A big lie that destroyed a boy's trust ANTHONY DOUGLAS was eight years old and in the middle of a game of off-ground tag in his street when he discovered his family’s big lie.

Get down, you bastard!” one of his playmates shouted. When he later asked his parents what this meant, they explained that he had been adopted at the age of seven weeks.

That was a defining moment. I realised that the whole street knew, but not me. It was such a terrible breach of trust and I don’t think I ever recovered. Perhaps some of my passion about consulting children comes from that moment,” he says. It had never been a happy home. His father, whom he now believes had Asperger’s syndrome, bullied and beat his mother but maintained an outward front of respectability.

Young Anthony counted down the days to his 16th birthday when he could leave the unhappy couple, imagining every time the doorbell went that it was his “real mother” coming to get him.

Reflecting on what a Cafcass officer might have made of his childhood situation, he says: “I hope she or he would have started by asking me.

 

“I like to think I would have talked freely, if I thought they cared and understood.”

 

 

 

 

CHILDREN as young as 7 should be allowed to decide which parent they want to live with in cases of divorce or separation, Anthony Douglas, the head of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), has said.

The “wishes and needs” expressed by children, and not their parents, should be the starting point for settling residence and contact disputes, he said.

Most children over the age of 7, 8 or 9, depending on their emotional development, will have a very clear view of what they want to happen. That view should stand unless there are safeguarding issues or some other overriding welfare issues.

Children, when trusted and empowered, usually tell the truth. They will have thought about these issues very deeply. With their parents separating, they will be in a situation they don’t want to be in — they won’t have voted for it.

They will tell you what they want to happen. That should be your starting point,” Mr Douglas told The Times.

Mr Douglas emphasised that, ideally, children should spend time with both parents, but should be allowed to decide who to live with most of the time.

He acknowledged that asking children was difficult, but said that the real test of whether parents wanted what was in their children’s best interests was whether they would allow their children to have a say.

Father’s groups reacted angrily to Mr Douglas’s comments, saying that they would be bound to favour mothers in disputed custody cases. Tony Coe, of the Equal Parenting Council, said that it was for parents to decide what was in children’s best interests. “Children should not be given the option to opt out of one parent any more than they are allowed to opt out of school or going to the dentist,” he said.

Matt O’Connor, a spokesman for Fathers4Justice, said that Mr Douglas’s approach represented a gross abdication of responsibility on the part of Cafcass, which was set up in 2001 to co-ordinate the representation of children’s interests before the courts. “It could leave children feeling very guilty if they felt they had been responsible for driving one parent or other from their lives,” he said.

Both organisations said that allowing children to decide would favour the parent with care at the time of the contact dispute, usually the mother, as there was a risk that she could poison the child’s mind against the absent parent, usually the father.

Jack O’Sullivan, of Fathers’ Direct, agreed with Mr Douglas that the views of the children should be paramount, but said that care needed to be taken to ensure that children did not feel that they had to take sides.

It may be that a child says they want to be with one parent because they want to protect them. For example if daddy leaves and mummy is upset, the child might feel they need to stay with mummy to protect her,” he said.

Jim Parton, of Families Need Fathers, said that, although children should be listened to, those interviewing them needed to be very skilled to ensure that they did not ask leading questions. “With my son when he was asked, aged 5, ‘What do you consider to be your main home?

He said, ‘I have mummy’s house and daddy’s house’. The court welfare officer then asked him the question four more times and led him by the nose until he said, ‘mummy’s house’,” Mr Parton said.

 

Times Comment

The mouths of babes

It would be unwise to ask children to choose between their parents
 
There are rarely true “winners” from any divorce but children are often the greatest losers. It is right that this fact and their interests are awarded a very high priority when arrangements for custody are determined. The precise weight offered to their preferences as to whom they might live with remains, however, a matter of controversy. This argument will be further stoked by the candid views put to The Times today by Anthony Douglas, the chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service.
Mr Douglas believes that, with a number of exceptions, children from the age of 7 should have the primary voice in deciding their future. He has previously written that the judicial system should “listen to children first and last”. He contends that, on the whole, children have the insight and maturity to know what they want and that those insights should be respected by the courts. He has cited his own extremely difficult circumstances as a child — the adopted son of two parents where the father had come to “hate and detest” the mother — as an illustration in favour of his position.

Mr Douglas is an able public servant, passionate about his work and a staunch advocate for children. He recognises some of the challenges that a shift in the presumption of the law in this area might bring. He may, though, underestimate their impact. There are three powerful reasons against moving in the manner that he suggests.

The first concerns the age of the children he would empower. The level of maturity of those aged not merely 7, but up to the early teens, varies enormously. The difference is not just personality, but by gender and, for example, whether the child is the eldest, youngest or in the middle and the size of the family. Then there are the strengths or not of the broader family network. It would be an unwelcome step for the courts to assume that children at anywhere close to this age are the best judges of their own interests.

The second consideration is the damage that could be done to the already fragile relationship between separating parents. There is the danger of creating a competition for the affections of children that would be utterly destabilising. Parents might seek to shower their children with favours and treats or, worst still, poison them against the other partner. Divorce is bad enough without any extra conflict.

Finally, while it is clear that reform in this area is necessary, it has not been shown that the change required is that which Mr Douglas has suggested. The principal complaint made against the current system — and by sensible people and bodies, not merely aggrieved fathers dressed in silly costumes calling for “justice” — is that there remains a bias against awarding men the custody of children. Those children may also suffer as a consequence if denied proper contact with fathers.

Family law often lags behind social trends. In time more fathers will be awarded custody. Both the issues of access and alimony need to be policed more effectively. The change that Mr Douglas supports, nevertheless, would be a step in the wrong direction. www.timesonline.co.uk/article