to court, a judge will say that he cannot take any risks and he has to await the outcome of a formal investigation. In Ireland, this investigation can easily take six months and more. Now ladies – will that work or won’t it? If you are happy with this advice and you want to make a financial donation to a worthy cause, make the payment to any separated man’s organisation. They will know what I am talking about. 

Finally, I am a lawyer, so here is my disclaimer. I know most women are absolutely fine and they wouldn't dream of making such allegations and I know war and pestilence are bad things but unfortunately they happen. And I know men can be wife beaters and child abusers. I know all that. I am just making one small point.

Kevin Brophy

Brophy Solicitors

When even your friends are your enemies...

Image from tumblr

I am in the process of taking over a family law case on behalf of a very unhappy father. He told me that his previous solicitor was not supporting his application to have joint custody of his very young son. He is a self employed man, who has organised his working week so that he can be free three days a week to look after his son. He is clearly a very dedicated, very caring, very loving father. He accepts that his wife is a caring, loving mother.

I had to admit that I thought there was more to the fall out with his previous solicitor than I was being told and when I spoke to the very experienced female family law solicitor, who had previously represented him, I was completely taken aback to hear her state that my client was being utterly unreasonable and that there was absolutely no hope that he would get the type of joint custody he was looking for.

What she said was that my client was treating his son like a commodity – 50% to you and 50% to me. She said that this child was only 5 years of age and it was clear that the mother should always have primary care and control in circumstances such as this.

I am only commenting on this because it happens so often. It particularly angers me because I have always believed a solicitor’s role to advise and support their client and not impose your own personal values on the client.

Men have a hard enough time with a legal system that is biased so much in favour of mothers without having their own lawyers adopting the same approach.

I would say this to all clients who are instructing a new solicitor. Suss them out first. Have a cup of coffee with them and find out if they are genuinely on your side and if they will genuinely support and help you through the process whether it is family law or anything else. You are paying a fee and probably a generous fee to a person, who at the very minimum, should support and help you through a particularly traumatic time of your life. The very last thing they should do is impose their own moral judgements on you. Ask your solicitor if you can talk to any of their previous clients. You would do the same if you were getting a builder to build your extension and so why not with your solicitor. Ask them if you can meet them in a less formal setting and get some idea what sort of person they are and how they will represent you.

If somebody is supposed to be on your side, make sure they really are on your side. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is a very dangerous animal.

Kevin Brophy
Brophy Solicitors

Would this happen if he was a woman?

Before you read this, please note that I am a married man, I have two daughters and I have nine employees all of whom are women. I know this sounds like I am going to go on to say something along the lines of ‘I am not a racist but...’

Having said all that... a situation arose in the last few days that absolutely made my blood boil. A man instructed us that he has been married to his wife for many years and they have two very young children. He is running a very successful, very stressful business. His wife has a serious addiction problem and my client described in very emotional terms how he has come home to find his wife almost comatose and his infant children crawling around the house crying and unattended. She is not working but was not happy to do the house work and a housekeeper has been employed.

I have advised him that he should make an immediate application for sole custody of the children and that he would be justified in seeking a judicial separation. He says that he has already put arrangements in place whereby his mother and his sister could share looking after the children when he is not available. My client is effectively self employed and he would not need to turn to his mother and his sister except for short periods during the week. Despite the difficulties that have arisen, he appears to bear little ill will towards his wife and is happy that she have extensive access, particularly when she finally starts dealing with her addiction issues.

My client described in very emotional terms how attached he is to his children and how he is so fearful for the future because he presumes that when he eventually separates from his wife, she will almost certainly get custody. I have to admit that there is this risk. She will almost certainly inform a court that she accepts that she has had problems in the past but she has addressed those problems and everything is now working out and she should not be penalised because of her past addiction issues. Her trump card then will be the fact that she is not working and she can look after the children full time whereas my client is working and cannot look after the children full time. She will say that it is best for these children to be with the mother - even if that mother is not the ideal parent - rather than be with strangers i.e. my client’s mother and his sister.

I have heard too many comments from too many judges over the years to know that she stands a very good chance of succeeding with that argument. “A young child’s place is with their mother” and “a bad mother is better than no mother” are comments I hear far too often.

The bottom line here is that this is wrong. A child does not need a mother. A child needs a loving mother who will care for them and nurture them.

The final point I would make is to reread this commentary and substitute the word ‘mother’ for ‘father’. The father would be presented in court as a lazy, good for nothing addict who is sponging off his wife who is doing her best to make ends meet and provide for the family in almost impossible circumstances. Do you think there is any remote prospect that a judge would say to that mother that these children deserve a father and that a bad father is better than no father and that the bad father should get custody of young vulnerable children?

There are many benefits to being a man in this modern world. Equality with women when it comes to parenting however is not one of them. 


Kevin Brophy
Brophy Solicitors

Section 47 Reports

Kevin's Blog

Anybody, who has been through the family law legal system and who has been the subject of a section 47 report, will know how critical these reports are. In my view it is absolutely essential that the parties are fully prepared before these meetings as they can have an absolutely critical bearing on the outcome of a case and given that the outcome of a case often means who is going to have custody of a young child or children and exactly what type of access is to take place, then it is absolutely critical that the client is fully prepared and knows exactly what type of questions are going to be asked and what is expected.

Solicitors have an enormously important role to play in all of this because in my experience clients are attending section 47 meetings completely unprepared and are then taken aback to see the importance placed on what the client thought was a relatively unimportant incident and findings are made, which will almost certainly not be interfered with by a judge.

As with everything – be prepared.

BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD?

I recently acted for a father, who had not seen his three young children for six months. He was trying to establish access with them. It was absolutely clear that he had the best interests of his children at heart and the reason why he had not seen them was because he had had a falling out with the mother, who was alleging that he was poisoning the children’s minds against their mother. Try as I might, I could not get any evidence of what exactly was said or done to constitute this “poisoning” allegation. When he was represented by his previous solicitor, my client had lost all access to his children and he says he was very unhappy with his legal representation.

I brought the matter back to court and sought access. The main point of this blog however is to comment on the attitude of the Legal Aid Board, who represented the mother. My client knew that re-establishing access would be difficult and would be met with opposition by the mother and therefore we limited our access request to 4 hours a week on Saturdays. We were met with a counter proposal being 1 hour per week on Saturday supervised by a family member and the mother.

I advised my client that he should let a judge decide whether or not this was a reasonable offer of access as I was very firmly of the view that it was not. He was literally terrified that if the case went to a hearing before a judge, he would never see his children again and ultimately he accepted the one-hour offer.

The Legal Aid Board’s job is to represent their clients but like everybody else, they -particularly as a State body - know that all family law cases are supposed to be determined based on the best interest of the child. I have been doing family law cases for 25 years and I think at this stage I know when a father is genuinely committed to his children or not. In this case my client was clearly committed to his children but legal representatives felt that one hour a week with their father represented the best interests of the children.

If ever there was a reason why family law should be kept out of the hands of the majority of lawyers, this is it. I cannot say stay away from lawyers but I will say carefully assess the legal advice you are getting and before you decide to go with a particular solicitor, make absolutely sure that that solicitor genuinely believes that family law cases should be determined by what is felt to be the best interest of the children.

Child Kidnapping cases

There was considerable coverage recently of the two young boys who were wrongfully removed from New York to Ireland by their mother. The High Court decided that the children should stay in Ireland and on Thursday last, the Supreme Court agreed with this. The general rule in child kidnapping cases is that the children should be returned to their place of habitual residence if they have been wrongfully removed. In this case, the judge said that because the children, aged 9 and 7, did not want to return to their country of habitual residence then the court should listen to the children. I absolutely accept that the children’s views should have been taken into account but this sets an extremely dangerous precedent. I do not understand why the New York Court could not have made this decision. It rewards the mother for effectively breaking the law in this case. She had no links to Ireland as she is a Latvian citizen and only had her sister living here. The father is now in New York and although the circumstances of this case, as reported in newspapers, do not reflect well on him, these children are now unlikely ever to have a relationship with their father.

I really believe this is a dangerous precedent for Ireland to set. This is a case that will now be used in other jurisdictions to justify this type of kidnapping.


Kevin Brophy
25.10.11