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Ill18 p6 Marriage works, so what is the point of a pale imitation? - Oliver Letwin,
Shadow Home Secretary, Telegraph, 25jan02, p28 .... The Civil Partnerships Bill ....
provides us with the opportunity to restate society's commitment to marriage
and the special obligations and benefits that it entails. .... society
particularly benefits from the fact that children brought up by married
parents are more likely to have a stable background. .... children born to
cohabiting couples are twice as likely to see their parents separate as
children born within marriage. The Conservative approach is based on
outcomes - it does not stem from dogma, or from a particular set of religious
values. .... politicians .... should leave well alone when they encounter
long-standing institutions .... We must build on success. We must do noting
to undermine the institution of marriage. That is why the Civil Partnerships Bill
does not merit support. It provides rights .... that are already available to
couples through marriage..... Providing a watered-down variant of
marriage would serve only to undermine the institution, and increase the risk
of the state intruding into people's lives in order to discover whether the
extent of their cohabitation justifies the rights that they would claim. ....
the state should intrude less into people's lives. This principle is more
likely to be upheld if we keep faith with institutions, such as marriage,
that are the bulwark against state interference. Marriage is clear cut,
whereas weaker alternatives would involve the state inquiring into the length
or type of people's relationships: an increase in intrusion into our lives.
.... Marriage, which has proved itself to be
a force for good, must remain one of our essential foundations. [Full article is at www.ivorcatt.com/2005.htm ] Megaphone Diplomacy - Matthew
Mudge, 29jan02 Dear All, As planned, on Friday 25th January 2002
from 18:30 to 20:15, between 35 and 40 Equal Parenting Coalition
demonstrators manned a peaceful but very vocal picket outside the Severnshed
Restaurant in The Grove, Bristol. The occasion was the annual dinner of the
Bristol Solicitors Family Law Association and marked the first demonstrating
event of 2002. The weather was less than helpful being
somewhat windy and wet but did not prevent the generation of a warm reception
for those attending the dinner. Many colourful placards were evident as well
as the new EPC handouts bearing the new logo (big thanks to Matt O'Connor). Our new megaphone (courtesy of Spike and
Julie) was put to good use (after some initial teething trouble getting the
batteries in the right way !) and the diners were left in no doubt about our
reason for being there. Sheepish looks were the order of the evening, made
only worse by the courtesy of the protesters. Anson Allen had to be seen to
be believed sporting a shirt (with a collar !), bow tie and bowler hat, Anson
provided a doorman service (with umbrella) for those being dropped off at the
restaurant door. Bolder souls parked further up the street and walked past
us, braving the presence of fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents,
family friends and supporters. The demo was covered by a reporter and
press photographer from the Bristol Evening Post and Anson is liaising with
them about press releases etc. One new record to note a great grandmother had
braved the elements and travelled all the way from Cardiff for the event. Anyone know the details of the Great
Grandparents Federation ? May I publicly thank all those who
attended, several who did not quite make it due to traffic hold-ups, and
those who telephoned their support during the protest. Our thanks too for the
patience and understanding demonstrated by the staff of the Severnshed
Restaurant who took it all with grace and in good humour. It would be remiss of me not to thank the
van full of local constabulary officers who were present throughout. I
introduced myself to them at the beginning of the evening and made sure they
knew we were not there to cause trouble. One officer thanked me for my
trouble and pointed out to me that he recognised me from the Bath demo where
he had been on duty too. The officer asked for leaflets for one of his
colleagues in the back of the van who was experiencing the same difficulties
in his private life and quantities of leaflets, posters and membership forms
were handed over. To conclude, I am in no doubt about the
effectiveness of targeting such events for action and judging by the many
favourable comments received on the night from by-passers, bus, van and lorry
drivers (and even from some of those attending the dinner), we are succeeding
in our aims of raising public awareness and generating public sympathy for
the plight of our children. Now is not the time to relax. Even a year ago, we would have all been
delighted to have a crowd of 40 people attend a demo in the middle of summer.
To do so in January on an evening of quite dreadful weather indicates how far
we have come in such a short time. Our children now need us to convert this
number from tens into hundreds and then thousands. Many more events are being
planned and absolute support and commitment is now vital. I am not writing
this for the regular attendees quite rightly I could be accused of preaching
to the converted. We must now encourage and motivate all those who have yet
to support a demo to do so. I have yet to meet the person who attends only 1
demo and then walks away EVERYONE who comes once will be made welcome and I'm
sure, will wish to keep coming. That's all for now watch for details of
the next demo. Kind regards and best wishes to everyone; Matthew Mudge,
Cardiff. Also see www.ivorcatt.com/2013.htm Sunday fathers: their untold story - Maureen
Freely, Marie Claire dec01 .... Above all, we must resist the tendency
to use children as weapons in a continuing battle against another partner or
another adult. .... 40% of fathers lose contact with their children within
two years of separation or divorce. This is a famous statistic and is usually
read at meaning 40% of post-divorce dads are either deadbeats - who don't
want to know or pay for their children - or beyond the pale in some other
way. They must have histories of abuse, neglect or violence, people assume. However, it is beginning to emerge that
a large number of these fathers are unjustifiably stereotyped. Hiding inside
this shadowy 40% are hundreds of thousands of ordinary men who have been
barred from seeing their children and often for reasons that would be deemed
sexist if applied to women. .... the Children Act, for all its fine
words about shared parenting, gives non-resident parents - usually the father
- only one right: the right to apply to a court to see their child. However, this is rarely made explicit.
As one father told me, 'No one tells you anything. You go to a solicitor, who
tells you nothing .... .... the court reporter decided his two girls did not
want to see him because that's what they said in an interview conducted in
the presence of the mother. When this father asked why the family court
reporter hadn't spoken to the girls alone, she said, 'Actually, I was
thinking of taking them for a walk, but it was raining.' When he asked if she
might have made a different decision if it had been sunny and she had taken
the girls for that walk, she replied, 'Yes, I probably would have done.' But
by then it was too late to undo the damage. .... a court reporter can make any
recommendations for any reason. There is no established way for her to make
sure she's not unduly influenced by any personal views she might have about
what is 'right' for a child. Due to added pressure of work, she is often
obliged to arrive at her decisions quickly. There is no set form she must
follow. There's not even a requirement that she ascertains the wishes of the
children in a safe place where neither parent can pressurise them. Ill18 p7 In one case, the court reporter cold
find no reason why a child shouldn't see more of his father. She went on to
say that, 'Nonetheless, the mother must be concerned about something', and
advised that his contact be limited to two hours, once every six weeks.
Another father with no signs of abnormality had to undergo three
medical/psychological exams on the recommendation of a court reporter to
prove he was normal. When the results were judged to be inconclusive because
he only 'appeared normal', his application to see his children was denied.
.... Unfortunately, it is impossible to
report on the precise nature of these cases as judgements are confidential.
Not even the judiciary knows what the overall picture is. The can't even see
if different judges or courts have different types of outcomes. There has
been no effort to collate data on the first 1 million cases that have gone
through the system. Everyone is in the dark. But it would appear that the court's
standard solution in contact cases is to support the parent it perceives as
the primary carer and to marginalise the other. And there's a pretty solid
consensus now among professionals that this isn't always good news for the
children. .... The Coalition for Equal Parenting, which
includes mothers' as well as fathers' groups, would like a system in which it
is much more difficult for one parent to make false allegations against the
other. .... "Goodbye Boys" - Maggie
Brown, Radio Times 12jan02, cover and p39 Meet the women who are taking over the
news. .... [We shall be meeting more and more
triumphalism, see below, since today an employer needs to avoid employing
white males in order to steer clear of equality and sexist legislation. - Ed] In announcing the appointment of
[Kirsty] Young, Kevin Lygo, Channel 5's director of programmes, believes that
he has found the answer. "The main news programmes have all been
presented by men in their fifties and upwards, .... To have an intelligent, attractive,
talented professional woman at the centre of our news and our channel is
equally important. It is positioning the channel in keeping with what we are.
She is a modern woman, a working mother: she personifies the values we want
to be associated with." .... Attwell, 50, tuns the news content of
BBC News 24, BBC World and services on BBC3 and BBC4. She recently watched a
boxful of tapes from young hopefuls: 15 women, just two men. "I can't
tell you the trouble I've had finding male presenters - ones of quality, able
to cope with anything. They are really thin on the ground. ...." So why are good male presenters so hard
to find? "I don't know ...." [Have young white males finally got the
message, that a TV channel must use a non-white or a woman as front man in
order to fend off Employment Tribunals, the Equal Opportunities Commission
and the Race Relations Board. With a PC frontage, the TV company may get away
with employing a few white males with technical skills in the background. -
Ed] The baby war - Tessa
Boase dares to be politically incorrect - Sunday Times News Review, 11nov01,
p1 .... Supermums. But many childless women
secretly call them an absolute pain. Is motherhood compatible with work? .... I get no benefits equal to family
pension or healthcare plans. .... none-parents are being cheated .... the
"new found fury of the childless". Largely missing from the debate is the
question of whether couples become parents as a matter of absolute choice or
whether they are meeting the needs of society, which should consequently take
collective responsibility for children. ...."They're continuing the
human race, for God's sake, ...." What men earn will be revealed to women - Sarah
Womack, Telegraph, 6dec01, p4 Women will have the right to know how much
male colleagues doing similar work are paid, the Govt announced yesterday. Companies who refuse the information
could be taken to an employment tribunal. The move is aimed at closing the 18
per cent pay gap between men and women in similar full-time jobs. Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry
Secretary, said the employment law changes would not solve the problem of
unequal pay overnight. "A cultural change among employers
to value women's contribution to business success properly was also
needed," she said. She wanted women to test an employer's
equal pay policy by obtaining information about wages and job grades. Too many women were becoming
"detached" from well-paid jobs by motherhood, she said. Mrs Hewitt made her announcement in
response to a report by Denise Kingsmill, the Govt's adviser on equal pay,
which said employers' attitudes to equal employment and pay should be open to
public scrutiny. Firms were urged to launch pay reviews
to make sure women staff were not being paid less than men. Larger companies will have to publish
details of how they train and recruit staff. Thirty years after the Equal Pay Act,
women are still getting paid less than men, resulting in a deficit that could
add up to as much as £250,000 over a lifetime. On average, for every £1 a man earns, a
woman gets only 82p over both the public and private sectors. In the banking and insurance sector,
male pay averages approximately £18 per hour. Women receive just under
£10.50. [But see P Hewitt and P Leach, Social
Justice, Children and Families, pub. IPPR 1993, p iv; "....The pay gap between women and
men is largely a result of family responsibilities. The earnings of single
childless women, on average, are over 95% of those of single, childless men:
but married mothers earn, on average, only 60% of the pay of married
fathers." She has to avoid the significance of her
own figures. She is using the failure of married mothers to earn much, to
raise the pay of single women above that of single men. That will make young
men even more unmarriageable, and accelerate the drop in the marriage rate
and the birth rate, both already at crisis level, because women and men will
pay an increasing penalty if they marry. The missing statistic in the Hewitt book
is that single men, single women and married women all earn about the same
(see Gilder), while Married men earn 70% more than all the others. However,
there is enough information in the Hewitt book to show that the present
Hewitt initiative is undertaken by an anti-social shyster bent on destroying
the family, or else by a stupid woman. Harman's 1993 book The Century Gap,
p123, says; "Young men and women
with comparable qualifications but who are not parents earn much the same as
each other. When men become fathers their earnings are unaffected or
increase; when women become mothers their earnings drop...." Harman,
along with radfems in general, is immune to statistics, so her confirmation
that singles earn the same is of limited value, but worth mentioning to show
the hypocrisy extends beyond Hewitt to the full coterie surrounding Blair. -
Ed] Ill18 p8 Worms are crushed by a feminazi boot - letter
from Andrew Schofield, Telegraph, 8dec01 Some years ago, The Two Ronnies conjured
up a vision of Stalinist feminism in a sketch called "The Worm that
Turned". I never thought I would live to see it become a reality. Yet
the announcement by Patricia Hewitt that female employees are to enjoy the
right to confidential salary information about their male colleagues (report,
Dec.6), I believe I might. It remains to be seen whether the courts
uphold reciprocal rights for men. What is truly disturbing, and should worry
women as much as men, is what it reveals of a government terrorised by
political correctness and in thrall to a "feminazi" clique. A series of bone-headed initiatives in
the area of employment law is already in danger of diminishing the
achievements of successful women. European and govt money funds sexually
exclusive training centres, while bounties are offered to employers to hire
female engineers and scientists. The Equal Opportunities Commission is
now seeking the right of automatic promotion for women, with the burden of
proof shifted to employers to prove inadequacy or incompetence. What next in the gender jihad? Men's health
is already comprehensively neglected, in spite of reliable new screening
methods for the scourge of prostate cancer. Men are routinely asset stripped
in the courts without regard to the conduct of a former spouse. But
overpromoted women present the thorniest problem of all, for the respect of
peers is a matter of private conscience. Patricia Hewitt, Harried Harperson
and Labour's other unreconstructed feminists may have to consider an oriental
mode of ritual obeisance. It could be the only way to keep this cruel and
capricious show on the road. - Andrew Schofield, Cambridge Reality Control of the media by radfems prevents
the public from knowing that the denial of basic human rights to fathers is routine.
The hidden agenda is the belief, fostered by Stinko of RHC, who is funded by
the Home Office to fabricate false statistics, that the main threat to a
child is its own father; that the reason why a father wishes to access his
child is in order batter it or else to sexually molest it. This letter is one
of many. - Ed Dear Ivor, Thanks for sending me the
extracts on the DV research and the goings on at RHC. I sent copies on to my M.P. FD, pointing
out that the Melanie Phillips quote - of lies about men being accepted as
truth - was nowhere better adopted in vicious anti-male style than by our own
A City Council, who despite knowing I have 'equal parental rights' AND a
court order to see my son, supply my ex with 3 nights a week social work
carers, babysitting whilst I pace the streets totally unable even to see my 6
year old. This is naked use of social work for political ends and the thin
end of an ugly wedge. Social services being used to facilitate the exclusion
of a man from his children and refusing even to discuss the matter. Like many I am a not-too-proud-of-it
member of FNF .... I very much appreciate the stance of the publications and
hope I can be of some small help .... All of the best, PH. When ignorance is not bliss for the rest of us "Ministers' revolt
saves trial by jury. - Francis
Gibb, Times, 21jan02, p1. "Plans to scrap the right to trial
by jury for many offences are to be abandoned in the face of strong
opposition led by prominent members of the Cabinet. .... One option would be
to implement Sir Robin's proposal for a formalised system of plea-bargaining,
increasing incentives for defendants to plead guilty before magistrates.
Conviction in the Crown Court would result in heavier punishment. ...." Plea-bargaining increases the conviction
rate, and will always be exploited by the police. Even after the end of
Thatcher, their promotion will still be linked to their conviction rate.
However, the most insidious factor, which none of these highly salaried
people consider, is parole. I am in correspondence with many falsely
imprisoned prisoners who refuse to admit to a crime they did not commit, and
so serve their full sentence rather than only half. I set out to organise a
"crossed fingers behind your back" "confession", so that
the prisoner could proceed to sue all the rogues to framed him, even after
"admitting" the crime so as to get out of prison and back home
earlier. (My friend, the wife-murderer Charles Hanson, see Ill Eagle 10, p4,
www.ivorcatt.2000.htm whose help I needed, refused to help, so I gave up.) I
think particularly of a policeman framed on a rape charge and still in prison
in Northern Ireland, who finally, after some years, succumbed and falsely
admitted guilt so as to get back to his wife and children two years earlier.
(He tells me that he now faces listening to courses run by virulent radfems,
which he finds extremely upsetting, on how to not rape again.) It seems that
none of the judges, politicians and journalists have the motivation to think
these matters through, although it is easy to do so. Another man, Koupparis,
who was framed and sentenced to four years, discussed in my book The Hook and
the Sting, on my old website www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk, told me he
served his full term so that afterwards he would still be able to sue for
wrongful imprisonment. These cases are all around us, but not around
politicians, judges and journalists. What is so terrifying is that a highly
intelligent woman friend of mine stuck to the disastrous idea that admission
of guilt has to remain the first step in the rehabilitation process, even
though she was familiar the way all the lawyers and judges in my divorce case
welcomed perjury, and knew that it was rampant in the courts. So it is not
only politicians, judges and journalists who refuse to use their brains when
addressing these terribly important matters. A legal and criminal system run by
people whose only interest is their golf handicap is threat to every one of
us. – Ed False result fear over DNA tests - Nick
Paton Walsh, Observer, 27jan02, p11 One in every hundred forensic tests
performed on the DNA of suspected criminals may give a false result,
according to the first research of its kind into laboratory error rates. ....
DNA testing is widely used to convince juries of a suspect's guilt or
presence at the scene of a crime, and was thought to be almost flawless. The findings will shock British DNA
laboratories, which deny that errors exist. .... the first accuracy tests
carried out on DNA laboratories [in Texas] .... calculated .... error had
occurred in 12 in every 1,000 tests. .... Charles Hanson W1638 Charles Hanson H M Prison Kingston Milton Rd., Portsmouth PO3 6AS 25jan02 Dear Ivor, I regret that you do not see the way that
all those prisoners who profess their so called innocence see things. First let me say that I have met many
many prisoners who tell you that they are innocent, in fact so many that all
the innocent people must be in prison which suggests that the outside world
is perhaps the more dangerous than I thought and perhaps prison is after all
the safest place to be. I have personally known those that have
steadfastly maintained their innocence who would NEVER dream of admitting any
guilt for short term gains like that clown in Northern Ireland. Stephen
Dowling the lifer who was released last year after 27 years and was recently
cleared by the Court of Appeal would have been released years ago had he
admitted his guilt, as it was he was 10 years over his tariff when he was
finally granted bail to await the outcome of his appeal which was a foregone
conclusion, he too had a family and loved ones as did the Birmingham 6, the
Guildford 4, Judith Ward, Stefan Kisvko, Andy Evans (did 21 years) and
others. NONE admitted their guilt, all were
lifers and all had loved ones. These weren't short term whingers like
the person you refer to who wouldn't be able to claim false imprisonment let
alone successfully challenge his conviction by the very dubious and dangerous
ploy of "crossed fingers behind one's back" of admitting his guilt
so as he can get out of prison to fight on, what form would that fight take I
wonder telling the world he is guilty but it's only a game? The criminal justice system does not
play games and since I broached this subject last year I later spoke to my
solicitor about this approach and I have to tell you that he was horrified. Ill18 p9 The very nature of your proposal most
surely and will certainly bring into question whether anyone taking that
route of deceit can be believed at all having denied his offence to start
with, it would actually create more problems that it would solve and I am
bound to say that it might suit you and serve your agenda but it most
certainly is dangerous for the prisoner who would have to suffer the
consequences of wrathful judges who would take the view for sure that in
front of them they have a manipulative defendant whom it's very difficult to
be sure of and to know what is lies and what is truth all based on a
mechanism to avoid prison. A person who would take that route you
suggest is liable to take any route to escape prison whether it's being
deceitful manipulative or informing on others, just to stop and think about
the people in these places who might well have an arguable case to clear
their name, who have refused to cooperate with the system and will not admit
guilt at any price and then you come along and tell them to put up their
hands up and confess if only to get released from prison. They would I can tell you send you on
your way. Moreover once it becomes apparent that
you are encouraging [prisoners to admit their guilt, it could also open to
question as to whether the course of justice is being perverted. I have NO disagreement with other
aspects of what you do. I commend you on your campaigns and would be
delighted to be an active participant if I were out there. I do however draw
the line at the proposal to admit guilt with fingers crossed behind one's
back. .... My prison career has been involved with
long term prison regimes and I am bound to say at this all lifer prison
Kingston we have prisoners who will never be released and if I was a betting
man I would say I will be one of them. At the age of 56, my tariff expires
when I am 61 and that is only the minimum term there is NO guarantee of
release. And yet if I were innocent and was offered the chance of release if
i admitted guilt I would tell them to go to hell, I would go out on my terms
as an innocent man, no deals, no games and no head games as an innocent man
my freedom wouldn't be open to negotiation. I have seen many prisoners go for years professing innocence only to admit
that they did commit the offence, they just couldn't face up to it, they had
involved family in their innocence sometimes costing them fortunes in legal
bills etc. only to turn round and HAVE to apologise to them for leading them
up the garden path. The group of prisoners most likely to
deny their offence are sex offenders, rapists etc. They are kept apart from
the general prison population for fear of attack. I have met many prisoners
who over the years have told me they were burglars, armed robbers or their
murder offence was the result of a fight in a pub etc. When the real nature of their offence
becomes known they disappear into segregation leaving prisoners who knew him
as a friend feeling somewhat silly and deceived and that prisoner will become
a pariah and regarded as scum by most prisoners. Me? I am not judge and jury, the courts
have already judges all. I think that when you make references to
some official in this case a judge "one of our most senior judges said
that 10% of those in jail were innocent" it would be helpful to name
your source as it becomes mere anecdotal otherwise and questionable to say
the least. Well these are my comments on what you
sent me. I trust that you are keeping well and
apart from any set backs you march on still with your campaigns which I am
bound to say are most worthy. Yours sincerely, Charles Hanson. Parentectomy FNF Annual Report 1993 Report of Directors .... 2 Principal Activities The principal activities are: a to conduct research into the problems
concerned with children deprived of the presence of a parent and parents
deprived of access to their children; b .... to publish research findings .... These are two of the four items abcd
under "Principal activities" for FNF. I continue to find it
astonishing that FNF remains indifferent to my discovery, (see www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/9gdecon.htm ) , and Canadian Senator Anne C Cools's
independent discovery, that a child has no right of access to its parent.
What do they think about then? Will FNF publish our findings? – Ed Doubts grow over Jill Dando verdict - Tony Thompson, Observer, 8july01, p12 ".... growing unease about the
safety of the conviction." [When the Plods have worked for a year
without success, and spent a million in the process, they call in their First
Reserve Villain, who is usually today's equivalent of the Village Idiot, and
charge him. They prefer to choose a Village Idiot with a record of petty
crime, who is idiot enough to think he deserves what is coming. This gets the
Daily Mail off their backs for a few years, hopefully through to their retirement,
when the conviction is thrown out. ManKind should probably get involved in
this recurrent travesty. ManKind is not limited to addressing corruption in
the family courts. - Ed] Smearing the Jury system To Paul Robertshaw, Lecturer in Law, Cardiff University, Cardiff Dear Dr. Robertshaw, re the article "Liverpool juries
....", Sunday Times, 6jan02, p4, by Tom Robbins, which mentions you.
[Difference in conviction rates in different courts.] It is helpful in a way that Judge Munby
jailed my colleague Mark Harris on trumped-up (Contempt of Court) charges for
ten months (admittedly getting those phoney charges past a jury!). It is also
helpful that Harris is firmly convinced that pressure from me and others made
Munby get him out after a two months, so that Harris continues to demonstrate
outside Munby's home over Munby's misbehaviour in court, which was the real
reason why Munby cooked up the charges in the first place. As you probably know, the secret Family Court
system, presided over by Sloss, is in terminal decline. As they see the
writing on the wall more and more clearly, we can expect its embattled
judges, already behaving more or less totally alegally, to become more
dangerous. This means that we would-be reformers need the protection provided
by our peers in open court - the jury system. Consideration of reducing the role of
Jury Trials must be deferred until after the collapse and replacement of the
Family Court System. Ivor Catt, Editor, Ill Eagle. 6jan02 cc Sloss, Munby, Tom Robbins. "It is unacceptable that the
disagreements and failure of communication of adults should be allowed to
obscure the needs of children both long term and short term in so sensitive,
difficult and important a field. The children had unhappy experiences which
should not be allowed to happen again." - Butler-Sloss, The Cleveland
Report 1987, p11. When will Sloss begin to talk with father victims of her
secret family courts, with a view to reducing the damage to their children?
What about talking with men's charities? IWF .... a shift in power in Washington ....
Earlier this year, Washingtonian magazine published a list of "INs"
and "OUTs" for 2001. On the OUT list the [radfem] National
Organisation for Women [NOW] - an on the IN list was the Independent Women's
Forum [www.iwf.org]. What a refreshing change! Plus the influential Washington Post
wrote a very positive article, calling IWF: "One of the few women's
groups willing to challenge the central beliefs of feminist organisations,
arguing that contemporary feminism is too willing to cast women as victims.
This has resulted, the group believes, in an angry and intellectually rigid
feminist viewpoint that believes affirmative action and other government
programs are the only way to obtain true equality between the sexes." -
IWF newsletter, 14dec01. Ill18 p10 Dozens of sex offenders win right to appeal - Robert
Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent, Independent, 28dec01 Dozens of convicted paedophiles are to
have their cases reheard by the Court of Appeal amid concern that the methods
used by police to investigate child abuse have led to serious miscarriages of
justice. Many of the reviews centre on children's
homes but others involve step-parents whose convictions have been referred to
the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). The
"test cases" will be followed by an inquiry by MPs into child-abuse
prosecutions over the last 30 years amid charges that police
"trawled" children's homes and prisons for new complainants. The moves highlight the difficulty in
securing safe convictions against paedophiles and follow a controversial
proposal by Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, that some suspected sex
offenders may need to be locked up before they have committed a crime. Lawyers bringing the test cases have
been working closely with an all-party parliamentary group, whose members
include Baroness Williams of Crosby and the MP for Crosby, Claire
Curtis-Thomas. Last week the group won an agreement from the Home Affairs
Select Committee for an inquiry into child-abuse prosecutions, an issue many
MPs believe has been ignored after the outrage over the trials of Sarah
Payne's killer, Roy Whiting, and the pop mogul Jonathan King. The group is particularly concerned about
allegations investigated by Merseyside Police in the 1980s and 1990s. In a
test case to be heard by the Court of Appeal in January a careworker at a
Merseyside children's home, sentenced to 14 years in jail last year, is to
have his case reheard after a key witness, a convicted criminal, withdrew his
complaint, claiming he was encouraged to give evidence by the police. The Court of Appeal will also hear the
case of a 60-year-old careworker from Devon who claims the evidence against
him consists of uncorroborated allegations made by serving prisoners. In a
third case referred to the court, a careworker from Penarth, south Wales,
claims allegations against him relate to "non-specific events" over
a long time. His solicitor, Tim Hacket said: "[South Wales] police
deliberately search out ex-pupils, who generally [have] poor self-esteem or
previous convictions, and then suggest names." Ms Curtis-Thomas said: "A
significant proportion of the victims in these cases have been identified
while serving prison sentences or are known to the police in other
contexts." The select committee is also expected to
look at the effect of compensation. Victims who allege child abuse are
usually guaranteed compensation once they have achieved a conviction in the
criminal courts. In a letter to Chris Mullin, the select
committee chairman, Ms Curtis-Thomas said: "There is much criticism
about how the police trawl for victims and the way they conduct their
interviews with the individuals who have allegedly been abused by leading the
complainant into making or asserting allegations put forward by the
police." She said once a careworker had been convicted, other complaints
usually followed, yet many allegations referred to events 20 or 30 years ago
that were hard to contest. Sex offenders now make up a third of all
new cases considered by the CCRC. A separate category of cases, also to be
heard by the Court of Appeal, include step-parents convicted of child abuse
many years after the event. In one case, a man from Kent had his conviction
for raping his step-daughter quashed after the CCRC questioned the strength
of the evidence. Children's welfare groups said
challenges to convictions should not deter the police from investigating
allegations of abuse. Shaun Kelly, of NCH, formerly the National Children's
Homes, said: "Very few people actually are convicted of child abuse. We
are concerned about the number of allegations which are not made and the
large number of cases which go unreported. The experience of child abuse
which took place 15 and 20 years ago in this country is very similar to what
happened in Ireland and Canada. All these people can't be lying." [The more convictions, the more money
and children NCH will get to care for, and the higher Kelly's salary and job
security. The Child Protection Industry keeps growing. I have told Claire
Curtis-Thomas MP that this crisis links closely with divorce perjury. For our
forecast of this scandal, see for instance Ill Eagle 4, sep99, Editorial and
p4, Eddie Hampton; Esther Ranzen climbing on the dangerous bandwagon, Ill
Eagle 6, p8; Ill Eagle 8, p3; Ill Eagle 12, p11, Ill Eagle 17, p2, etc. False
Allegations were discussed by speaker Risbridger at the ManKind 28oct00
Conference. Nobody at the Moxon 1999 Leicester Conference on sex offences had
the concept of a false allegation. Years ago I warned Betty Moxon of the Home
Office, who was working to increase rape sentences, that compensation for so
much wrongful imprisonment could be on a scale large enough to bankrupt the
UK and US governments. She did not reply. She is deeply irresponsible. I
established that nobody in govt has as part of their remit the problem of
false allegations, see my website. "To the Attorney-General. You
cannot keep the lid down on the kettle any more. The pressure is too great.
Ivor Catt, Editor, Ill Eagle. [sent to the Attorney-General on 25feb00, with
a copy of Melanie Phillips, Sunday Times 20feb00.] - Ed.] * A man was arrested yesterday in
connection with the murder of a suspected paedophile found battered to death at
his home, police said. George Crawford, 64, had been due to appear at
Manchester Crown Court next month over allegations he abused four children in
the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Crawford, who had no previous convictions for sex
abuse, was expected to deny all charges. -
Robert Verkaik,
Independent, 28dec01 We've debunked
authority so long, there isn't any left - Minette
Marin, Sunday Times, 20jan02, p17 .... Children know that adults cannot
lay a hand on them without breaking the law. They are also well aware of the
current obsession with paedophilia, so they know that they can threaten to
call Childline with lurid allegations, if adults are becoming tiresome; my
daughter threatened me with this when she was only six. Childcare theorists have done a great
deal to undermine authority as well. Not long ago I sat next to the husband
of a leading expert in the field; he was outraged by my admission that I
sometimes tell my children to do things "because I say so". .... .... it is dangerous for a society when
the idea of authority breaks down, because without self-control, there will
in the end be chaos. And chaos is no respecter of persons .... Child Abuse Hansard,
17oct01, col. 646 6.21 p.m. Earl Howe rose to call
attention to the damage caused to families by false accusations of child
abuse; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: .... My concern can
be summed up very simply. It is that alongside the worrying numbers of
genuine child abuse cases there is a parallel cause for worry, which is that
many innocent people are being wrongly accused of child abuse and whose lives
in consequence are being turned upside down without due justification. I should like to talk today about two of
the triggers for false accusations. The first one is a phenomenon known as
"recovered memory". .... families being torn apart as a result of
adults - usually women - making retrospective accusations of childhood sexual
abuse against a member of their family. The accused person - most often a
father of hitherto impeccable character - would protest his innocence. A
common thread in many cases was that the grown-up daughter had undergone a
course of psychotherapy .... In 1998 the Royal College of Psychotherapists
set up a working party .... Its unequivocal conclusions was that when apparent
memories appear to be recovered after a long period of amnesia there is a
high probability that those memories are false. .... its report reads ....:
"Despite widespread clinical support and popular belief that memories
can be blocked out by the mind, no empirical evidence exists that supports
the existence of repression or dissociation." .... uncritical acceptance
by the police and social workers of claims about newly remembered abuse. The
possibility of false memory is often either ignored or overlooked. ....
alleged retrospectively against a care worker or teacher many years after
.... The police often assume guilt .... the burden of proof is effectively
reversed. .... harmful psychotherapeutic techniques are wreaking havoc with
people's lives. .... .... the second major trigger for false
accusations .... Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy or MSBP. .... There is a good case for making social
workers personally and legally accountable for what they do. Presently -
perhaps uniquely among professional people - they are not. .... The channelling of considerable
resources into chasing the falsely accused and the pursuit of flimsily based
allegations have the effect of removing resources from where they are really
needed; namely, in the active prevention of real physical violence, such as
was inflicted on Victoria Climbie. .... Having made a personal study of
these matters, I believe them to be of deep significance for the well-being
of countless children and families up and down the country .... Ill18 p11 6.36 p.m. Lord Warner: .... When I was a
director of social services I had direct experience of the kind of obsessive
behaviour to which he referred by way of an NHS consultant with a total
attachment to anal dilatation. It took a huge effort by social services, the police
and others to remove that person from child protection work. .... I share with the noble Earl's concern
over false or recovered memory. However, it is an extremely difficult area to
regulate. It sits in the complex area of what transpires between a therapist
and an unhappy person. Some therapists in the US in the 1980s, and in the UK
in the 1990s, have undoubtedly taken the area of sexual abuse and used it to
convey a belief to their clients that it is at the root of their unhappiness.
The unhappy person then uses the idea to satisfy his or her own needs as much
as anything else. It is a serious and difficult problem. .... 6.43 p.m. The Lord Bishop of Birmingham:
.... [frighteningly (radfem) Politically Correct, he drew mild criticism from
numerous other speakers] .... Child abuse is hideously common. It is not
confined to any one class, race or gender. .... 6.48 p.m. Lord Carlile of Berriew: ....
People do not plead guilty, knowing they will receive long terms of
imprisonment, without being guilty on the whole. [How wrong he is. See
Mitchell on Plea Bargaining later on. - Ed] There has been criticism of the way the
police obtain evidence. Detective Chief Superintendent Robbins of Liverpool
is on record as saying that the police adopt a quite different approach to
obtain evidence in these cases, but his remarks have been totally
misunderstood. How else are the police to obtain evidence save by asking
people in an even-handed way without creating prejudice if anything happened
to them when they were in an institution years ago of which they wish to make
a complaint? [Read Lord Eden and Lucas later on on Police trawling, and
Claire Curtis-Thomas MP saying more than half the accusers are criminals!
Also their financial reward. - Ed] 6.54 p.m. Lord Eden of Winton: .... we
must be warned by the growing weight of evidence that the experts in the
social services, the medical profession and the police can get things
tragically wrong. It arises either because they have been conditioned to
believe that everything the child says has to be true or they fail to
interpret correctly the physical symptoms they may be examining. What is most
dangerous of all is that they might have a pre-conceived presumption that
abuse has taken place. If so, the child is then subjected to suggestible
questioning designed to substantiate that opinion. They appear to be too ready to jump to a
conclusion on the flimsiest of evidence. In one or two cases I have heard
about, when the police are brought in they sometimes trawl the neighbourhood to
seek corroboration for that so-called evidence. [Police trawl through the
prisons, offering financial reward. - Ed] .... children .... might .... crave
attention and in the process of craving attention they will deliberately put
themselves into trouble and might even inflict harm upon themselves. I have met several victims of false
accusations: teachers and social workers. Some of them are in prison, some of
them have served prison sentences and all of them have had their reputations
completely destroyed. Some have maintained their innocence to this day and
others have been proven innocent. .... The family and, more importantly, the
child have been deeply damaged. .... 7.6 p.m. Baroness Carnegy of Lour: ....
in relation to this debate, no fewer than 160,000 cases of child abuse a year
are alleged, of which only 40,000 go to a case conference and only 25,000
result in children being put on the register. .... Something has to be done in general
about the problem. I hope that the Government will not be bamboozled by all
the detailed issues, but will see the problem clearly. Children who go into
care needlessly suffer unnecessarily from it.. About 120,000 innocent adults
who are accused every year need not suffer. 7.12 p.m. The Countess of Mar: .... Like
the noble Earl, I have had a large number of letters from parents and
grandparents accused of child abuse. Their children or grandchildren have
been put on the "at risk" register, taken into care or made wards
of court. What I read and have been told profoundly distresses and disturbs
me. I am reminded of the witch hunts of previous centuries. This time, the
victims are frequently nice middle class families [note what the bishop said
- Ed] whose only fault is to be concerned about their child, who has
ill-defined symptoms from which he or she does not rapidly recover. For
various reasons, some social workers - I repeat that it is some, not all -
are not prepared to consider that these conditions might be organic.
Suspicion leads to referral, which leads to a huge investment in social
services, health services and court resources. There is no presumption of
innocence, as there is in other similar situations, and there seems to be no
requirement for social services to prove guilt. A terrible injustice is done to the families
involved. Virtually without warning, the parent or parents find that they
have been unjustly and unnecessarily investigated under the child protection
proceedings of Section 47 of the Children Act 1989. Somehow, the Act has been
so misconstrued as to enable some social services departments, paediatricians
and organisations such as the NSPCC to abuse their powers, through misplaced
zeal and ideology or through sheer incompetence to create tremendous distress
and psychological damage to parents, children and the wider family, sometimes
destroying the family structure. There is no measuring the levels of anxiety
or the harm done to children and their carers while the whole weight of the
law is brought to bear on them. Even when accusations of child abuse
against a parent or parents have subsequently been withdrawn, often after
prolonged and costly legal action, the stigma of being branded a child abuser
by the local authority remains with the parents. Once a social services
referral is placed on their Samson database, the details remain for ever, no
matter what the outcome of later enquiries. The referral becomes common
knowledge in the local community. Those who work with children, either as
carers or teachers, are refused employment and those who have been active in
the community or in voluntary work find that they are no longer required,
especially if children or young people are involved. These are people who have been proved
innocent, yet they are treated like criminals. What is more, their sentence never
ends. Their child, who is wrongly perceived as having been abused, is pities.
Parents are afraid to seek medical treatment for themselves or their
children. If they are brave enough to go to the doctor, their complaints are
often dismissed as somatisation. I know that many social workers, doctors
and voluntary workers do wonderful work with seriously deprived children and
their families. I know that they bridle against the incompetence of a small
number of their colleagues. We need to think again about what we expect from
social workers and to ask whether we are expecting too much. The communal
hysteria that is generated around child abuse must have an effect on those
who work with children. Are we being reasonable in our expectations? I think
that perhaps we are not. When I originally asked for an inquiry,
I had no idea that the problem was so widespread. I am grateful that the
Minister in another place has agreed to meet me with some of the parents
concerned, but I fear that that may not resolve the problem. There is a need
for an inquiry to resolve the problem, even if it is a Select Committee of
inquiry, as the noble Earl has suggested. Abused parents need to be able to
tell their stories. Solutions need to be sought and these dreadful injustices
must be put right as far as possible. There needs to be a cleansing. Ill18 p12 7.22 p.m. Lord Lucas: My Lords, I do not
share the impression that I gained from the speech of the right reverend
Prelate that, because of the horrendousness of the effects of child abuse, we
should pay any less attention to the horrendousness of the effects of false
allegations of child abuse. .... my feeling is that things do not feel right.
There is too much pain, and too many of the expressions of pain feel real and
justified. The outlying situation is one in which we could reasonably expect
there to be a witch hunt. .... Professionals, too, have over the years
consistently shown their ability to lose a sense of balance and
professionalism. I lost trust in the NSPCC a few years ago when it ran an
advertising campaign claiming that one in eight children in the subject of
abuse. The NSPCC cannot see that child abuse is a term which should be
reserved foe the serious abuse of children, which is far too common. Its
claim would suggest that 100 or your Lordships had suffered child abuse and
that perhaps 50 of your Lordships were child abusers. That is so far from
reality and reason. It is very important that such an organisation maintains
a sense of balance and professionalism. [At the FYC AGM, Guest Speaker
Baroness Young, shadow Leader of the House, said that all Children's
organisations were anti-family. Otherwise, she said, they would lose their
government funding. - Ed] .... I am particularly disappointed that
the Department of Health should have published its consultation document as
it has. The department has made great strides under the Government in
evidence-based medicine. I applaud it for NICE, and I applaud it for doing
the things that have needed doing for a long time. But here is an example of
the Department of Health publishing a document which simply is not based on
research or proper consideration. i hope that the department will recover its
balance in this matter. .... I want to pick up two particular points.
I should be encouraged if it were possible for the accused to be given
greater representation at case conferences. I believe that if a case
conference had a professional present to look after the interests of the
accused - be it a lawyer or anyone else - that would tend to hold the level
or rationality and proper professionalism of the conference at a consistently
better level than is sometimes the case. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, I
do not like the practice of trawling. One can imagine it applied in a totalitarian
society where the police might offer people £1,000 if they were able to give
evidence against me that I had said something rude about the Government. It
is too much of a temptation, particularly where the people being asked are
themselves criminals or damaged people for one reason or another. it invites
false accusation, especially when there is no penalty for making a false
accusation. I believe that such a technique should be used with a great deal
of care and be subject to the type of supervision which might be possible if
an independent element were introduced into case conferences. Dear Lord Howe, Child Abuse Your speech in the Lords on 17oct02 was
valuable. I would like to add to what was said at that time. Risbridger, when he spoke on false allegations
at the 28oct00 ManKind Conference that I chaired (see my website), said that
most false allegations occur during the divorce process. That point was
entirely missing from the Lords debate. Many sources say that lawyers urge
their divorcing clients to fabricate false allegations. With regard to Munchausen's syndrome by
proxy, I would add my wife's case, which is common. When a wife feels loss of
control, she may make false allegations in order to gain attention for
herself. This problem is most likely to occur when the children reach the age
to leave home, or at the menopause. The need to assert control, or to assert
power, links with the attention-seeking of Munchausen. The wife brings in
outside agencies to give her importance or to give her power. All outside
agencies give total support to the wife. Another major factor missing from the
Lords debate is the fact that in our totally secret family courts, there is
no procedure for investigating perjury. I have challenged the legal
profession to state the procedure. Overleaf is part of my book "The Hook
and the Sting", p65, available on my website. I argue that the family
courts welcome perjury because it increases legal fees. Congratulations on your 17oct01 speech. Best wishes, Ivor Catt. Editor, Ill
Eagle 1jan02 Affirmative-Action Feminism A.k.a. 'Boss Weed' feminism, a nick name
that Wendy McElroy, an individualist-feminist, coined for it, the branch of
gender-feminism that devotes itself to promote equal representation of
women. In a Dec. 11, 2001 FOXNews.com
article, Wendy McElroy defines the qualities
of affirmative-action-feminism by measuring it relative to
individualist-feminism: The ideal of equal representation for
women in democratic governments around the globe sounds praiseworthy. But its
implementation has little to do with "equality" or
"democracy." Instead, it has become a policy of privilege and
quota, driven by elite powers that disregard the wishes of "the
people" in regions where it is applied. It is affirmative action applied
to the political realm. Cries for political quotas are becoming
more common. In the West, quota-advocate feminists speak euphemistically of
"including the voices of women in government." But the goal has
shifted from giving women the vote on an equal footing with men to enforcing
the presence of women in governmental bodies. According to their theory, the
lack of female officials is the direct result of discrimination that must be
rectified by government policy. ... Feminism is the belief that women and
men should be treated as equals, but the definition of "equality"
can differ widely. To individualist feminists, or ifeminists, equality means
identical treatment under laws that protect person and property. It is an
equality of rights, not of results. If women cast a ballot as men do, then
women's political will has been actualized even if no females are elected.
... Because gender feminism defines equality
in socio-economic terms, it seeks to reorganize society to redistribute
political, economic and cultural power from men to women. This equality of
results, not rights, leads to legal privileges for women, such as mandatory
placement on ballots. .... [from www.ivorcatt.com/2003.htm ] Hansard 24oct01,
7.57pm Women-only short lists Miss Anne Widdicombe (Maidstone and The
Weald): .... I have always advocated greater numbers of women in Parliament.
I have always wanted to see more women succeeding, not only in getting into
the House but in holding positions of responsibility. I earnestly look
forward to the day when we have a second woman Prime Minister. .... I am often quite sorry for men. There
are lots of injustices with which they have to put up. For example, they do
not live as long as we do, but they have to work longer in order to get a
pension. That will not be put right for some time. Some 50 per cent of young
men getting married today will not be able to see their children through to
maturity in the same household. Whereas in the past women have had it very
hard, there are now a few injustices for men. This Bill will create more.
.... this pernicious Bill, yet hon. Gentlemen welcome it as a great step
forward. It is a massive step towards inequality for men, and the poor souls
just let the women walk all over them. They do not appear to care what will
happen to them. .... I do not believe that the proposal behind the Bill is
what was intended by the equal opportunities legislation of the mid-1970s. I
remember that legislation, because I belonged to that minority in my party
that believed it was necessary. However, feminists in the 70s said,
"Give us equality of opportunity and we will show you that we are as
good as, if not better than, most men." Now, a quarter of a century
later, we whinge and whine and demand special treatment because we cannot
make it otherwise. Ill18 p13 If that is not an insult to women, I do
not know what is. Positive discrimination is always negative discrimination
against someone. I want every women in this House to be able to look every
man, from the |Prime Minister down -- or up -- in the eye and know that she
got there on exactly the same terms as he did. She must know that she has
defeated all the competition, and that her path was not artificially smoothed
by the removal of inconvenient male competition. .... I oppose the Bill. I
think it is misconceived and an insult to women. It would also be terrible
for the future of men, and the poor souls just cannot see it. They need to
wake up. [Now let us examine society's reaction
if it is men who are excluded. - Ed] Merton Refuge Established 1975 tel. 020
8542 8791 [Recently, their services were broadened
to include male victims of Domestic Violence. They were totally swamped by
men, and have now had to withdraw its services from male victims. - Ed.] 2000/2001 Annual Report
and Accounts .... Report of the M.A.L.E. Helpline April 1994 - April 2001 .... Chief Supt. Harwood in his
[opening] address remarked that "there was a need for this service, but you
are opening a can of worms that society would find hard to accept". His
words still ring true to this day. .... Male Victims We always knew this would be a
contentious issue, but nevertheless thought it was one that needed to be
addressed, much to the relief of male victims. At last here was a group that
took the issue seriously. Previously they had been an object of humour, at
best not to be taken seriously and at worst ridiculed. Until the helpline
intervened injuries inflicted on male victims were trivialised even though
the same injuries inflicted upon women were considered serious. Men reporting
incidents of violence against them by a female were considered to be wimps
and in such a minority they should be ignored. The media, keen to report
another angle of domestic violence invited our co-ordinator to highlight the
issue on many programmes including Hear & Now; Panorama; Dispatches; News
at Ten and many other current affairs and discussion programmes. Numerous
articles were written about this subject. The result was more and more male
victims calling the line for help. Their experiences were varied. Some were
totally disbelieved when reporting an incident, those that were believed were
turned away through lack of knowledge on how to help him. This instigated
setting up a training programme for other agencies. Soon our co-ordinator was being
contacted by Victim Support Groups, Citizen Advice Centres, Community Safety
Units and countless other groups all recognising the lack of information and
comprehension their particular organisation had on the subject. Our
co-ordinator also accepted an invitation from Scotland Yard to become a
member of their Male Rape and Serious Sexual Assault Steering Group. We responded to six government
consultation documents and attended 14 meetings at the House of Commons.
Reference was made to other victims in the British Crime Survey Research
Study 191 produced by the Home Office which stated "Men are equally as
likely to suffer domestic violence". We acted as consultants to Channel
4 television in 1999 when they produced the Dispatches programme 'Battered
Men'. To make the programme they interviewed the largest number of male
victims than anyone had ever done previously. However, most statutory organisations
continued to focus solely of female victims. To our knowledge only three of
the forty three Police Authorities in England and Wales have made positive
change in their policy and have included other victims in their information
literature. Most Local Authorities and Social Services Departments target
only female victims, their only solution in dealing with other victims is to
give them our phone number, and then only if the person responding happened
to know of it. As knowledge of the [Merton] Helpline grew more agencies were
using it as a means of referral to any other victims who approached them. We
were being used as an easy option, simply by including our phone number in
their leaflets they could report they were responding to all victims and were
complying with their Equal opportunities Policy. Finally the workload became
too heavy and the decision was made to return the helpline to its original
status in Merton. This particularly alarmed many Police Forces, as they now
had no referral for male, homosexual or lesbian victims. We advised them to
challenge their Domestic Violence Forums and Police Consultative Groups to
draw up their own strategy. We hope the work of the line has forced other
agencies to recognise other victims and address the issue rather than
ignoring it as was previously the case. .... if a man goes to Court s a victim
of domestic violence he can expect to lose his home and his children. .... During the seven years of operation our
co-ordinator 1 responded to 50,000 telephone calls 2 replied to 10,000 letters .... It's now up to other agencies to provide
their own service .... The many faces of feminism Feminism? You want feminism?
Which brand would you like? Whatever positive image the word feminist may
have had, it has been tarnished by those who have made it their own, and I,
for one, am content to leave the militants in full possession of the
term. Dale O'Leary in her book The
Gender Agenda: Redefining Equality (p. 23) (Dale O'Leary devoted a full two
chapters of her book to describe and chronicle radical feminism and
"really radical feminism." WHS) Feminism is exhibited by a spirit of
unrest among a comparatively small number of dissatisfied women. They preach
the gospel of unholy discontent. They are born agitators, and "dearly
love a fight." They prefer war to peace; turmoil to tranquillity;
contention to concord; pride to humility; sophistry to truth; agnosticism to
belief, and prefer to assert their own wills, "live their own lives"
as against the precepts of all conventional morality, being moral
anarchists. Benjamin V. Hubbard, in
Socialism, Feminism, and Suffragism,
the Terrible Triplets... (1915) Contemporary (or second wave) feminism
has aptly been described as "Marxism without economics," since
feminists replace class with gender as the key social construct. Of course, what society constructs can be
deconstructed. This is the feminist project: to abolish gender difference by
transforming its institutional source
the patriarchal family. Certain streams of the Gay Rights movement have taken this
analysis one step further. The
problem is not just sexism but heterosexism, and the solution is to dismantle
not just the patriarchal family but the heterosexual family as such. F.L. Morton & Rainer Knopff in The
Charter Revolution & The Court Party (p. 75) .... .... Index Affirmative-Action (Boss Weed) Feminism Anti-Feminism Amazon Feminism Anarcho Feminism 'Boss Tweed' Feminism Christian Feminists Constructionist Feminism Cultural Feminism Difference Feminism Dominance Feminism Eco Feminism Equity Feminism Erotic Feminism Femicommie Feminazi Feminism and Women of Color Gender Feminism Individualist, or Libertarian Feminism Lesbianism Lesbianism 30+ sexual orientations Liberal Feminism Libertarian Feminism Marxist Feminism Material Feminism Matriarchal Separatist Feminism Moderate Feminism Pod Feminist Pop Feminism Post-modernist Feminism Pro-Family Advocates Pro-Life feminists Pro-Sex Feminists Radical Feminism Resenter (angry at men) Feminism Separatists Socialist Feminism Survivor Feminism Total Rej (total rejection) Feminism Victim Feminism Women of Color Feminism .... .... Ill18 p14 Virtually all of the terms aim at the destruction
of traditional moral standards and the traditional nuclear family.... [For a comprehensive analysis of the various brands of feminism
see www.ivorcatt.com/2003.htm. I set
out to do this research, but perhaps it is already done and presented at
2003. Our excellent colleague in Canada Walter H Schneider gave us this mine
of information. - Ed] Bing to Rights? - Margaret
Driscoll, Sunday Times, 9oct01, p24 .... it is plain that Bing did not want
a baby - yet now he has to live with the consequences. His own fault .... But
David Thomas, author of Not Guilty, In Defence of the Modern Man, disagrees:
"I don't see why a man should have to be a father when he doesn't
actively want to be. "The law and society rightly make a
huge issue of women's consent to sex, but no attention is paid to a man's
right to consent in reproduction. In cases where a woman has deceived a man
[by lying about her contraception], there should be some kind of sanction. "At the moment there is no legal
redress against somebody who tricks or leads you into an 18-year financial
commitment, and that's wrong." .... Once upon a time a woman "left
holding the baby" was understood to have been left in the lurch. Now the
man can be left holding a demand from the Child Support Agency. .... James Ward from London was stunned
when a woman with whom he'd had a one-night stand (and foolishly assumed was
on the pill) rang him six months later and told him she was pregnant. ....
DNA tests proved [it]. The woman pursued him for maintenance, and he asked to
visit his daughter. After a second visit "the mother began to get
jealous and contact ceased". Ever since, Ward has been fighting for
the right to see his daughter. He has been to court 49 times .... many
estranged of involuntary fathers give up. "The father only has the right
to pay money," says Ward. "That's not likely to change, because in
this area men are so weak and women so strong." Pail Jones, .... "Once she was
pregnant, I'd served my purpose. She didn't want me in her life," he
says. He, too has fought for access .... It is expensive and stressful.
"The child isn't the mother's property, but she'll treat it as her
property .... The mother is the gatekeeper and she determines access." Black and white mischief - Thomas
Sowell, a leading American academic, Sunday Times, 16dec01, sect. 4, p10 .... Group preferences have existed in
many countries under a variety of names .... .... "positive
discrimination" in Britain. .... There is probably no other programme
which exists so widely around the world with so little empirical data on its
consequences. Yet such facts as exist tell remarkably
similar stories .... Perhaps the grand illusion of
preferential programmes is that they can be limited in time and scope and can
be ended when they have served their purpose. .... Affirmative action programmes .... have
been successively extended to so many different groups that an absolute
majority of the American population is now legally entitled to group
preferences and quotas whose rationale was to compensate for historic
injustices. .... There are serious reasons why
programmes intended to benefit those at the bottom turn out to aid primarily
those further up the socio-economic scale. .... .... Believers have often pointed out
that the numbers and proportions of American blacks in professional,
managerial .... occupations increased .... following the passage of the 1964
civil rights act. They have seldom, if ever, pointed out that the rise was
even greater in the years immediately preceding the act. .... The desire to rescue the vision from
painful facts has been apparent .... The most important fact about all this
is how few ever bothered to check the facts. The vision was sufficient for
those who are who are satisfied to be on the side of the angels. For those
concerned about the actual fate of others, the factors which go into the
creation of that fate are crucial, even if such factors require hard work
.... To Adrienne Burgess From Ivor. apr98. In your meeting, in view of who was
present, you did damage to our children by misquoting the UN Declaration of
the Rights of the Child. It does not assert a child's right of access to its
parent. (If you believe that "a child's right to family life" is
the same, then please say so in writing.) I raised the point, which was that
after my previously raising it in an FNF AGM, with you present, nobody had
responded for some years. (This was to illustrate the point that, if networks
were incapable of taking in communication from me, then it would follow that
there was no place for me in networks. I do not warm to the idea of a network
which only socialises and plays personality politics, but cannot support
factual communication.) Your meeting was a further example of a network in
action, and of failure to take in information from me. Now, by your error,
you have delayed the process for perhaps another five years. There are good
grounds for arguing that if a child has no right of access to its parent,
then you and we are wasting our time. A building has to be constructed from
the foundations up. The FNF door knocker and Adrienne window sashes come
later. Victims of Memory by Mark
Pendergrast, pub. HarperCollins 1995 p xxiii The current repressed-memory hunt has breathed life into one
of the most damaging and sexist traditions in our culture - the subtle
message to women that they can gain power and attention only through the
victim role. That does not mean that they are inherently passive, dependent,
or hysterical, but it does mean that the current hunt follows in that
tradition. p562
Recovered Memories Since this form of therapy became
popular in 1990 (when The Courage to Heal was published in England), it is
reasonable to assume, then, that well over 100,000 cases have been fomented
in the United Kingdom since that time. .... Why, then, have only 700 families come
forward to contact the British False memory Society? There are several
explanations. For one thing, it is likely that most British parents accused
of incest by their adult children on the basis of recovered memory therapy
are too embarrassed, frightened, and depressed to come forward. They are
suffering in silence all over the United Kingdom. [This is the excellent, encyclopaedic
book on the subject. According to Pendergrast, today's witch craze was
triggered by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis, The Courage to Heal, pub. Cedar
1988, which I discuss below with extracts. - Ed.] Bass and Davis are clearly
dysfunctional. ".... Bass .... got divorced, declared herself a lesbian,
and currently lives with an incest survivor ...." [Pendergrast p7] From the Bass book; p14
Bass; [In 1978 Bass had a child, and now gives conseling.] I am ....
the partner of a survivir. I was not sexually abused as a child. p16 Davis; I had my first memories ....
[I was] sexually abused by muy grandfather when I was a child. Since that
time, my life has fallen apart. I was becoming increasingly estranged from my
family. I was sure |I was going crazy .... p20 .... One out of three girls, and one
out of seven boys, are sexually abused by the time they reach the age of
eighteen. Sexual abuse happens to children of every class, culture, race,
rel;igion, and gender. Children are abused by their fathers, stepfathers,
uncles, brothers, grandparents, neighbours, family friends, baby-sitters,
teachers, strangers and sometimes by auntds and mothers. Although women do
abuse, the vast majority of abusers are heterosexual men. p21. [Check list] How can I know if I
was a victim of child sexual abuse? .... were you: .... .... .... Objectified and ridiculed about your
body? Il15 p15 .... Told all you were good for was sex? .... If you are unable to remember any
specific instances like the ones mentioned above but still have a feeling
that something abusive happened to you, it probably did. .... .... "It was with my brother. He was
only a year older than me." - Such statements are a measure of the gross
minimizing of abuse done in our society. .... Some abuse is not even physical ....
Your uncle may have walked around naked, calling attention to his penis, ....
Your tennis coach may have badgered you into telling him exactly what you did
with your boyfriend. There are many ways to be violated sexually. There is also abuse on the psychological
level. You had the feeling that your stepfather was aware of your physical
presence every minute of the day, no matter how quiet and unobtrusive you
were. Your neighbour .... A child's right of access to its parent 19jan98 Mrs. Sally Spear, 38 Sun Lane, Harpenden AL5 4HA Dear Sally, Thank you so much for your letters,
including the hand drawn chart; "What the situation appears to be to
me", which involved you in a lot of effort. I came to the second meeting at your
house because a high up UNA [United Nations Association] man was to talk. My
sole purpose was to test whether it was in fact true that the right of a
child to access its parent is not asserted in any international or national
declarations on human rights, or in any national or European legislation. The
one Declaration he cited, I quoted back to him, and he agreed that the
assertion was missing. He now hides behind asserting that it is a legal
matter in which he is incompetent, which is not true. The declaration of
fundamental human rights is not a legal matter, and is never buried in
legalese. If your lecturer continues to evade this
issue, then it will negate any good he might have done in his decades with
UNA. It is estimated that one quarter of children in England have lost all
contact with one parent. (This breach has been legally orchestrated by various
arms of our government and semi government, with impunity.) He has no right to run away from his
responsibilities in this matter. With reputation comes responsibility. I
shall be very grateful is you give a copy of this letter to him. I could draft the clause in five
minutes. For instance, "A child has an inalienable right of access to
its parent, unless the separation can be justified in a jury trial, the legal
costs of both sides to be borne by the agency or individual totally
separating child and parent. The burden of proof lies on the agency or
individual seeking to separate child from parent." Why does he evade
this matter? A member of UNA for decades, is he anti-social? Is he in fact an
enemy of basic civil rights? [Also evaded by FNF, see p9] The concept is close to Habeas Corpus.
The recent decline in nuclear and extended family, and attacks on them by
agents of the state (in secret courts) and others, has caused the issue to be
more and more serious, partly because the philosophy of what constitutes
parent and what constitutes family has been undermined. The right under
discussion was never asserted in the past, because in the past it was
obviously a fundamental human right. Only the non-obvious human rights get
stated, and this has become one. It is estimated separately by two
researchers that the cost to the taxpayer of permanently separating child
from parent is £160,000 in each case, and evidence of the non-fiscal damage
to the individual and to society mounts. Yours sincerely, Ivor Catt Abuse of men by their female partners - Anne
Lewis, Australia Anne Lewis, a victim of male abuse,
depth interviewed about fifty male victims of more than twelve months of
female abuse. See www.dvmen.org/dv-26.htm
There are numerous references, giving a good route into all aspects of
the subject. Curse of the first wives - Cristina
Odone, Observer, 27jan02, p27 .... Not all first wives are wronged
wives (after all, statistics show that in more than half of divorces, it is
she who calls it quits). And not all first wives get it wrong: my mother, I
remember, only rang my father when my brother or I were directly concerned
.... And yet the way most ex-wives carry on, you'd think they were victims of
a rogue accountant bent on robbing them of their hard-earned Enron salaries.
.... There are millions and millions of ex-wives nowadays, and their anger
will not ease the strain between the sexes. .... Naomi Wolf Below, Kristin Aune and Martha Crossley
talk to Naomi Wolf in Third Way, dec01, p21. www.thirdway.org.uk We were quite a religious Jewish family:
.... there was a very strong sense that the family could be a source of
tremendous nourishment and stability. My family stayed together, unlike a lot
of others. .... Another great thing about my
religious inheritance is that sensuality and sexuality - and woman's
sexuality, surprisingly - within a marital context is seen as very positive.
.... As Betty Frieden has said, feminism for
women has to encompass the fact that women have children. And men have
children, too. That's the culmination of our relations. .... To me, feminism is the logical
extension of democracy. .... I would say that the nuclear family is a
disaster for good parenting. .... I've just had a woman telling me that if I
was sleeping with a man I was letting down the sisterhood. .... I think Jesus
was .... an unbelievably revolutionary, gutsy feminist .... If I were giving
advice to the church fathers, I would make the case - which is really true of
every institution - that the future is female. .... .... as feminism continues to make
gains, men's lives become more and more difficult .... [then she completely
misses expropriation of the father after divorce. Does she not know about it?
- Ed] Naomi Wolf is the author of Fire with
Fire, pub. Chatto & Windus 1993. Divorce is not in its index, but rape
figures heavily. What a mess! On the inner cover; "Why, asks Naomi Wolf,
has feminism become a dirty word, even among women? A chasm has opened up
between the feminist movement and the lives of most women. Feminist orthodoxy
is out of touch with the real world. .... She provides a blueprint for a
revitalised, positive and inclusive brand of feminism ...." Then on p88,
she discusses the way women are not allowed in the media to discuss women's
issues! Her fourth book, Misconceptions, was published on 10sep01. Some mothers can't 'ave 'em -
Margarette Driscoll and Rosie Waterhouse, Sunday Times, 27jan02, p14 .... While the govt is busy giving
childcare tax credits to those on lower incomes to encourage women back to
work, higher earners who do not qualify for help are finding that the costs
of quality child-care are crippling. .... the average London nanny earns
£23,800; a working mother must earn £35,000 just to cover childcare. The
figure represents an 8.5% rise in nannies' wages over last year, far
outstripping inflation. The prohibitive cost of childcare is not
just a London phenomenon .... some middle-class women are beginning to drop
out of work altogether .... Nurseries provide little alternative. Some London
day nurseries charge £15,000 a year .... only 13% of parents can afford to
employ formal childcare. [Patricia Morgan, who spoke at our
ManKind 2000 conference, has written that childcare is either too expensive,
or of such low quality that it damages children. - Ed] Continued at www.ivorcatt.com/02c.htm [Ill Eagle 1999 issues are at www.ivorcatt.com/99.htm ] [Most past Ill Eagle issues are at www.ivorcatt.com/98.htm ] [Ill Eagle 2001 issues are at www.ivorcatt.com/01.htm ] [Ill Eagle 2002 issues
are at www.ivorcatt.com/02.htm ] . |