Charlie Elphicke
Main Page: Charlie Elphicke (Independent - Dover)
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require courts, local authorities and other bodies, when determining or enforcing issues of residence and contact, to operate under the presumption that the rights of a child include the right to grow up knowing and having access to and contact with both of the parents involved in the residence or contact case concerned, unless exceptional circumstances are demonstrated that such contact is not in the best interests of the child; to create an offence if a relevant body or person does not operate under or respect such a presumption; and for connected purposes.
There are 3 million children who live apart from a parent in the UK, about 1 million of whom have no contact with the non-resident parent three years after separation. We know from the statistics that the number of court applications is rising. In 2005, it was 110,330 and in 2009—the most recent year for which the figures are available, I understand—it was 137,480.
We also know that the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service case load has been rising sharply. In 2007-08, there were 39,432 cases, and in 2009-10 there were 44,722. That was the subject of a recent Public Accounts Committee report and a National Audit Office investigation, which found that CAFCASS is not timely and that eight out of 10 Ofsted cases are failed. That is not good enough and as a result we have a massive delay in the court system. Even after a contact order is granted, as we all know from our surgeries it is all too often ignored, not enforced and not dealt with. The situation is simply unacceptable.
I am promoting the Bill today because I believe that there is a better way. First, we should reform things so that we have mediation rather than endless court cases. On average, mediation costs £752 a case whereas court proceedings cost £1,682 a case, and mediation takes 110 days whereas court cases take 435 days—more than a year. Some 95% of mediations are complete within nine months whereas only 70% of court cases are complete within 18 months.
Secondly, we need to reform and enforce contact properly. We need to place a duty on all involved. Too often, people say it is about mums’ rights or dads’ rights, but actually it is about the rights of a child to know and have a relationship with both their parents. That is the nub of what the Bill is about. It is not right that parents should sink their children’s right to know them in a sea of acrimony when they split up.
There are those who would say, “That doesn’t happen. The Bill is not necessary; it is a waste of parliamentary time. It’s not an issue. Why is Mr Elphicke bothering to do this?” Let me give some case studies. Mrs A, of Wootton in my constituency, wrote to me about her son’s experience with his children. She said:
“Each time a visit is due their mother creates a great deal of hassle—never being able to give a precise date etc. and has twice prevented the visit completely.”
The son went off to court to get a contact order. The letter went on:
“He has been in front of several different judges and every one has refused to do anything at all—just shrugging their shoulders, treating my son like a criminal, not even looking at the paper work and evidence. They just say there is nothing they can do.”
Mr G of Dover writes to me:
“I understand as they are my children I should help towards their upbringing, but surely this should not just involve paying my ex money and only speaking to them on a Sunday morning for 30 mins.”
Some people might think that this is all about dads. No, it is not. Let me give an example. Kenn Griffiths of mychildcontact.com sent me details of a case involving a mother who was divorced several years ago. The father has residence and the mother tells a moving story about how the father has been poisoning her children against her, telling them that she is ill and will never get better and that if they live with her they will make her even more ill. He has been saying the same to the CAFCASS representative. The only information the CAFCASS representative had in front of her was the father’s allegations, and she recommended that the mother see the children every other weekend in a contact centre, not for half the time as she does at the moment. Surely that cannot be the right way forward.
Let me give another case from just last week, of Tommy, a soldier from Coventry. He has a six-year-old daughter who lives with her mother. Court proceedings started last year. There was contact until January of this year, when the mother ended it. There was a court hearing and it all kicked off because CAFCASS could not get its ducks in a row until October of this year, but there is an issue here. Tommy is a soldier and he is about to be deployed to Afghanistan at the end of this month—this week, he will go to Afghanistan.
In January, Tommy applied for a specific order so that he could see his six-year-old daughter and take his leave of her before he went to serve his country—and, possibly, did not come back. He applied to the court. Was the judge at the hearing sympathetic? Did he allow Tommy to take leave of his six-year-old daughter before he went off to war? The judge said that it was unreasonable of him to ask to see his daughter and he should wait until October 2011 before the court would resume proceedings. This is a man who is off to serve his country. I wholeheartedly condemn that judge at Leicester county court for living in an ivory tower and having no idea about the real world and the parents’ feelings about seeing their children.
Let me detail the case of an alienated mother in which the father has the residence order for their two boys. They had 46 hearings between 2000 and 2006 before contact was finally achieved, by which time the damage had been done and the children were so alienated that they had no relationship with their mother. How can that be right? This is the existing law that we have to contend with.
Then there are the blackmail cases. Danny saw his six-year-old daughter every other weekend and on Wednesday evenings. He pays his ex-partner’s mortgage and he pays maintenance through the Child Support Agency, but one Friday before he was due to make a visit, mum said, “I need a new bed; if you don’t buy one, you won’t see your daughter tomorrow.” That was two years ago and he has not seen his daughter since because the judiciary will not enforce the contact orders. The system is stacked against him.
The reason I am putting this Bill before the House is to ensure that there is a clear and enforceable right of the child—a clear presumption in law—that will send a clear message to all those involved, including CAFCASS and all the weak-kneed judges who will not make or enforce any orders. To the parents who have residence orders and should know better, I want us to send the message that this is not about their rights: it is about their children’s rights to grow up knowing both their mother and their father.