Thanks to a woman in HMP Holloway whose son was taken by Barnet Council, I learned about this book. She says that 60-70% of all women in Holloway used to be in care, adopted or live with foster parents… She also said that one of the prison warders said that 40-60% of all mothers whose children are taken are foreigners…

This is one man’s harrowing story of frustration and determination as he battled for access rights to his young daughters following the bitter break-up of his marriage. Incredibly, his was a journey that spanned almost ten years, with 133 hearings by 33 judges, and which reportedly cost the taxpayer over GBP1 million.

What should have been a “simple contact dispute” somehow resulted in this innocent family man effectively being criminalized by the family courts, resulting in a stretch on the A Wing of the infamous Pentonville prison, which housed convicted murderers, terrorists, gun runners and drug dealers.

Mark Harris eventually took his case public and the campaign for fathers’ rights took off – with the formation of Fathers 4 Justice. This is a shocking story that deserves to be heard. Here is a Daily Mail article about one of his acts.

Later, in 2001, Matt O’Connor formed another Fathers 4 Justice group, after he also had problems seeing his children when separating from his first wife.

The fact that family courts are secret when children are forcefully being removed, can be understood in a world of white collar crimes.

But Fathers clearly suffer from that secrecy, when just trying to get access to their children!

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