An open letter to the victims and perpetrators of abuse of parents and children
Briefly, let me try to explain to the victims of parental alienation why they feel neglected by the traditional media.
And there are three…
The first, in the UK, are restrictions on reporting cases… rules so draconian that journalists and editors face massive fines and ultimately jail.
Family courts are held in private, ostensibly to protect children.
This is the madness of the rules:
“Under rule 27.10, hearings relating to family matters are generally held in private, meaning members of the public cannot be present.
While accredited media representatives may attend hearings under rule 27.11(2), subject to exceptions, there are strict limits on what they can report.
“Under section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 it may, for example, be a contempt of court to publish information about proceedings relating to children if a court sits in private. Additionally, under section 97(2) of the Children Act 1989, it’s an offence to publish information which could identify a child involved in certain proceedings.”
But things are changing, although slowly and inadequately …
And the main reason for the crack in the darkness of the hallowed courtrooms, is endless campaigning by journalists.
And in January of this year courts in Cardiff, Leeds and Carlisle opened their doors to us.
Accredited journalists and legal bloggers began to be allowed to “report on what they see and hear in court” under ‘the transparency principle’. Only so-called ‘pilot reporters’ were however able to attend and report on proceedings heard in pilot courts.
The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, who introduced the measures in 2019 said this: “Witnesses to the review panel had referred to the “chilling effect” (PDF) of section 12 of the 1960 Act (contempt of court). The fear of breaching it and the costs involved in litigation have acted as a major disincentive to journalists and others reporting on Family cases.”
Then there is the war against journalists on social media.
Social media was mis-sold to the world as the true freedom of speech. And every man woman and child fell for the lies about twitter, Facebook and all the others that have grown from these seeds of dissent, lies, chicanery and crime.
What people generally didn’t know – and nobody told them, deliberately – was that exactly the same rules and laws applied to social media, not to the ether, but to the people who made posts.
But it was an impossible task to police the internet and people got away with saying exactly what they felt like – often libellous, vicious, unfounded attacks.
In the case of Parental Alienation they were victims who had lost contact with their children. They just didn’t know the legal dangers they might face … they named their partners (which identified their children) on websites, deliberately caused name-and-shame wars (which identified their children) and made unfounded claims in the name of truth (which identified their children).
The internet became a bear-garden of abuse, misleading information, attacks, lies and insults. Keyboard warriors using blunt axes to try and destroy their exes.
And they got away with it because the internet simply could not be policed.
Meanwhile, people like me, got more and more hamstrung by laws and courts and misrepresentations of our motives by people who felt let down by us.
Our motivation is to break down barriers and to get as close to the truth as we can … and that’s what we are still doing.
For instance, my own coverage of parental alienation over the last decade has helped get a new Bill for new laws before parliament. It failed after being filibustered by MPs.
We reported on that – we told the truth. We investigated the motivation of the politicians who destroyed it.
Then we managed to kick a crack into the doors of the family courts. But, still, everything we write needs to be legalled.
But it is a breakthrough.
The third reason is – the way victims are perceived.
Once people got the dubious right to a complete misrepresentation of freedom of speech, they didn’t realise that once you go public you need to clean up your act… spelling is important, text-speak is for texting, not telling your life story.
But it was the personal attacks … on absent parents and on parents with care.
It just seemed the thing to do, make false allegations! Call your ex a pervert, a paedophile, a dole cheat, a thief, violent, a liar … the list of accusations are still endless.
I have published hundreds of stories on PA over the years – but I received hundreds more, bitter, angry and heartbreaking tales.
It was impossible to use them … first we had to unravel the truth, examine every word and every accusation made to see where the truth lay. Then we had to track down and interview the ‘mark’ and often that would be impossible, particularly because too often the person who sent the story in didn’t want us to speak to their ex … all sorts of reasons, fears of retribution in some cases and in others the simple fact they’d lied to us.
We’d turn down the stories for legal reasons but would be roundly attacked on the internet. We became the new perverts, paedophiles, thieves and liars.
Absolute madness!
It was almost narcissistic – people made demands on us that we couldn’t meet, lied to us and mislead us, then, when they were caught, attacked and vilified us, the only people who wanted to change laws and get things done.
I am a victim of parental alienation, I’ve been through the hell of being lied about, of having my children turned against me, I have been almost bankrupted by maintenance payments, I have been conned and insulted and heartbroken.
But do you know what? I’m still out there fighting…
And with your help we can get the laws changed, we can expose the system for its cruelty, we can tell the world about the collusion, the lack of comprehension and the financial bonuses, the targets of social workers, courts and lawyers.
Simple rules to get there – understand the current laws and don’t tell lies.
Narcassists and liars ultimately lose.
#narcassists #liars #familycourts #socialworkers #parentalalienation
