The views of the enemies of shared parenting on PA is simple: they contend it’s a fictitious concept used by abusive fathers to get residence of children instead of their loving mothers. 

Our reply is this. We are a children’s rights organisation, half of them girls. It is not normal for children not to want a relationship with their ‘other parent’. If they say this, it should be looked at. Is there a good reason for it - there can be – or has it been created, sometimes deliberately but sometimes unwittingly, by the parent with whom they spend most or sometimes all of their time? 

It is mothers who are mostly accused of PA, usually because they are in a position to do it. When control of the children is given to their father, they can be just as likely to do it. 

A recent legal case illustrates this (LINK). It concerns a 9-year-old girl, Eve, who was living with her father. He had poisoned her against her mother and behaved in other unacceptable, on occasion extreme, ways. Multiple attempts had been made to get him to change. All had failed. The court, on the advice of the girl’s Guardian who had changed her mind about the prospects of alternatives, ordered that, despite her objections, Eve’s residence should be changed to her mother. The father should not be allowed contact because he would not use it positively.

The judge’s (her Honour Judge Patel) reasoning and approach is, in our view, totally convincing. Should it be applied more often? As a shared parenting outfit, we don’t - and nor do most excluded parents want - transfers of residence except (as in this case) in extreme circumstances. We want children to have a good relationship with both parents and their wider families both sides. 

We do not expect, however, the anti-PA lobby to leap to this father’s defence. 

Thanks, Vinay, for the info. 

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