New Fathers for Justice campaigner Roger Crawford donned the traditional jesters hat and held a placard which read “Family Courts: Breaking Hearts, Destroying Lives,” during his four-hour protest in St Aldate’s. Mr Crawford, 60, said he had only seen his 16-year-old daughter Heather in courts since she was two-and-a-half years old.
The Bedfordshire man said he was protesting outside the court as his case had been heard there because his daughter lived in Thame.
Mr Crawford, who handed out leaflets detailing his plight between 10.15am and 2.15pm, said a court order prevented him from contacting his daughter.
He added: “I got dressed as a jester because I think the family court system is a joke. This is the only way, through publicity, that I can get any message to my daughter that I still love her.”
Here is Rogers story.
After the breakdown of Roger’s marriage, he met a new girl who was also going through a marriage break up. After sometime, they agreed to move in together especially in the light of them expecting a baby.
Strangely, however, Roger’s girlfriend Shirley, decided that she would stay married to her current husband and go ahead with the pregnancy (Roger’s child to be). Roger’s daughter, Heather was born in April 1992. However, the Mother decided without any consultation with Roger to register the daughter in her husband’s name. The husband knew she was Roger’s!!!
Still Shirley, the mother, insisted that she would move in with Roger and Roger continued seeing her, and his daughter, at very regular intervals. Roger still went on seeing Shirley and H. very often until H. was two and a half. At that age she had started to talk, and contact was abruptly stopped. At this, it finally dawned on Roger that he had been ‘tricked’ . He felt utterly devastated. He tried to cope with the fact that his girlfriend wanted him out of her life. To cope, he tried to put it out of his mind that he ever fathered a child. He just wanted to put it all behind him.
Of course, you just cannot forget a child and Roger missed his daughter.
After a year, Roger made contact the mother and he received regular updates on his daughter’s progress, and photographs. Then Shirley’s husband died of a heart attack. Roger thought at last, Shirley would at least tell H. she had a father - indeed Roger was promised this - but it never happened of course and when H. was ten, Roger insisted that she was told. “She doesn’t need a father”, Roger was told by the mother, so the whole grisly business of going to mediation, (none of what was agreed there was implemented) and then the Family Court, was started. The Court at least insisted that H. was told. “She has the right to know” said the court.
Roger now believes her mind was poisoned from the start..
There was to be no contact, as Heather did not want it, but Roger was to receive regular reports etc. Then, Roger was taken to the High Court for a complete ban on all contact and communication, but the Judge refused the mothers demand and said he should be given a trial period of contact “as it is obvious you care for your daughter very much”, but then referred the case back to Oxford where the Judge ignored everything the High Court Judge had recommended and Roger came away with nothing.
Other than in the High Court, Roger has not seen his daughter for over fourteen years. He has had no information about her for over two years now. Roger’s main gripe is that the Family Courts are adversarial, they pitch parent against parent and child against parent. No effort was made towards reconciliation. The child’s wishes, no matter how distorted by malice, are sacrosanct.
Would they be so if the child said she didn’t want to go to school? Why, then, is the vitally important matter of knowing her father is not an ogre so ignored? Roger has a Court Order against him not to try and make any contact or have any news of H until she is seventeen.
Roger believes that Heather is still ‘poisoned’ against him and he has given up hope of seeing her again, at least for many years. He was suddenly banned from seeing Heather by the court. Roger’s mother died earlier this year without ever seeing H or H knowing her, and so he is unable to keep his promise to her that one day she would see her granddaughter.
The object of his campaigning is to try and prevent other fathers being treated this way and going down the same road, possibly taking their children with them.
