Different Demons

There are two main groups of critics of the family courts: they are Father’s rights groups (such as Fathers4Justice but of course there are many others) who concern themselves primarily with private law disputes, and a quite separate group concerned primarily with care proceedings and “forced” adoptions (John Hemming MP and journalist Christopher Booker to [...]

Dads-to-be excluded from ultrasound scans

Rob Williams writes in the Guardian about the practice at Basildon hospital of excluding fathers to be from ultrasound scans. He suspect[s] that the policy to exclude men from the scanning room is rooted in a belief that men are not important to the process of bringing a baby into the world. Whilst I sympathise [...]

Musings on new fangled equality

Just a thought. I’m not trying to be controversial or nuffing. But it did occur to me today that whilst the clamour for a presumption of equal parenting is all well and good (I agree its a solution that should be given serious consideration in most cases, but not that this should be elevated to [...]

Permission Plus

Family Lore has alerted me to this curious decision of Lord Justice Wall on permission (RW v SW [2010] EWCA Civ 457 (29 April 2010)). Wall LJ adjourned off a father’s application for permission to appeal to a two judge court notwithstanding the fact that his own view was that the appeal had no reasonable [...]

Big Breasted Woman Appeals Court Decision

OK, so I lied – no big boobies here. But as they say in the playground: ‘Made you look, made you stare, made you lose your underwear’… . I’m a little puzzled by this article by Martin Evans at The Telegraph, entitled ‘Lesbian Mother Appeals Court Decision After Daughter Removed’. Having seen this re-tweeted on [...]

Sharia Courts Criticised by Civitas

The Times reports on a recently published Civitas report which is critical of Sharia Courts and in particular the tensions between Sharia and human rights and the law in this jurisdiction. Of particular note for family lawyers or those interested in it is of course the community pressure which can bear upon muslim women, and [...]

Scary Stuff – BNP White Paper on Family Law

No doubt the BNP are hoping to capitalise on the general disillusionment with mainstream political parties in order to gain seats in the forthcoming european elections and further down the line. (I have received a rather unpleasant leaflet through the door myself, plastered with respectable white people and unpleasant slogans.) For anyone contemplating casting a [...]

Crisis Centres in Crisis

Now THAT’s what the EHRC is FOR…Actually making people sit up and think about things.

Guidance For Knocked-Up Lady Barristers

According to the much esteemed ‘Counsel’ magazine, The Bar Council is soon to publish a ‘Guidance and best practice document for women planning to take maternity leave’. It goes like this: ’1. Don’t. 2. In the alternative, don’t come back.’. Fnar. . But seriously, this is good news, always assuming that the description above is a slip [...]

Race Row

The sacking of Sam Mason for her ‘racist’ comments to a taxi company has not only made the national news but has generated an astonishing amount of local comment (I gave up before I got to the bottom of the comments listed). Although there are big pockets of the west country which are not at all culturally [...]