Meppershall dad in rooftop demo over fathers’ rights

A DAD from Meppershall has taken part in a rooftop demonstration in Justice Secretary Ken Clarke’s constituency in support of fathers’ rights.

On Saturday, Roger Crawford, of Shefford Road, scaled the roof of a Conservative club opposite Mr Clarke’s constituency office in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire.

The 63-year-old was dressed as a court jester and was joined by fellow member of campaign group New Fathers 4 Justice, Jem Pogue.

Mr Clarke’s homes in Rushcliffe and London were simultaneously targeted by fellow members of New Fathers 4 Justice and Real Fathers for Justice.

Mr Crawford has not seen his only child, Heather, for 18 years, after what he calls “a torrid time in the family courts” fighting for visiting rights.

New Fathers 4 Justice are campaigning for fathers and mothers to have equal rights to see their children following separation.

Mr Crawford said: “Ken Clarke is our number one target. He’s Justice Secretary and almost now alone in the Cabinet in saying that no parent should have the right to see their child in law.

“The rest of the Cabinet is saying what we have been saying for years – in law every parent should have a right to see their children, unless there is a very good reason not to.”

He said Mr Clarke’s office did not make an official response to Saturday’s demonstration, but that they received a lot of support from passers-by.

Last year, in another New Fathers 4 Justice demonstration, Mr Crawford and Mr Pogue both climbed on Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency office roof in Witney.

Angry protesters take to roof of area's Conservative Club

PROTESTERS caused a stir in the centre of West Bridgford after taking to the roof of the town's Conservative Club.

Two activists from the New Fathers for Justice group, dressed as Superman and a court jester, got on to the roof of the building in Rectory Road and remained there from around 9am until 1pm on Saturday.

They shouted through loudspeakers while around a dozen other protesters gathered beneath them on the street.

The group say they were protesting at Justice Secretary and Rushcliffe MP Ken Clarke's failure to reform family law.

Banners saying "Ken Clarke will not give fathers equal rights" and "We're fathers, not criminals" were hung from the building.

The protesters agreed to leave after they were asked to get down by the police. No arrests were made.

The group believes Mr Clarke, also MP for Rushcliffe, does not support fathers separated from their children.

Spokesperson Rich Adams said: "The whole present Family Court system is a complete pantomime farce at best.

"Fathers are being made redundant in the family courts.

"The UK family law works on the basis that no evidence is needed, the mother's word is good enough.

"If a mother or custodial parent informs the court they think the child may be at risk, the court has no alternative but to side with custodial parent usually the mother.

"It is being abused each year by unscrupulous partners to stop kind, loving and hardworking fathers from seeing their children."

Gary Roe, 44, from Heanor took part in the protest.

He said: "I'm one of the lucky ones because now I do get to see my daughter."

Mr Clarke was unavailable for comment.

Dads stage sit in on Clegg’s roof

MEMBERS of a fathers’ campaign group staged a sit-in on Nick Clegg’s office roof to protest at ‘unfair rules’ regarding access to their children.

The men - all in fancy dress, and part of an organisation called New Fathers 4 Justice - staged the hour-long protest at the Deputy Prime Minister’s office in Nether Green, Sheffield.

They held a banner reading, ‘The family justice system is not in the child’s best interest’.

James Moffat, aged 30, a former chef from Eckington, said his children live in Portsmouth - where he travels to see them for 90 minutes once a fortnight.

He said: “Nick Clegg promised before the election that he would improve access rights but he has done nothing to ensure that happens so far. All we want is a fair deal.”

Trucker Garry Roe, 42, dressed as the Grim Reaper, travelled from Heanor in Derbyshire to take part in the demonstration.

He said: “All I want is for the law to recognise fathers have rights too. We’ve written to our local MPs because we want equal rights, but we’ve been ignored time and again. So now we’re here.”

Roger Crawford, 63, had travelled from Bedford.

“Nick Clegg promised grandparents the right to see their grandchildren,” he said. “But how is he going to achieve that if parents themselves don’t even have equal rights?”

A spokesman for Sheffield Hallam MP Mr Clegg said: “Peaceful, lawful protest is always welcome.

“However the roof of the constituency office, and our next door neighbours’ roof, is private property and their actions could have proven dangerous to themselves and others.”

New Fathers 4 Justice’ activists climb on Nick Clegg’s constituency office roof

At 10.30 am this morning four ‘New Fathers 4 Justice’ activists climbed on the roof of Nick Clegg’s constituency office roof in Sheffield.

This was our first rooftop protest against the Lib Dems and now they have gone into bed with the Tories they should come out from under the covers and support equality for fathers or be targeted with further protests.

Roger ‘Court Jester’ Crawford from Meppershal, James Moffat and Jemma Hunt from Sheffield, Paddy McQue from Hartlepool and Garry Roe ‘Grim Reaper Roe from Heanor spent 3 wet and windy hours on Cleggs constituency roof.

They came down after a representative from Nick Clegg’s agreed to speak to them. Unfortunately this representative was as incompetent as Nick Clegg and struggled to remember the address of the Deputy Prime minsters office in London. We can see he chooses his staff well !!

Meppershall fathers' rights activist targets David Cameron's office

A DAD has scaled the roof of Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency office to protest about fathers’ rights.

Roger Crawford, of Shefford Road in Meppershall, was one of three members of campaign group New Fathers 4 Justice who took part in the rooftop demonstration in Witney, Oxfordshire, last Thursday.

The 62-year-old said: “I haven’t seen my own daughter, Heather, for 17 years now and she’s my only child.

“I just wanted visiting rights but I had a torrid time in the family courts. I found them adversarial rather than helpful and that’s why I joined Fathers 4 Justice and then New Fathers 4 Justice.”

Dressed as a court jester, Mr Crawford protested on the roof of the PM’s constituency office for more than four hours. He was accompanied by Jeremy Pogue, 50, from Wales, and Archit Ssan, 46, and from London. They held up banners, with one reading ‘two parents are better than one’.

“Obviously there are some exceptions, but time and time again it has been proved that children are best brought up knowing both parents,” Mr Crawford said.

He said that, due to “parental alienation, with her mother having a great deal of influence”, his daughter, who is now 19, has said she does not want to see him.

“It’s been very hard,” he said. “When she was 18 I wrote to her and said it was really up to her now but that I still care.”

He continued: “I can’t understand how someone like David Cameron, who has lost a child himself and said it affected him so badly he almost gave up politics, can ignore us.

“Parents – mother or father – have no right in law to see their child.

“He promised before the election that he would grant a legal status to parents and grandparents. He’s renaged on that.

“There is a review of family law, but it won’t include this.”

Asked if Mr Cameron’s office had responded to the demonstration, Mr Crawford said that the protest had been met with “a defeaning silence”.

He added: “We are going to step up our campaign now. I will be up to more mischief before long.”

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said that officers were on the scene to observe the demonstration, but that no action was taken.

Roger 'The Court Jester' Crawford at the MOJ protest yesterday

Roger 'The Court Jester' Crawford at the MOJ protest yesterday

Roger said 'We had fourteen at this very low-key demo. But a huge (friendly) police presence, after Arch's antics. And a lot of public interest. The security staff at the MoJ were laughing and joking with Arch, and we could not have had a more relaxed and interested reception at the MoJ'

'I contacted the Ministry of Justice this morning and they will meet a representative from New Fathers 4J ustice, the Equal Parenting Alliance, and the various Grandparents groups on a day in the near future, to be confirmed'


General Statement From Representatives Of;

New Fathers 4 Justice, The Equal Parenting Alliance, Real Fathers for Justice, Grandparents Action Group And Grandparents Apart

FOR THE ATTENTION OF THE FAMILY LAW REVIEW PANEL

We are very concerned that there is no disenfranchised parent or grandparent on the Family Law review panel, or anyone affected by forced adoption. Some of our number here today are deeply sceptical of yet another review body looking into Family Law, and have mentioned that there may be some on the panel who may feel that their own interests are best served by keeping the ‘status quo’. However, we do earnestly hope that this review will take into account the views of people like these and others who feel wronged, damaged, and disenfranchised by the current Family Court system in this country.

We, as representatives of these people, believe it is in the best interests of families and therefore of society as a whole that the following two changes are made without any further delay.

These changes will go a long way to meet the financial reductions required of the Ministry of Justice, and free-up time and the staff to deal with serious child-care cases.

(i) Give each parent an automatic presumption, a right in law, to see their children after divorce or separation. This alone would stop up to 100,000 cases going to Court in the first place, and would in almost all cases enable grandparents to have a meaningful part in the lives of their grandchildren.

(ii) Make the Family Courts open and accountable, bringing them into line with the Crown and Magistrates Courts. Concerns over anonymity and privacy are unfounded as there are already measures to protect privacy in open court. This measure would stop the bias and corruption so many have experienced in the secret Family Courts.

As a 'rider' to this, we would recommend that agreements made in mediation should be recognised in the Courts if one party fails to keep to the agreements made.

We urge you to make these changes for the sake of countless children, parents and grandparents, and help therefore to make a fairer and happier society for everyone.

My name is Lisa Harris.

I’m responding to the ‘call for evidence’ questionnaire attached to the family justice review for myself and on behalf of my two sisters.

When we were children our parents separated, and because of how the family court system operates, we lost contact with our loving and dedicated father. For years we grew up without his essential input in our lives despite every humanly perceivable effort on his part to father us. Those lost years and contact are too precious to quantify, but we want to say emphatically, that it clearly harmed our childhood and quality of upbringing.

Our dad constantly fought against the intransigent family court system that continuously dismissed his claims, and evidence of how your court procedures harmed our upbringing. There was absolutely no justification whatsoever in our father being excluded from our childhood. He spent years exhausting his money, time and nerves trying gain justice for us whilst the court system spent the same years and wasted almost £1 million of public money maintaining their biased procedures against our interests.

During this period of estrangement the family courts endeavoured to keep secret the fact that our mothers boyfriend abused us while ignoring all of our wishes to see our dad. They also ignored us when we tried to tell them our mothers boyfriend was hurting us all and making our lives a misery. It was only when we were old enough to run away to our father did the abuse stop and we got our dad back.

You never listened to him; so now in your ‘call for evidence’ in this latest enquire, we want you to listen to us and take our testimony AS EVIDANCE. But, before any of that, for the sake of a little human decency. Stop saying the corruption and prejudice your institution practices, is in our best interest. It’s breathtakingly callous to hear that jingo, and it’s so untrue; you behave with the narcissism of holocaust deniers when you pronounce your prejudice as in the child’s best interest.

We take exceptional offence to any public official who sustains this anti-father bias by falsely claiming that it is in the best interests of the children. You should be deeply ashamed of yourselves for constantly fobbing off the public with that highly offensive jingo. To our experience, you appear to be callously indignant in the way you bully silence from those who try to plead reason with you. You abuse the power of your office, and facilitate harm to countless children all over the country, by what is clearly prejudice against good fathers and say it’s in the children’s best interest.

As young adults we have had time and mind to examine the huge collection of legal documents our father has collected from your procedures. We can see for ourselves how prejudiced and falsely condemning your institution is.

There is also more than enough evidence, statistical and anecdotal, from various groups and sources detailing the bias through which you operate, and we want you to regard it seriously.

‘Arbeit macht frei’; those are the German words found on the signs above the entrances of Nazi concentration camps. The meaning approximately translate to ‘work sets you free’.

We relate to the insincerity and insult of ‘work sets you free’ in a similar way to how your officials say “in the child’s best interests”.

Stop the destruction of the lives of multitudes of British children which has led to the creation of today's broken Britain!

Stop rationalising your prejudice!

Stop issuing your insulting arrogant spin!

Stop wasting vast amounts of public money facilitating anti-father bias!

IN THE CHILD’S BEST INTEREST.

Protestors scale David Cameron's office

Fathers' rights campaigners have spent nearly seven hours on the roof of David Cameron's constituency office in Oxfordshire.



The three 'New Fathers for Justice' members were dressed as Superman, the Hulk and a court jester.

They managed to scale the building in Witney, which is home to the West Oxfordshire Conservative Association, and is also David Cameron's constituency office, at about 7am this morning.

Heart's been told the campaigners won't be returning tomorrow, but haven't ruled out going back up at some point in the future.


The Prime Minister wasn't in Witney during the protests.