I’m sure many of you will be aware of reporting put up on the BBC News website and broadcast on BBC News earlier this week:
Family courts: Children forced into contact with fathers accused of abuse - BBC News LINK
Family courts: 'We kidnapped our kids from abusive dads and fled the UK’ - BBC News LINK
BBC News - The Issue, Mums On The Run: Failed By The Family Court LINK
On behalf of FNF, I am writing to the BBC journalist, Ed Thomas, and BBC editors inviting them to meet us and to publish a more balanced article based on facts and evidence. We are also contacting other media organisations in relation to the bias and lack of impartiality in the BBC reporting.
If not already done so, we encourage FNF members and users to complain to the BBC using its complaints service - https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Complaint LINK Please express this as you wish based on your own experience and viewpoint, but features of the articles include:
- the use of partial research of extreme cases with a seemingly pre-determined conclusion
- minimal effort to seek balancing evidence, data or viewpoints.
- dismissal of all too real alienating behaviours (and the consequent damage to parents, children and extended family) as merely an alleging tactic used by abusive fathers
- no reference to child psychology experts on the damaging effects of alienating behaviours or abduction
- no examination of the potential for allegations of abuse to be false
- no examples of male suicide despite widespread recognition (including in the NHS) that separation from children is a significant factor in male suicide (which is itself 3 times higher than for women)
We will of course, in our meetings with government, the judiciary and other services, continue to push for evidence-based, child-centred solutions which support equality of parenting opportunities for both parents.
Sam Morfey, CEO
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