The mayor
of London compares him to
Osama bin Laden. He's been
dubbed a "menace"
holding a city for "ransom,"
as well as a lunatic and an
extremist.
What has 36 year-old David
Chick done to arouse such
anger? He loves his little
daughter, from whom he's been
forcibly separated, and he
had the courage to do something
about it.
The now world famous Englishman
recently ended his traffic
stopping, six day, one man
protest atop a 150 foot high
crane near the Tower Bridge
in London. Dressed as Spiderman
because he is his two year-old
daughter's favorite comic
book character, Chick says
his daughter's mother has
not allowed him to see his
girl for eight months and
has tried to alienate her
from him. Interviewed by English
newspapers, the ex-girlfriend
admits blocking the standard
yet paltry twice a month visitation
which English courts have
granted Chick. To date, she
has declined to offer a reason
publicly.
Chick is one of hundreds of
thousands of English fathers
who have been cut off from
their children after divorce
or separation. Their voices
have crystallized into a widely
popular campaign by the activist
group Fathers 4 Justice. This
campaign seeks to reform the
family law system to allow
divorced and unwed fathers
to play a meaningful role
in their children's lives.
The English Lord Chancellor's
Department admits that mothers
win custody in about four-fifths
of all cases in English and
Welsh courts, and English
courts are notorious for their
failure to enforce fathers'
visitation rights. According
to Daily Mail columnist Melanie
Phillips, "some senior
judges recently acknowledged
that with so many contact
[visitation] orders being
flouted by mothers, the law
is being brought into disrepute."
When one judge recently did
transfer care of a child from
the child's alienating mother
to the father, it was such
an event that it merited inclusion
in Phillips' column. In reality,
these types of transfers should
be more common, and would
no doubt have a salutary effect
on the behavior of parents
who try to prevent their children
from seeing their exes.
Chick's plight will sound
familiar to many American
fathers. According to the
Children's Rights Council,
a Washington-based advocacy
group, more than five million
American children each year
have their access to their
noncustodial parents interfered
with or blocked by custodial
parents. And while politicians
and the media hammer away
at absent fathers on both
sides of the Atlantic, they
too often fail to examine
the critical role that family
courts and vengeful exes play
in creating the problem.
To the minimal extent that
defenders of the current system
have been forced to justify
mothers' actions, they claim--as
the mayor of London now does--that
these men often should not
have access to their children.
This is no doubt true on occasion,
but is inaccurate in most
cases of access and visitation
denial. Those opposing fathers'
rights claim they are defending
women and children from abusive
fathers. However, according
to the US Department of Health
and Human Services, the vast
majority of child abuse, parental
murder of children, child
neglect, and child endangerment
are committed by mothers,
not fathers. In addition,
decades of research, including
that carried out by the National
Institute of Mental Health,
show that women are just as
likely to be violent towards
their spouses as men are.
According to Carol Plummer,
Chick's sister, "David
would never harm his daughter
or Jo [the ex-girlfriend].
He doesn't want custody of
his daughter, he just wants
to see her. But Jo is making
him suffer by depriving him
of seeing his daughter, who
is his life."
Though one can sense a smear
campaign against Chick on
the horizon, two weeks of
digging for dirt on him have
turned up little. He was convicted
of cannabis possession three
years ago and of public indecency
(for consensual sexual activity)
while a teenager. According
to Chick's brother Steven
Reed, in the cannabis conviction
David took the rap for his
ex-girlfriend.
Chick says:
"[My daughter] is the
most precious thing in my
world. I was there for the
scans when she was still in
the womb, I was there for
her birth. I fed her, bathed
her, got up in the night with
her, cuddled her when she
cried.
"Now I'm just another
statistic--another dad who
has no part in his daughter's
life. For me, it is a living
bereavement."
Today fathers in England,
America and most of the Western
world stand upon a foundation
of sand, knowing that our
loved ones can be ripped away
from us and there is often
little we can do about it.
We invest our lives in the
children we love and tell
them that we will always be
there for them. But in the
back of our minds we can't
help but think of a question
which Spiderman no doubt considered
before he began his ascent
up that crane hanging over
Tower Bridge: will we be allowed
to?
This column
first appeared on Cybercast
News Service (11/11/03).
Note: David
Chick went on trial for the
Tower Bridge protest in May,
2004. During the trial it
was revealed that he had been
to court 25 times and
spent the equivalent of $30,000
in unsuccessful attempts to
get English courts to enforce
his visitation rights. He
was acquitted by the English
jury, some of whom were reportedly
moved to tears by his testimony.
Glenn Sacks'
columns on men's and fathers'
issues have appeared in dozens
of America's largest newspapers.
Glenn can be reached via his
website at www.GlennSacks.com
or via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
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