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Ill18 p16 The Lying M.P. 18dec01 second
copy sent 28jan02 Recorded Delivery. Hilton Dawson M.P., House of Commons, Westminster Dear Sir, Kilroy tue18dec01. Paedophiles. On the BBC1 Kilroy programme this
morning you stated that "One in seven men had had criminal conviction
for sexual abuse against children." Please supply your source for this
statistic. Another statistic, that there are
100,000 paedophiles in this country, was repeated frequently on this
morning's programme. You or Robert Kilroy, who repeated this second (100,000)
statistic, might be willing to supply the source, and the definition used. Yours sincerely, Ivor Catt, Editor, Ill Eagle. cc Robert Kilroy-Silk, BBC, Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Herts. The Facts Behind Cohabitation Civitas
report, see www.ivorcatt.com/2008.htm Cohabiting relationships are fragile.
.... Less than 4% of cohabitations last for ten years or more. ....
cohabiting couples accumulate less wealth than married couples .... [wives
are less likely to be abused] .... cohabitations with children are even more
likely to break up than childless ones .... [70% of children born to married
parents live their entire childhood with both natural parents, but only 36%
of those born to parents cohabiting at time of their birth] .... The price of casual sex - Carol
Midgley, Times, 29jan02 Britain is suffering from a sexually
transmitted disease epidemic, with huge numbers of young people becoming
infected. Male suicides www.ivorcatt.com/2011.htm Liars like Dawson (above) fuel the
numbers. - Ed Are Fathers' Rights a
Factor in Male Suicide? - Wendy McElroy, 29jan02 In the early morning hours of Jan. 7,
43-year-old Derrick K. Miller walked up to a security guard at the entrance
to the San Diego Courthouse, where a family court had recently ruled against
him on overdue child support. Clutching court papers in one hand, he drew out
a gun with the other. Declaring: "You did this to me," he fatally
shot himself through the skull. Miller's suicide is symbolic of a frightening
global trend: an alarming rise in male suicides. According to a round of
studies conducted in North America, Europe and Australia, one reason for the
increase may be the discrimination fathers encounter in family courts,
especially the denial of access to their children. If a similar rise in
female suicides was occurring, a public crusade would demand a remedy. Yet
the extraordinarily high rate of male suicide is rarely discussed. What are the statistics? According to a
1999 surgeon general's report, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death
in America, with men four times more likely to kill themselves than women.
The prevalence of male suicide is not restricted to North America. An
Australian study offered similar statistics. Of 2,683 suicides in Australia
in 1998, 2,150 were males, making suicide the second leading cause of death
among 25- to 44-year-old men. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
reports that the suicide rate for men aged 20 to 39 years has risen by 70 percent
over the last two decades. Statistics from Ireland and the United Kingdom
indicate rates of male suicide as high as five times that of women. Indeed, a
recent study found that suicide was the leading cause of death for Irish men
between 15-34 years old. The research also points to a probable cause.
According to sociologist Augustine Kposow of the University of California at
Riverside, divorce and loss of children is a factor. "As far as the
[divorced] man is concerned, he has lost his marriage and lost his children
and that can lead to depression The
Australian study's suggested reasons for some of the suicides include
"marriage breakdown." "There is evidence to suggest that many
men sense they are being discriminated against in family court judgements,"
the study says. Cut off from their children, divorced men experience
heightened "frustration and isolation." Yet, the motivation for
male suicide remains a matter for speculation because little research has
focused on the subject. Telling the stories of such forgotten
men has been left largely to fathers' rights Web sites such as Dads4Kids.
There you read about Warren Gilbert who died of carbon monoxide poisoning,
clutching a letter from the Child Protective Service. Or Martin Romanchick —
the New York City police officer who hanged himself after being denied access
due to charges brought by his ex-wife, which the court found to be frivolous.
Or Darrin White, a Canadian who hanged himself after being denied access
because he could not pay child support that was twice his take-home pay. His
14-year-old daughter wrote a letter to the Canadian prime minister in which
she pointed to "the frustration and hopelessness caused in dealing with
Canada's family justice system" as the "biggest factor" in her
father's death. "I know my father was a good man and a good father. ...
He obviously reached a point where he could see that justice was beyond his
reach and for reasons that only God will know, decided that taking his life
was the only way to end his suffering," Ashlee White wrote. Ashlee
signed the letter "In Memory of My Loving Father." Are family court
systems deeply biased against fathers? I believe so. But discussing the
matter is almost a taboo. How prevalent is the silence? When did you last hear
a discussion of whether a "father" should have any voice in
abortion? Even raising the issue draws derisive and dismissive responses. Yet
if men are forced to bear legal responsibility for children, then it is not
absurd to ask whether they should have some prerogatives as well. The point
here is not how the question should be answered. The point is that the
question should be asked. .... The stakes are too high for the media to
remain disinclined to comment. .... Male suicide must be confronted honestly
before America follows the way of Ireland, before suicide becomes the
leading cause of death in young men.
.... Last Road Out of Hell by James Hanback, Jr. 15jan02 On Jan. 7, a 43-year-old man, apparently
depressed about a recent overdue child support ruling against him, shot
himself to death on the steps of the San Diego Courthouse. According to reports in the San Diego
Union Tribune, Derrick K. Miller walked up to a security guard around 6:25
a.m. and began raving about injustices thrust upon him by the legal system.
Court papers in one hand, he produced a handgun with the other and fired one
shot into his skull, instantly killing himself. What the six-paragraph story in the
Union Tribune doesn't say, however, is that Miller's actions represent a
small sampling of a disturbing trend all over the world. Men who are fed up
with what they see as injustices perpetrated upon them by court systems that,
in cases of child custody, child support, and divorce, generally favor women,
are increasingly taking their own lives. The problem has become so widespread, in
fact, that some governments-Australia's, for instance-have implemented new
programs aimed at getting suicidal men help in overcoming the urge to end it
all. Likewise, official studies from both Australia and Ireland within the
past year have connected an alarming increase in male suicide in their
respective countries to the breaking down of family structure, and a
perception by men of wrong-doing to them perpetrated by the legal system. According to the Irish study, five times
more men than women in that country die from suicide each year, and more than
40 percent of those are men under 30. The principle cause of death for men
between the ages of 15-34 in Ireland, in fact, is suicide. Once upon a time,
more men died from traffic accidents. The Irish report further stated that the
"strong protective effect of marriage" was confirmed as prevention
for male suicide. Single, separated, divorced, or widowed individuals all had
higher suicide rates. In similar fashion, the Australian study
found that younger men in that country were particularly susceptible to
suicide upon divorce or separation from their children. "Recent research into male suicide in
this age group revealed that males in the 'separation phase' of a marriage
break-up were most at risk of suicide, compared with widowed or divorced
males," the report's authors wrote. "Marriage breakdown is a
significant characteristic of male suicide in the 24-39 age bracket. The
anxiety and emotional pain of separation and divorce appear to effect [sic]
men differently. "Whilst suicides may simply be
recorded as statistics, it is the increasing number of murder/suicides,
involving children that have brought the tragic reality of male suicide, and
male mental health issues in general into the public arena. Ill p17 "Where children are concerned,
there is evidence to suggest that many men sense they are being discriminated
against in family court judgements, and often find themselves in financial
straits having to pay legal fees and child support payments. The difficulty
in maintaining access to children also heightens the frustration and
isolation of separated and/or divorced men." Two studies, two separate nations, and a
plethora of social scientists have thus apparently confirmed what individual
families have known and news reports have ignored for years: family courts
all over Western society are unfair to men, and some men are dying as a
result. In the U.S. alone, statistics from the Centers for Disease Control
estimate that approximately 80 percent of all suicides every year are by men.
Compared to homicide rates recorded by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the
number of suicides every year in this country is about 32 percent higher than
the number of homicides. Although both the Irish and Australian
studies suggest that mental health professionals should focus more on men and
getting men to help themselves out of the depressions which result in suicide,
perhaps a greater contributor to men's well-being would be to reform family
courts. Perhaps it's time to change things so that men going through divorce,
child custody battles, and child support hearings are given a fair shake. Even in these days of Western feminine
liberation there are men who pay alimony. Why? Women in Western culture have
been welcomed into the workplace. Everyone knows a woman can make her own
ends meet if she so chooses. If, in divorce, the female is absolved from all
marital obligations to her former husband, why should he still be forced to
be her breadwinner? Likewise, child support is no longer
about providing for children. It is a multi-million dollar industry designed
to generate revenue for individual state governments, at least in the United
States. Visit any fathers advocates forum on the Internet and you'll find a
variety of horror stories about child support rulings which deprive a man of
his own livelihood, while his ex-wife maintains custody of the children,
denies him visitation, and has married another man who is also providing for
her. Adding insult to injury, there's even a
Yahoo! Group dedicated to informing women about how to achieve this
particular lifestyle. It's called "Ex-husband Is Now My Slave" and
currently has more than 900 members. You can find it here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ex-husband_is_now_my_slave/. So if the family court situation is the
root cause of so much trouble--and is creating a world where men take their
own lives out of desperation and women brag about it on the Internet--why,
apparently, is nothing being done to change it? That answer lies in the media. No matter
who you are or where you live, chances are there is a man in your life, or in
your extended family, who has been through some of the pain and anguish
associated with divorce, child custody, or child support battles. Chances are
that the toll of that situation was much greater on him than his former
spouse. In America, divorce court is routine, and fictionalized accounts of
it are even broadcast on daytime television. Unfortunately for the men
involved in genuine cases, though, the media tends to ignore the courts'
consistent discrimination against them as simple facts of life which cannot
(or should not) be changed. Miller--he who shot himself on the San
Diego Courthouse steps--is the exception which proves the rule. His case was
so dramatic--and public-as a result of his suicide that the Union Tribune
could not ignore it. But what happens now that his brief story has been told?
Will an intrepid reporter examine the suicide rates of divorced men in San
Diego and discover a pattern? Will said reporter examine the family court
system from the inside out and determine for himself whether justice is
routinely served or men routinely discriminated against? It's not probable. Instead, the Union Tribune reporters
will do precisely what I did when I faced a similar story as a police
reporter for The Review Appeal in Franklin, Tenn., in the mid-1990s. They'll
simply go on about their business--writing about budgets, schools, police
chases, and criminal trials--until the next man kills himself on the
courthouse steps in similar dramatic fashion. Then they'll write six more
paragraphs about it and move on again. That's what good police reporters do. Sometimes I think back on that bright
production day at The Review Appeal. I remember I was writing a small
two-paragraph note for what we called "The Police Blotter" about
someone who had exposed himself (and escaped police) at a local mall. The radio
scanner had been silent all afternoon and, just two hours before we were to
put the paper to bed, I heard two sentences from a preternaturally calm
female voice creep across the airwaves on the Franklin Police Department's
frequency: "He's on the Square. He's got a gun
to his head." My office chair was probably still
spinning as I ran out the door. Two streets down was Public Square, the
Franklin town center where there were several shops, Franklin City Hall, and
the Williamson County Courthouse. No sooner had I turned the corner where I
could see the tall statue in the Square gleaming against the afternoon sun
than I heard the gunshot, and saw a crowd of police and emergency personnel
swarm in upon the man as his formerly seated body crumpled to the concrete. While my photographer snapped away at
the scene, I talked to witnesses and police officers. I asked where the man
had come from, who he was, and why he might have committed such an act. Some faces in the crowd told me they had
seen the man walk out of the courthouse, so while my editor continued to
interview witnesses, I went to see the Williamson County Court Clerk. There,
I learned the man's identity and that he had spent most of the day in divorce
court. After apparently losing his job, his wife, and a battle with
depression, he had finally given up hope. The article I wrote for the paper the
next day contained all the details a good police reporter includes: who,
what, when, where, and some possible reasons why. I had quotes from the
officers who worked the scene as well as a few notes from the court filings.
When I finished writing, I walked outside and smoked a Marlboro I bummed from
someone in the production department (even though I'm not a smoker). The
image of that man with the gun played over and over in my head, and as I
exhaled the stale smoke of the cigarette from my lungs, I wondered what smoke
and gunpowder from a firearm must taste like at such close range. Sometimes I think back on that bright
production day, and I wonder why I didn't continue to follow up on that
story. I wonder why I felt that examining that man's case in the cold light
of an objective reporter's eye wasn't worth pursuing. I wonder what I might
have found had I been persistent. Most of all, though, I wonder if I might
not have been able to shed some light and create change in some small way. And maybe saved someone else's life. That's what a good reporter should have
done. Is there an upside to divorce? - Cathy
Young, Boston Globe, 23jan02, p A15 .... a new book, For Better or Worse:
Divorce Reconsidered, by renowned psychologist E. Mavis Hetherington. The
book is not a polemic but a meticulous analysis of a major study. However, it
is widely perceived as a rejoinder to writings which, according to
Hetherington, have ''exaggerated the negative effects'' of divorce and
ignored its possible benefits - such as the books of family researcher Judith
Wallerstein. Social conservatives such as David
Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values are accusing Hetherington of
promoting ''happy talk'' about divorce. Syndicated columnist and author
Maggie Gallagher points out that Hetherington's own data belie her optimistic
message. True, 75 to 80 percent of children of divorce grow up to be
reasonably well-adjusted - but 20 to 25 percent have serious social or
emotional problems, compared to 10 percent of children from intact families.
.... Ill p18 .... Hubin, who has joint custody of his
children and believes that he is a better father than he would have been had
he stayed in his first marriage, worries about the implication of antidivorce
rhetoric that the pursuit of happiness by adults ought to be stigmatized as
selfish. ''Yes, the children's interests come first, but don't we care about
the happiness of mothers and fathers too?'' he wonders. ''At what point do I
tell my 18-year-old son that his happiness doesn't matter anymore?'' Like most divorced men, Hubin believes
that we would go a long way toward mitigating the negative effects of divorce
if the culture and the courts were more supportive of divorced fathers'
efforts to stay involved in their children's lives. One of the Hetherington's
more disturbing findings is that after divorce, men and boys fare markedly
worse than women and girls. While young adults whose parents usually have
good relationships with their mothers, about 70 percent report having a poor
relationship with their fathers (compared to 30 percent of children from
intact families). Gallagher concludes that few men have ''figured out how to
be effective fathers outside of marriage.'' But all too often, it's outdated
social policies that make it impossible for them to be effective fathers by
treating the mother as the only real parent. Changing these policies is a far
more realistic goal than eliminating divorce. .... Full text at www.ivorcatt.com/2012.htm New
insight into Mutual Combat. Psychological Effects of Partner Abuse against Men: A Neglected
Researched Area - Hines,
Denise A. and Malley-Morrison, Kathleen dahines@bu.edu Psychology of Men and Masculinity Vol 2
(2) July 2001 page 75 -- 85; American Psychological
Association Inc. This article discusses the research on
abuse against men in intimate relationships with a primary focus on the
effects of this abuse. .... Although there is a substantial research literature addressing
abuse against women and its consequences, the flip side of this issue,
physical abuse against men and its consequences, is a less researched
area....... There has been almost no research on the consequences of this
type of abuse.... .... a bulk of the research on motivations for violence in
intimate relationships has shown that self defence is not the motivation for
women's violence in the majority of cases. There has been some recognition by
researchers who do not use the CTS [Conflict Tactics Scale] that husband
abuse may indeed be a problem that can be categorised as a serious social
concern. For instance, while treating
the clients of a male batterer's program, Stacey, Hazelwood, and Shupe
(1994) found that many of their
cases were actually cases of mutual abuse. They found that many couples
tended to be mutually abusive and that the roles of victim and perpetrator
were constantly shifting. [This is the point always made by Erin Pizzey. See
her book Prone to Violence, on the www - Ed] In addition, when studying the responses of police officers in their
study, Stacey et al. reported that the police would arrest the man as the
batterer if the women were the abuser because there was no counselling
program for women available. The police hoped that, by arresting
the man, they could get the couple into a program. The assumption was that if they arrested the wife, no
counselling would be mandated and the husband would generally drop the
charges. However because the man was
arrested, he had to sign a statement that labeled him as the violent
perpetrator. This lack of help for
women who abuse their husbands is quite common. Several studies have
indicated that violence by women may be increasing. .... Marital Rape and Eminem - Michael
Gilson De Lemos, 31jan02 .... A State Attorney boasted to me;
"Marriage as once understood is now a crime in the USA." Legally,
spouses are equivalent to streetwalkers in many respects, she gloated. She
told me of a seminar she attended at Yale where it was pointed out that,
legally, since it embodies an illegal pledge, the marriage ring is itself inherently
abusive and "evidence of rape" and violence. Several judges and
scholars present affirmed that this, while technically true, would need time
to be presented to the public "by incremental, socially targeted
prosecutions." .... See www.ivorcatt.com/2016.htm http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,9003-2002042998,00.html Women troops to be kept off front line - James
Clark, Sunday Times, 27jan02 Women will not be allowed to fight with
frontline units in the British military, Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary,
will announce next month. The saga over whether women should be
allowed to join units such as the Parachute Regiment, SAS, marines and
armoured regiments has been running since Labour took office in 1997. .... Claire Ward MP .... spent a year alongside the Royal Marines
as part of a parliamentary armed forces scheme, in which MPs experience
military life. "I arrived with the view that women should have the right
to do this and told them so, said Ward. But after a year I had my mind
changed." I don't think women are physically built
for it, and I also think that while the lads I knew were mature and calm, they
are trained to be very aggressive and, lets be frank, to kill, often with
bare hands. I believe firmly in equality, but men and women are
different." .... It was thought that the most serious
problems might emerge in the way the soldiers interacted. However, while the
cohesion of mixed-sex units suffered slightly, the report found stark
differences in performance. Tests also showed that the injury rate among
women was double that of male soldiers. .... Women's Groups Blast 'Politically Correct' Pentagon Policies CNS News,
31jan02 see
www.ivorcatt.com/2017.htm Quote: Donnelly .... called for an end
to "gender quotas, pregnancy policies that subsidize single parenthood
and create deployability problems, incremental steps to force women into land
combat, and Clinton-era social policies that undermine discipline." Donnelly blasted the Defense Advisory
Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) - a 35-member panel of mostly
civilian women, as "a tax-funded feminist power base within the
Department of Defense." The panel is demanding that women be allowed to
serve in so-called "tip of the spear units," including Special
Forces and on submarines, and as combat helicopter pilots. "When the nation watches the
Superbowl on Sunday," Yoest said, "there will be no women on either
team, for the obvious reason that men are stronger than women." And yet,
we now send women into combat. A truth that we intuitively grasp and
automatically accept in the sports arena, we blithely ignore and rationalize
away for the military," she said. .... The Divorce Industry www.ivorcatt.com/2009.htm The is an excellent, comprehensive,
5,000 word analysis of the forces which have combined to attack our children
for financial gain. Clearly a growing international problem, leading world expert
Baskerville cites Melanie Phillips, The Sex Change Society, pub. SMF 1999.
Melanie is now a Daily Mail columnist. The English yearly legal aid bill is £1.6bn. Ill18 p19 31jan02 To Stephen Baskerville; I am saying that you are the world
expert on the nationalisation of the family and its handing over to the Child
Protection Industry. I think you are ahead of Anne Cools. We need to standardise our language in
order to characterise your speciality. It might also be called "The
Divorce Industry". However, some children are being confiscated without
any divorce action occurring. Another title might be the "Child Theft
Industry". However, we are also interested in the confiscation of a
father's property. We need to give a name to the incubus that you identify
and write about. - Ivor Thanks for the kind words. I have more in the works. – Stephen Fathers threaten billion-Mark class-action suit Translated from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung WIESBADEN, 31jan02. German and foreign
fathers that don't have access to their children after separation or divorce
want to exact in a class-action suit compensatory payment from the Federal
Government of Germany. According to the self-help organization
"Destinies Child" [sic] (http://www.german-child-norm.com), on
account of the prevailing judiciary practices presently about 200,000 German
fathers are being locked out from access to their minor children. Wiesbaden family-advocate Wolfgang Bache,
who has been authorized to launch the complaint, sees therein a massive
violation of the respect for family life that is guaranteed through the
European Convention for Human Rights. The expectations for success are
according to Bache's opinion based, amongst other things, on four decisions
by the European Court for Human Rights against Germany during the last two
years. In four decisions, one Turkish- and three German fathers received a
total of DM180,000 in damage awards. [= US$80,000] With considerably larger demands and the
participation of about 4,000 fathers in the class-action suit that will be
filed this summer in the Berlin Regional Court, "Destinies Child"
expects that the compensation to be paid will run to about a half-billion
Euro. Implacable hostility - letter
from Mary Thomas, Telegraph, 5dec01 .... If the mother is implacably hostile
towards the absent father, she can easily share that hostility with her
child. In Britain, many children caught up in
parental hostilities cope by opting out of the conflict. The allegation that
"my child no longer wishes to see his father" soon then becomes
true. It is vital that the Lord Chancellor's
advisory board on family law recognises and names "implacable hostility
syndrome", and states clearly its policy on this particularly insidious
form of child abuse. The penalty for emotional distress caused by long-term
brain-washing of a child - deprived of the love of a father and perhaps a
whole family - is one that should be carefully defined and adhered to. [Two Appeal Court decisions ruled that a
father should be cut off if the mother is implacably hostile. (Even an
implacably hostile step-father was backed by the Appeal Court, when he
threatened to abandon the mother and child.) The argument was that the
interests of the child came first, and if the mother were forced to allow
contact, she might take vengeance on the child. In both cases, no sanctions
were applied against the implacable mother (or the step-father). - Ed] Lady Hollis, minister responsible for
the Child Support Agency, said: " .... Children benefit .... when they
have contact with both parents. Obviously it's right that, if we require
absent parents to obey the law to pay maintenance, it's also right that
parents with care should also respect court rulings." - Telegraph,
3dec02. [She obviously doesn't know that the court supports defiant mothers.
Using the mantra "the interests of the child", Sloss will continue
to defy Parliament. (An ignorant Sloss makes a subjective judgement as to the
best interests of the child.) - Ed] Orientation and health At www.ivorcatt.com/2018.htm Dale
O'Leary supplies a comprehensive range of statistics which show the
multifarious health risks faced by boys who self-identify as gay. The
worrying statistics cover gay. lesbian and bisexual (GLB). Fathers picket judges over child access -
Clare Dyer, Guardian, 30oct01 A growing number of judges are having
their homes picketed by bands of unhappy divorced and separated fathers who
are demanding equal rights for both parents. .... The picketers are divorced and separated
parents, who accuse the family courts of failing to deliver on a key
principle enshrined in the Children Act - that both parents should continue
to play a part in their children's lives when the adults' relationship has
broken down. The Equal Parenting Council and the
charity Families Need Fathers say the courts are unwilling to act when faced
with a mother who is determined to flout a contact order. Judges accept that there are
"implacably hostile" mothers who deliberately alienate children
from their fathers. But although judges have power to jail mothers for
contempt of court, they rarely use it because they are reluctant to deprive
children of their mothers' care. .... Stinko Tom Aldridge, our treasurer, wrote to
ESRC to complain about the Stinko research that they had funded. Stinko
invented the statistic that one in four women are assaulted in the home. The
full text is at www.ivorcatt.com/2021.htm Tom writes; ".... [Stanko] fell into every trap
laid for the unwary researcher. She asked badly considered questions, used
too small a sample, was not sufficiently random .... and did not refer to a
similar survey thich had found high levels of violence in women as well as
men. .... If she intended to obtain material for anti-male propaganda it was
superb. If it were intended as bona fide social research it was pitiful. .... Perhaps Stanko was not statistically
inept. But then the mind boggles. What other explanation could there be for
her results? Why should she produce statistics omitting the evidence of
female violence? .... [The plot thickens. This week, a woman
on BBC1 at 7.45am said that 40% of women were assaulted in the home. That
makes Stinko's 25% look like kid stuff. - Ed] Also see a hatchet job on Stinko-type
fabrications in Ireland, at www.ivorcatt.com/2022.htm http://www.glennjsacks.com/california_mothers_murders.htm California Mother's Triple Murders Show Cost of Ignoring Female Abusers By Glenn
J. Sacks It is a well-known story - a violent
husband abuses his wife and others, the wife stays with him out of fear or
shame, and in the end the husband kills the wife, or the children, or both.
We shake our heads and say "If only we could have protected her." Such is the scenario of the Socorro Caro
triple murders, except that this time the genders are reversed. The Southern
California case is an extreme example of the price children, fathers, and our
society as a whole sometimes pay for our refusal to acknowledge female
domestic violence. Socorro Caro, according to testimony by
several witnesses, including her husband Dr. Xavier Caro, had violently
attacked her husband or others on eight occasions prior to the night of
November 22, 1999, when she shot and killed three of her four sons. In these
previous incidents Ms. Caro had used weapons and the element of surprise to
her advantage, and had caused several injuries, including serious eye damage
to her husband. Why didn't Dr. Caro leave her? Why didn't
he tell anybody what was being done to him? "I was ashamed. I was
embarrassed," he testified recently during the penalty phase of Socorro
Caro's trial. According to other reports, he was also skeptical that
authorities would believe him. Thanks to the noble efforts of women's
activists, had Ms. Caro been the victim of abuse at the hands of Dr. Caro,
help would have been available.Ms. Caro could have moved with her children to
a shelter. Using the legal services of the shelter, she could have filed a
restraining order against her violent husband, and filed for divorce. She
would have received custody of her four children, their home, half or more of
the family's financial assets, and substantial child support. In addition,
she probably would have been able to eliminate her abusive husband's
visitation rights. Ill18 p20 Had Dr. Caro, a male victim of domestic
violence, felt that the legal system would give his claims the same credence
that an abused woman's claims receive, his three children would probably still
be alive today. Are female child abuse and domestic
violence rare? Unfortunately not. According to the US Department of Justice,
70% of confirmed cases of child abuse and 65% of parental murders of children
are committed by mothers. Veteran domestic violence researchers
Richard Gelles, Murray Straus, and Susan Steinmetz, who were once hailed by
the women's movement for their pioneering work on violence against women,
have repeatedly found that women are as likely as men to physically attack
their spouses or partners. California State Long Beach Psychology
professor Martin Fiebert has compiled and summarized 117 different studies
with over 72,000 respondents that found that most domestic violence is mutual
and, in the cases where there was only one abusive partner, that partner was
as likely to be female as male. [See Fiebert at
www.electromagnetism.demon.co.uk/07088.htm ] Crime statistics do not bear out what
researchers know because women tend to be seriously injured more often than
men, and because men, for various reasons, are far less likely than women to
report the abuse against them. As the Caro case shows, by allowing
abusive women to go unacknowledged and unpunished, female abusers are
encouraged to believe that they can get away with their abuse indefinitely,
which frequently results in escalating violence. Why didn't Dr. Caro seek help? Besides
shame and denial, many men hesitate to report their wives' violence because
they fear that once the police are involved, the wife will accuse her husband
of being the perpetrator and it is she, not he, who will be believed. This
is, in fact, what Ms. Caro tried to do during her murder trial, claiming that
it was her husband, not her, who committed the murders. Draconian mandatory
arrest laws often direct police to make an arrest, even when the abuse is
mutual (as research shows is generally the case), or when it is unclear who
the perpetrator is. While arrests of women account for a third or more of
domestic violence arrests in some states, police generally are pressured to
arrest the man, even when the evidence is scant. What could Dr. Caro have done? There are
few domestic violence shelters which accept men, though in this case he
probably would have had enough money to pay for other accommodations. He
would have had difficulty winning a custody battle, particularly with the
well-documented willingness of women in danger of losing custody to make
false accusations of abuse or child molestation. Quite possibly these
accusations or other legal machinations could have led to Ms. Caro being
granted custody of the children, and even to Dr. Caro losing visitation
rights. Thus his children could have been in the care of and under the
control of an abuser without even the limited protection he could provide by
staying with her. Thus Xavier Caro was trapped - not just
by his violent wife, but by a society that refuses to acknowledge what
voluminous research and simple common sense shows - domestic violence is not
a male affliction but a human one. Campaign Update ManKind has been more than a little busy
of late in developing its DV strategy. So quickly have come the developments
that we have not had time to keep members abreast of all the changes and new
initiatives. As a consequence there is much to report and a brief summary is
penned below. We have managed to put together a small
list of those who wish to participate in the pilot telephone support group.
We encourage any member with a few hours to spare to please volunteer so that
our resources are not too overstretched. ManKind is already changing the social
landscape in regards male victims of DV. In Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Somerset
we have initiated much needed pilot projects designed to start helping male
victims of domestic violence. ManKind is enjoying full co-operation with
police forces in those counties. From that small start, we have now
broadened into many more counties with police forces and victims support
agencies seeking us out. Other police forces around the country
are in line to come on board. From Somerset to Southampton to Canterbury, and
from Brighton to Derbyshire to Yorkshire, we are now working with the very
same agencies that provide support for women. Our goal is to grow the issue
to a point where there is the same level of help available to men as there is
to women. All of you can make a difference by
contacting your local police station and asking to put up a poster and
distribute leaflets. Already one such poster has, in the last few days,
brought a phone call from New York. A man who had been in a London police
station a few weeks ago seeking advice about a violent spouse saw our poster
on the notice board and phoned for advice. Our DV strategy is fourfold. The plan
comprises 1/. Support group 2/. Helplines 3/. Pilot projects and 4/. Campaigning.
All these are in place or well under way. For more details of our progress or
ways in which you can help either contact your Regional Organiser or
ManKind's National Organiser 01643-863352. The Campaigning element involves
research and data collection undertaken by Dewar Research. You can play a
positive role here as we still need even more information from interviews.
Collection of data and personal accounts are key to its success. Your
experience could be of immeasurable importance to the whole project. The
contact for this is Steve Fitzgerald, Tel: 01643 863352 who will put you in
touch with Dewar Research. -
Robert Whiston, Chairman -
ManKind Domestic Violence Helplines (male victims) Please remember that these lines are
operated by volunteers. If you do not receive an immediate answer, please
leave a message or try one of the other numbers. London & South-East - Dave - 07711
746218 (Tues & Wed l0 am till lpm ) London, Berkshire, Hampshire, I.O.W.,
Surrey, Sussex, Kent Home Counties - Brian - 0208 281 7367 Oxfordshire, Bucks, Beds, Herts, Essex South-West - Stephen Fitzgerald - 01643
863252 Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset,
Bristol, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire Eastern England - Peter - 01775 840501 Rutland, Combs, Lincs, Norfolk, Suffolk East Midlands - William - 01162 640351 Derby, Notts, Leics, Warwicks, Northants West Midlands - Don - 01746 766307 West Midlands, Staffs, Shropshire,
Worcs, Herefordshire North-West - Steve - 0151 5127303 or
Dawn - 0161 2831894 Cheshire, Merseyside, Greater
Manchester, Lancs Wales - Matthew - 07866 566045 For all other areas, eg North-East,
Yorkshire, Northern England, Cumbria, Northumberland, Durham, Tyne &
Wear, Northern Ireland, Scotland - contact National Organiser, Stephen
Fitzgerald directly on Tel: 01643 863352 _ When a friend told a typist called Eve: 'Your boss is too good to believe. You can't type, you can't spell Why's he pay you so well? She answered: 'I cannot conceive.' -
Gordon Harper Continued at www.ivorcatt.com/02d.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 ] . |