Press Release 

VIOLENCE AND CHILD CONTACT

Taking violence seriously includes being fair and objective about the risks, both in social policy and in individual cases.

The stakes are very high.

A shortfall exposes children and parents to risk.

An overshoot could result in a child being effectively orphaned because of false allegations.

What is needed are resources, first to investigate allegations and then to be able to respond to the findings.

All allegations of Domestic Violence - be the victim female or male - should be taken seriously and should not be allowed to rest untested.

Anyone who has been found to have been violent to their partners and especially their children should have to answer searching questions about their parenting. If there proves to be a continuing risk to children, precautions need to be put in place. In rare and extreme cases it may be necessary to stop contact between the parent and the child.

If there appears to be a continuing risk to an ex-partner, but none to the children, measures need to be taken both to ensure the children are able to have contact and that the ex-partner is protected

Robust action is called for when false allegations are made to prevent contact between loving and caring parents and children. This is perjury and an attempt to pervert the course of justice. Currently no action is taken.

Judges, politicians and the media need to be aware of the dangers of exaggerating the risk and of promoting unfounded gender stereotypes.

Such stereotypes can lead to children being wrongly denied a relationship with a parent, typically their father.

In the normal run of disputes over children there is no violence either to the children or between the partners.

In the minority, where it is involved, the assumption that the male parent was responsible is often false.

FNF deplores attempts to create prejudice over domestic violence, by either exaggerating its frequency or oversimplifying the pattern.

The victims of this prejudice are children, denied a relationship with a loved and loving parent.

The latest figures are from the British Crime Survey, the 2001 version of which was refined to reduce under-reporting of domestic violence. They indicate that 97% of women and 98% of men were not subject to 'domestic force' in the year in question. Some 38% of victims of domestic force were male. The more dangerous the violence, the greater the proportion that was inflicted by males. It also became rarer. By the category of 'severe force' 98% of women and 99% of men were not victims.(Calculated from Walby S, The Cost of Domestic Violence, Sept 2004) ....

The NSPCC research (Child Maltreatment in the United Kingdom 2000) is that most children live lives free of violence and have good relationships with both parents. Of those who had been victims of violence 49% had it inflicted upon them by their mother, and 40% by their father.