21st July 2004
The Daily Telegraph
Parents who divorce would not be guaranteed equal access to their children under plans unveiled by the Government.
Ministers want to ensure children see both their parents after a separation, but stopped short of Tory demands to give parents an automatic right to 50:50 access.
The Government has proposed changing the law after arguing that the current rules do not work.
Ministers want more help for parents to reach a settlement without recourse to the courts and to speed up custody hearings if they reach court.
They also want better enforcement of punishments for parents who breach court orders by refusing their former partners access to their children.
Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, said the plans, which were set out in a Green Paper, must concentrate on children's interests rather than parents' rights.
However, he argued that children are best served by maintaining contact with both parents.
He said: "This is about the interests of the child, it is about producing practical solutions to what is a real problem that affects as many as between 150,000 and 200,000 couples who separate a year.
"Ten per cent of those end up with disputes at court. We need to help everybody reach a solution that is in the best interests of the child."
He added: "There cannot and will not be an automatic presumption of 50:50 contact. Children cannot be divided like the furniture or the CD collection. It is more complex than that."
Proposals to help parents resolve access without going to court include helplines and legal aid targeted on resolution rather than litigation.
The court system should also be changed to speed up first appointments and allow the same judge to hear a case from start to finish in order to ensure continuity.
New punishments for parents who flout custody orders would include community-based sentences as well as making them compensate the other parent, for example where the cost of a holiday has been lost.
Matt O'Connor, the founder of the group Fathers 4 Justice, dismissed the Government plans.
"This is a cynical exercise in recycling the existing legislation and presenting it as reform," he told GMTV. "The law has to have teeth."
