Stopping rapist fathers having contact with children

Unpublished letter to the press by Lisa Longstaff, Women Against Rape

The campaign of Rotherham survivor Sammy Woodhouse to exclude her convicted rapist from contact with her son has opened ‘child welfare’ to much needed scrutiny. MPs agree that rapists must have no legal right to children born of rape (MPs call on change of law on rapist fathers after Rotherham case, 29 Nov. See below for details of new Early Day Motion in Parliament.)

But it’s not just the law that must change; the power of local authorities and family courts to socially engineer families must be curbed.

The law states that the welfare of the child is paramount, but in practice a (violent) father’s ‘right’ to contact often trumps the child’s right to safety. The mother’s safety is dismissed; worse, her warnings become evidence that she is ‘emotionally harming’ the children by ‘alienating’ them from the father.

As Ms Woodhouse pointed out, her experience is far from unique. The women we campaign with face similar injustices, whether their children were conceived by rape, or not:

An absent father convicted for domestic violence and drug dealing given residence of a child removed from a loving mother because she used drugs years earlier.
A convicted violent man the police consider a threat to life, invited by a family judge to claim his right to the children contravening an exclusion order.
A convicted rapist invited to apply for child residence after the woman he raped and her parents were dismissed as ‘unfit’ carers (she was mildly autistic, they ‘too old’).

These were not failures of law but of those who implement it. And of politicians who set the present direction by targeting single mother families for opprobrium and cuts. As the UN Rapporteur on Poverty said: ‘The state no longer has your back.’ It intervenes to police not to support.

Lisa Longstaff,

Women Against Rape / Support not Separation Coalition

25 Wolsey Mews, NW5 2DX

PARENTAL RIGHTS OF CONVICTED RAPISTS

EDM #1999

Tabled 23 Jan 2019

2017-19 session

That this House notes the case of Sammy Woodhouse, in which a man convicted of rape and serving a 35-year prison sentence was notified of family court proceedings for the child he fathered as a result of the rape; further notes that the man had no parental responsibilities for the child; regrets that Rotherham Council believes that it would not have secured an exemption to notify under the current criteria; further regrets that the presumption in the law is that a rapist is notified when decisions are made about a child fathered through rape; and calls on the Government to amend the Children’s Act 1989 to remove the parental rights of men who have fathered children through rape and to review the relevant Practice Directions to prevent rapist fathers from being notified of family court proceedings.

77 signatures at present

Stopping rapist fathers having contact with children

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