General Matters

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:40 pm on 21 December 2010.

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Photo of Andrew Selous Andrew Selous Conservative, South West Bedfordshire 5:40, 21 December 2010

Christmas is a time that parents look forward to celebrating with their children when they can. However, for many parents that is not possible-and I am thinking not only of our troops in Afghanistan, but of the 3 million children in this country who live apart from a parent and, in particular, of those who are caught in the family justice system. I think particularly of non-resident parents who are trying to get access to or have contact time, as it is called, with their children. This issue also affects grandparents, aunts and uncles to a very great degree.

Sadly, it is abundantly clear that the present family justice system is much too slow. Its processes are greatly abused by parents with no penalty or sanctions applied. It is far too expensive in many cases. One of my constituents, a father, came to see me to say that he had spent more than £8,000 obtaining a court-sanctioned contact order to see his children. He did not abuse that order, but it was not honoured and he could not get it upheld by the courts or the police. Unsurprisingly, he was then short of money to pay maintenance as he wanted to do.

The most vivid example of the failure to honour a court order came from a warrant officer who came to see me. He took his civilian overcoat off and underneath he was in uniform. On his chest was his badge of office-a crown, as those who have served in the armed forces will know-and he put the court order on the table in front of me with the crown of the court on it, stipulating that he should have time with his children every other weekend. That court order was not honoured, and it was not upheld by the police or the courts. He felt deeply let down.

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john tandy
Posted on 22 Apr 2012 11:48 am (Report this annotation)

Not to mention those families segregated by arbitary immigration rules, administered by UKBA selected (not elected) Judges, whose verdict is final, in persuit of the current UKBA agenda, unless one is prepared to fight all the way to the ECHR, which the Government continuously discredits (at times with some justification) British men should have the absolute right to marry foreign women from outside of the EU and not have to jump through hoops in order to bring their wives and families to the UK to live, particuarly when there is no other option open to them through no fault of their own and in particular those British citizens who have contributed to this countries ecconomy for 4 decades and served in this countries armed forces from the age of 15 years. Roll on a British Bill of Rights and i will fight to have this right included within it. After all, its only right is'nt it ?