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Father denied child contact with teenage daughter continues legal battle (10 December 2013)

Date: 10/12/2013
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Father denied child contact with teenage daughter continues legal battle

A father who has not been allowed to see his 14-year-old daughter by her mother for 12 years has won the support of a senior judge, who said the system had “failed the whole family”.

The man – who cannot be named to protect his daughter’s identity – has spent £100,000 on legal fees in the fight to see his daughter. Despite 82 court orders allowing him contact with the girl, her mother has refused to allow him to see or visit his child, known only as “M” in court papers.

The parents of the child lived together between 1989 and 1999, when the child was born. They split up in 2001. The father is now aged 61 and the mother 49.

The legal battle between them over child contact has been ongoing since they separated – and the father has been accused of assaulting his daughter physically and sexually, although all allegations were proven unfounded.

However, the child’s mother continued to deny him contact with his daughter.

In September the Court of Appeal ordered the case to be resolved. The man has said that his daughter’s childhood is “disappearing” and his relationship with her is “slipping away”. The Court of Appeal has said that the girl’s childhood was “irredeemably marred” by years of litigation between her parents.

In a written judgment, Lord Justice McFarlane said the girl’s mother had “doggedly refused to allow M to develop and maintain a relationship with her father without any good reason”.

He added that the opinion of a child psychiatrist was that the mother wanted an “unhealthy” exclusive relationship with her daughter – and hid her own opposition to her daughter having contact with her father behind her daughter’s “wishes and feelings”.

The legal process is expected to continue for several months, however, as expert opinions are sought by the Court. The father has said consulting psychologists in the case is “futile” unless they are experts in assessing a child who had been “coached”.

The unnamed 61-year-old father said after the latest hearing in Leeds that he has spent more than £100,000 in legal fees trying to see his daughter; whereas the girl’s mother is entitled to Legal Aid to cover her costs in the family courts. The man is representing himself in court.

“It is financially penalistic, as a private individual, to fight for your rights through the family courts,” he said.

“As a parent, one’s frustration lies with the lassitude of the court process that allows precious, irreplaceable time with your children to slip away – and the relationship you seek to have with them dissolve into the mists of time.
“Parents making applications to establish contact are often left defeated and frustrated by the slowness and lethargy of the court process.

“Time with your children can never be recaptured – it is lost for ever,” he added.

In 2012 a court in Sheffield ruled the man was not entitled to see his daughter but this ruling was overturned by the Appeal Court.

The case has been adjourned until February.

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