I recently received a letter from the Minister of State for Justice. This being the result of an appointment at the office of my local MP earlier on in the year. My aim in approaching my local MP was to bring to her attention the injustice in battling parental alienation and seek her help and support.

“The next farcical comment was “it is unacceptable for either parent to breach a court order.”

The resulting letter from the Minister of Justice started with a misplaced attempt at reassurance by informing me “the government recognises that decisions about child arrangements following divorce or separation can be difficult and distressing”. The letter then went on to say “no parent should prevent a child from spending meaningful time with the other parent.” The next farcical comment was “it is unacceptable for either parent to breach a court order.” However, in terms of entertainment value my favourite sentence in the whole letter was “Cafcass practitioners are aware of the potential for children to be influenced by parental views and are alert to this possibility throughout the progress of a case.”

The Minister of State for Justice clearly felt that he had not highlighted his ignorance of this issue enough. As such he then went on to point out the number of safeguards and measures currently in place and at the disposal of both the Courts and Cafcass. “You haven’t got a clue mate!” I thought to myself upon reading his letter.

“Approaching and requesting information from schools about ones own children is akin to getting blood out of a stone.”

It is also worth mentioning that I initially asked my local MP to write to the Children’s Minister, however my inquiry got passed over to the Minister of Justice. This is indicative of the fact that despite experts within the field of parental alienation arguing this is a child protection issue, the UK government does not see it this way.

This latest rebuff simply becomes yet another frustration in battling parental alienation; approaching and requesting information from schools about ones own children is akin to getting blood out of a stone. Having to quote government legislation and guidelines to Headteachers in order to exercise ones own parental responsibility is incredibly time consuming, unfair and unjust. The numerous ‘professionals’ that shy away from the term ‘parental alienation’ is astounding, on one occasion a frontline professional warned me that “we must be careful when we use the term parental alienation.” I am currently appealing the latest Cafcass report that informs me that my children are being emotionally abused but fails to provide any safeguards, interventions or protection from the abuse. During a recent telephone conversation with a senior manager from Cafcass regarding my appeal, he informed me that “it is difficult to know what to do when the damage has already been done!” An absolutely shocking comment from an organisation that claims to “make sure that children’s voices are heard and decisions are taken in their best interests.”

In his novel Ham on Rye, Charles Bukowski writes “I guess the only time most people think about injustice is when it happens to them.”

btg dad

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