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I am your host, Heather Garbutt.

Welcome.

Hello everybody, I'm here today with Daniel Ryan, and he is a wonder of the world.

We're going to talk today about dads being alienated and shamed in the family court.

Daniel is known as that family law guy in the UK.

He's the voice behind that brand, a candid and compassionate advocate for parents navigating the storms of separation, custody battles and domestic abuse conflict.

He provides unfiltered expertise with real world impact.

Daniel brings many years of frontline experience supporting families through divorce, custody, and domestic conflict without hiding behind legal jargon.

His no nonsense story-driven approach helps us truly understand the human cost of family breakdown.

And what they can do to navigate it more wisely.

Welcome, Daniel.

Hi Heather, lovely to see you, how are you?

All good here, thank you.

How are you?

I'm, I'm good, I'm good.

I'm looking forward to our chat.

Yeah, me too.

So, let's first read the brush.

Let's talk about our family, court situation, father's experience in court.

I think you see the stacked against fathers by the setup and the procedures.

Can you explain a bit more about this?

Yeah, I, I have a, a view, and it's a view driven entirely by, sadly by, by, by firsthand experience, that fathers are disregarded, primarily in family court.

That's not a great place to be.

and it's because, and I think it's historic, I think it's historic.

Because the family court was initially set up back in the, back in the 70s, it's in a slightly different form now, but back in the 70s, it was originally set up to protect mothers, because mothers were unrepresented at that point, obviously societally, you know, mother was not in a great place in terms of being equal.

and so the family court was set up in order to protect mothers, and the problem we have now is here we are 40 years on, 50 years on.

It continues to protect mothers, which is great.

But unfortunately it protects them often at the expense of fathers.

And that's my concern.

Indeed, indeed.

And I've had some experience of that recently.

Several different people, good fathers, really struggling and getting very stressed and even ill over the the processes in court, which essentially feel demeaning.

They are, yeah, I think, I think that's, that's, that's a good word, that's a good, good choice of word to use.

They are demeaning for fathers, because as I say, they are, disappointingly, they are almost second class citizens in court, and their role within the, within the, the parental relationship, is not valued in the least, is not valued in the least.

And that's, that's so sad, you know.

Oh God, kids need their fathers, for sure, for sure.

They do, they do.

Children need both their parents, both their parents, you know, have a, have a, a positive contribution to make to children, you know, you take one thing from your dad and you take something else from your mum, that's how life is, that's what forms us, as, you know, as young adults and ultimately into our own relationships as adults.

and if one of them is absent, and invariably it is the father that's absent, but if one of them is absent, then the, the, the hole in that child's life is massive.

.

Absolutely, I see the consequences of that in 40 years of psychotherapy.

You know, the, the real heartfelt loss, so powerful and so damaging actually.

Incredibly damaging, yeah, incredibly damaging, and unfortunately it's, it then becomes generational, it becomes cyclical, because the the the the the child's.

View that the father doesn't matter, because they've been told over and over again that the father doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter that they're not in your life.

, they carry that view into adulthood.

And, and if, if they're a girl, they take into adulthood, fathers don't matter, so I'm OK, I can remove one.

And obviously if they're a lad, you know, if they're a boy, they go into life thinking, well, there's a point in this relationship where in my new relationship as an adult with children where I'm going to be disregarded.

Yeah, yeah, and women.

children of those families, the women just think, well, I can't count on a father, so I better just choose somebody to have the kids with and plan from being alone.

Quite, yeah, quite, absolutely, that, that, you know, I've seen too many relationships where once you dig into.

The relationship, and I'm sure you have too.

Once you dig into the, you know, the, the, the, the, the history of the relationship and the foundation of the relationship, there is that attitude that I just, I wanted children, so I just needed a volunteer to assist me in creating them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so let's, let's talk a little bit more then because We can see those discrepancies and we can see the generational things, that the way that the relationships are modelled, affects generations to come.

And we really don't want that.

We really don't need that.

We really need very, very good, relationship skills and relationship wisdom.

And if the courts are actually, facilitating the opposite, that's really serious.

We were talking before, let's just look at some of the discrepancies.

You talked to me about legal aid being widely available for women if they say they are domestic abuse victims, without any evidence at all that men are rarely given legal aid.

Can you speak a bit more about that?

Yeah, that's very true.

The, I mean, the legal aid system is in a terrible state, you know, general comment, very terrible state.

it's still available in family court, but it is only available.

, under the premise of domestic abuse, so if a party, has, has suffered domestic abuse, they can secure legal aid in order to assist their position.

That's great.

but the downside of that is, that if, if a, if a woman applies for legal aid through a, through a legal practise, they will be required to give no evidence whatsoever, no factual evidence, aside from their own word, that domestic abuse took place.

and they'll be handed a legal aid person, and off they go.

If a man applies for legal aid, I believe the statistics I heard very recently.

Is that only 1 out of 10 applications for legal aid by men who can clearly demonstrate they are victims of domestic abuse, actually gets passed through the system.

So you'll end up with men in court, having to fight in court, having been domestically abused, it's a real thing, men being abused by women.

so having been domestically abused and having to privately fund their proceedings in order to do it.

Yes, indeed.

Yes.

And I've witnessed that too.

That's very, very powerful.

It is and it's further abuse, it's a continuation of the abuse, because, because, unfortunately, invariably what happens is, you know, the, the, the, the man applies for legal aid, gets declined, and then the woman who is the abuser.

She applies for legal aid because she just makes counter allegations against the man and she gets it.

Mhm.

Yeah, it's so unfair.

Well, hideously hideously unfair, and I, you know, maybe I should caveat at this stage that whilst you know whilst I I mean I have a, you know, I have a a gross, gross distaste for, you know, for domestic abuse in in in any form, and, and you know, we represent, clients, both women and men, who are victims of domestic abuse, and it is a difficult situation, it's always difficult proceedings.

, but I, I, but obviously today we're sort of talking about it from a, from a dad's perspective, but that's not to say that, you know, that there are women who, who have had a dreadful time, a dreadful time.

Indeed, indeed.

And I just wonder if you would.

Speak a little bit more about all the different forms of domestic abuse that get counted.

It comes, it comes in many forms, domestic abuse, the ones that the court sort of recognises, if you like, is, is obviously sexual abuse is a fairly, probably a fairly obvious one.

Verbal abuse is counted in the court, psychological abuse is, is, is flagged up in court, emotional abuse is flagged up in court, financial abuse is flagged up in court, and then the sort of the, the latest string to the abuse bow is parental alienation.

Where one parent manipulates the children in order to turn them against the other parent.

, and that is about weaponizing the children and seeing the children as a possession whereby, you know, I will ensure that they never see you again because they don't want to, because I will tell them what a horrible human being you are.

Alienation, so, so alienation is now recognised as abuse within the court system.

Yes, right, that this is really useful to know.

So, let's think about children and primary carers.

How, how does that come out in court?

The court is.

The court is primarily matriarchal, so the court the court supports mum.

So the courts almost automatically sees mum as the primary carer, regardless of the circumstances of the particular case, they see mum as the primary carer.

so the children are going to be with mum as, as a de facto position unless we've got damn good grounds for it to be otherwise.

The downside of that.

Is that there is never a a a a a a a concept that says that dad can be the primary carer.

And in all my years of doing this, you know, which has been probably far too many, but in all my years of doing this, it is incredibly rare.

For Dad to be the primary carer with children during a family dispute.

Invariably they are dismissed, the children are going to be with mum and I, and I've even had ridiculous situations where, where the, it's sort of openly known in proceedings that mum is the abuser in a relationship.

But the children are still with her.

Because we don't regard the fact that a dad can be a primary carer of children, we don't regard that they have that skill set.

Takes my breath away because like I said recently, I've had a number of men come to work with me conscious and coupling, who've been extraordinarily abused by their exes.

all of the things that you've said.

Not, not all of them in all cases, but all of those things.

And also using the court process as a way to intimidate and to Again, demean, devalue, diminish Whatever sort of testimony the man has, which is so insulting.

It, it, it is insulting that we have, we have a phrase for that in the family court system, we call it lawfare.

Where where somebody where somebody uses the court as a weapon in order to protract and prolong the abuse against the other party, he had to say.

So yeah, so.

And, and there are too many occasions of lawfare in proceedings, and, and you're right, you're right, you know, the, the, the father is, or the dad, the father, is disregarded for the most part, in family court, and there is a real, there is a real derision over fathers or dads who turn up in family court and say, you know, I've, I've, I've been abused, I'm, I'm a victim of abuse in this relationship.

, and it is impacting on my children as a result, obviously primarily it's impacting on me.

and, and the court really does sort of look down it's, it, you know, it's, it's nose and say, well, yeah, well, thanks for that, but.

Well, we're not entirely convinced because we're not entirely convinced that that actually happens, you know.

Yes, yes.

So good men can get implicitly vilified and disempowered.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, because what, as I say, going back to my earlier point, that, that the, the abuser, let's say the mother is the abuser on this in in this instance, so the abuser, will go into court and continue the abuse, the law fair, by saying, oh, you should see what he did to me.

And they'll just reel off a series of entirely fictitious allegations in order to continue the abuse of the father.

Yeah, yes, I've seen that, yeah.

And it's heartbreaking for a, a good man.

And what, what I've seen, so, see if you've seen the same.

The, the men that tend to get into this position are men who really want to take good care.

And they've worked very hard to provide everything that they can.

They're really there for their kids.

they, they try to please their wife in any which way, you know, if she says jump, it works out how high that needs to be and we.

Sort of pick up after mistakes she's made, you know, financial stuff, taking out credit cards, you'll pay them off or all of those sorts of things.

he'll he'll pick up the emotional weight with the children when difficult things happen.

Essentially what she says goes and he's picking up the pieces.

And, and that really hurts me when I see this happening in the courts that that degree of Paternal devotion.

Is dissed to such a degree and that you can't be an abused man implicitly, you can't be because you have physical power.

But if you're a good man.

You certainly can be abused.

Without a doubt, and, and what you describe is exactly right.

That individual that you've just the picture you've just painted there is exactly that individual.

He's a good guy, he provides for his family, he accepts his obligations, he, he adores his children, invariably all the instances that I, you know, that I've had of, of guys who've been abused, absolutely adore their children.

And bizarrely, they adore their wives, or or the or the or the partner if they're not married, but they they they adore them.

and this brings with it a degree of tolerance.

, about, well, she's only doing that because she's tired, she's only doing that because the children have been playing up today.

She's only doing that because she's been at home all day on her own or whatever, you know, and so that they find excuse to justify the behaviour.

but unfortunately, you know, that that comes from a place of, of, of wanting to serve, you know, that's, you know, that's where and and unfortunately that.

Ultimately leads to their downfall, but, but yeah, that you're very true the picture you paint is an absolutely accurate one.

Well, for me, this dovetails into narcissistic abuse because essentially the behaviours are narcissistic, and the recipient of those behaviours has been subjected to conditioning over many years to doubt and devalue their own position.

And also, they really want to please, so I've, I've done a podcast before about empaths and their abilities to attract narcissistic partners because of this tendency towards self-sacrifice and serving.

That it's really, really not healthy and needs rebalancing.

Let's not do away with it entirely, and I'm not saying that, but keep ourselves in the picture as empaths, no.

No, very true, very true, they.

That individual, Essentially they, they just accept too much.

they give too much, because they are so keen, to.

To provide, they're so keen to make a life for, you know, for the person who's who's who they who they've joined on this path, and they've created children together, and their view, the father's view is we've created these children, they're arguably the most beautiful thing on on on God's earth, and together, you know, we should do something magical for them.

Unfortunately, the other partner's view is I've got children who I tolerate sometimes.

, and I've got, and I, and I'll be very blunt here, I've got an idiot who essentially will do whatever I please.

and if, if he does not please, then I will punish him.

, in some form or fashion, and sometimes that is incredibly physical, that punishment, but often, you know, and, and again, going back to your comments about, about narcissism, often it's incredibly subtle.

It's, it's, it's psychological abuse.

It's undermining them.

It's constantly undermining them with, you know, with, with subtle and savage commentary.

, in order that, that, you know, you, you put them in a place and you keep them there.

Absolutely, so they become a diminished form of themselves.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and my, my work in in doing conscious and coupling is to help them.

Sort of reform their natural stature away from that crushed bit.

I think about Tom and Jerry, you know, when Tom and Jerry have been flattened by something, they sort of pop back into shape.

But it's like that, but on a grand scale.

It, yeah, it is, yes, it is, and, and, you know, I've had a couple of occasions, I had one fairly recently actually, where we, we had some, I had a dad come to see me, we we, we dealt with his proceedings a couple of years ago.

He came back to see me and he brought his teenage children with him, and they were just sort of in the area and they said we'd stop by and say hello, and it was lovely to see them.

He was a different man.

He was a, the guy I was taking to court, I was almost physically carrying into court during proceedings, and he spent an awful lot of time crying.

In court, the guy who walked into my office and say whatever it was, 3 or 4 months ago with his children was a different man.

You know, he was, he stood upright, he was full, his children clearly absolutely adored him, and he, he'd he'd been liberated.

He'd been liberated, you know, from, from the situation he'd been in before, and it was lovely to see, you know, it was lovely to see.

It's beautiful, it's beautiful.

And again, to have that relationship with his children.

Let's, let's go back to the courtroom and.

Think about the father's relationship with children because you've said to me that dad's relationship with the children is considered disposable and can be constrained or removed without a second thought.

Let's speak a bit more about that.

It, it might, and sadly, and this is incredibly sad, but in my experience, it can.

the, the, the court does not value the the relationship that the father has in the same way that it values the relationship that the mother has.

It sees the mother's relationship is vital, crucial that those children have a relationship, you know, with, with mum.

but if we can get a relationship with dad, well, that's great, but if we can't, not to worry.

, and that's essentially the view of the court, it, it, it's, it, it just doesn't lend the same weight to that relationship, and which is why the, the decisions that come out of court in terms of how is this dad gonna have time with his children.

, those decisions are often, well, let's look at the diary.

Let's see where there are a few gaps in the diary, and we'll drop in Dad in those gaps.

we don't regard that he needs to be there all the time.

We don't regard that he needs to have any sort of influence.

We accept the fact that, you know, we've got to make some sort of provision for him, but we're making provision for him in the same way as we're making provision to go and do the weekly shop at the groceries.

, we just build him in for an hour or 2 hours.

and, and they do have this, you know, the family court does have this disregard, well, whether it recognises it or not, in another time entirely.

but it does have this disregard for fathers where the relationship is, it can be flexed.

And if necessary, it can be disposed of.

It's shocking.

It's really shocking.

And also the, the quality, you know, from my point of view as a psychotherapist, the quality of relationship you can have in 2 hours.

I mean, think about going on a date, you see somebody for 2 hours.

That is very different from having a deep relationship where you sit together during the evening and you have a a long evening and you go to bed together and it's, it's a sort of.

allowed to evolve, and there's room for spontaneity, and I think that with children, I had a, a father the other day in absolute tears saying I'm never gonna be able to put my children to bed again.

Yeah, it's exactly so that that, that, you know, well we've afforded you 2 hours on a Saturday, what more do you want?

because you're absolutely right, you're not getting, you're not getting the full parent, you know, you're not getting the full package in that 2 hours.

What, you know, what you're essentially getting is a visitor into the child's life.

, and they're gonna, you know, and you visit and they're invariably in some sort of constrained setting, and so you, you visit and you spend a bit of time together, but you, you're absolutely right, then they go back into their life.

And you as dad can sort of, well, frankly, we don't care what you do until 2 weeks' time when you get your next 2 hour window.

and you know, that is, that is tragic.

That is tragic that that is the case, because that's not dad.

2 hours with your kids every weekend or every other weekend, it's not dad.

No, it's not.

There's no belonging with that, it's visitation.

Exactly, yeah, exactly.

Dad may as well be in prison.

Because he's completely excluded in the interim.

Yeah.

Well, and that brings me to another point about the, the use of police.

You, you talk about the police is a stick to beat dad with through lodging false domestic abuse allegations.

Speak a bit more about that as well, because it is important.

It is, yeah, it is important and it's and it's, it's a horrendous tactic that really has, it has grown, you know, year on year, it really has grown as people become more aware of what they can do with the system and what is available to them within the system.

And because, The constabullaries in this country 10 years ago took a decision that domestic violence is a priority item.

And and absolutely right, it should be, absolutely right that it should be.

But they created this, this guideline that says whenever there's a domestic abuse allegation, we have to treat it seriously.

This is every police force.

We have to treat it seriously, we have to react, and we have to do something about it.

and that always starts with we've got to go and arrest somebody.

, and, and in the instance of real violence, in the instance of real abuse, that is, that is absolutely the right thing to do.

The problem is.

We are, as a human race, you know, we are happy to manipulate.

, systems that are available to us.

And when, you know, there are, when people find out that all I need to do is go to the police and say something.

Knowing that the police have then got to react because I am a woman stood in front of them suggesting that a man has done this to me.

, the police have got to react accordingly.

So they go off and they pick up the dad and they arrest the dad and then he goes and spends, you know, a few hours in a custody suite, yeah, which is, which in itself is soul destroying.

he then gets interviewed, usually with a, well, not usually, but with a duty solicitor with him, and that's a, that's a whole different conversation for another day.

and then invariably the police will say, well, we don't actually have anything definitive.

But we're gonna have to treat this matter seriously, so we're gonna put you on bail.

So you're now on bail conditions, which means you can't go near mum, so by virtue of that, you can't go near your children.

You can't go back home, if you were at home, you can't go there now, go and find yourself somewhere else to live.

You can't talk, you can't talk about this on social media, you can't contact mum by text, you can't contact your children, so you are locked out.

You are locked out of your own life.

, at this point, and you will stay that way until such times as we the police decide to do something else.

, and that can be 6 to 9 months of being locked out of your own life, because, as I say, they have that opportunity to keep extending bail.

, so, the, the mother, the woman in this instance, got exactly what she wanted, because you have just been forcibly removed as dad.

You are now, excluded.

From, from your life, and have to stay away.

And that gives the the, the, the mum a window of time in order to work on the children.

Where's your dad?

He's just not interested in you.

The reason he's not contacting you is because he's not interested in you.

Meanwhile, obviously the police soon discover it over over the court period of time that actually the allegation is complete rubbish.

, or there's no basis to it, there's no evidence to it, that it's literally he said, she said.

So eventually, they will remove Dad from bail, but by that time, the damage is done, because mother has already said, Dad didn't, doesn't care, that's why he's not contacting you.

The reason you're not seeing Dad is because he doesn't want to see you.

I've asked him, I've said to him, see the children, and he just says no.

And he's a bad man anyway because he was arrested by the police.

Yes, and by the way, let me just mention to you the fact, and let me remind you every day.

Your dad was arrested, arrested by the police and the police don't arrest people for nothing, you know.

So your dad must be, by virtue of that, a wronggan.

Yeah.

It's, it's heartbreaking because you see that, you know, the good guy that you were talking about getting subjected to all of that.

I mean, I don't know if that particular man did, but you know, that just would be soul destroying this, this shame and the heartbreak.

Being separated from his kids and dismissed and devalued to such a degree.

Yeah.

Crippled, actually, I think emotionally crippled by that.

Absolutely, and, and it's the impact, it's, it's cos it's, you know, it's the pebble in the pond, isn't it?

It's the wider impact of that action, because now he's got to go and explain to his employer.

I'm under bail, and I have to tell you this.

And he, and he and his friends get to find out, and obviously mum meanwhile is telling anybody who's who'll stand still long enough to, to listen.

That he is on bail because of the abuse.

And it's not, she doesn't say because of the abuse that I've accused him of, she says he's on bail because of the abuse.

And the police are currently sorting it out, you know, because of the abuse.

and so it's the you're absolutely right, it's the shame.

, and it's the, it's the dismantling of his entire world, you know, it could potentially lead to him being removed from his employment.

I've had a number of dads over the years who've lost their jobs because their employer says, I, I can't have you on bail.

That I can't have that, because of whatever, you know, because of what a classic example, a number of years ago, I was a teacher.

And obviously he got, he went back into school and had to say to his, his head teacher, look, I'm on bail, but what are you on bail for?

I'm on bail for sexual assault.

So well, I, I can't have you with kids, I can't have you around children, because if the parents found out, the balloon would go up, so I've got to let you go.

And he lost his job.

And he lost his job.

Yeah.

So it has, it has the ability to totally destroy your life, and even at the point where the police come back and say it's alright, we're not doing anything about it, it's called NFA and the police, no further action.

We're going to NFA this allegation.

Well, that's great, but the damage is done.

Mhm.

Those lives are broken.

Yeah, completely at that point, too, it's too late now, it's too late now.

And you know, and the, the nice guy, we talked about already, you know, the nice guy.

Who gets himself arrested, has never been arrested before in his life, would never entertain being inside a custody suite.

The emotional impact of being sat in a cell, For potentially up to 12 hours waiting to be interviewed.

By usually, sometimes uniformed officers, sometimes a member of the COO.

But by being interviewed under caution, that the emotional impact of all that on a decent human being is massive, is mass I have seen sadly, too many men come out of that experience and never recover.

.

I can understand that.

The train crash, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

It is, yeah, and, you know, and they live, they live with it, you know, they can't sleep, because they just keep going back to being sat in a, in a cell thinking what's gonna happen.

Yes, and a good man will ask himself.

And, you know, if it's come to this, did I do anything?

Did I?

I must have.

I can't have.

I didn't.

I might have.

Exactly.

Exactly, they do start, you know, they start questioning themselves and say, well, well, there must be something, because this is the police and I have absolute faith in the police.

So, maybe I did do something.

But yeah and that's horrifying.

It's, it's dreadful, it's dreadful, but the as I say, the, the, the police unfortunately are used as a, you know, as a weapon, they are used as a stick.

and what's even more sad about this scenario is that the police know.

The police know that they are being used as a stick to beat this guy, but because they have policy and and protocol that says we've got to react to this.

Yeah.

Because the first one we don't react to is the one which turns out to be true.

Absolutely, and let's not forget all of the women victims who are killed by abusive partners.

We, we know that happens, so you can see it's important too, but for the good guys, it's crushing.

It is, yeah, yeah, yeah, so because they are being lumped in and and and sadly there are too many domestic abusers, male domestic abusers, far too many.

but the good guys are being lumped in with them.

Yeah, so because the, you know, because the police can't philtre, they can't say, well, yeah, you look to me like a good guy, so we're, we're just gonna let you walk, because unfortunately that's not the way life works, so.

No, no, no.

So really what we're talking about is that women are considered vulnerable, they have most of the power and that fathers really aren't seen as full human beings.

That's true, yeah, that is, that that's that's certainly as good analogy as any, they are, they are, you know, they are undervalued, disregarded, you know, you're, you're, you're a bit of a burden really, you're kind of in the way.

we'll tolerate you and accommodate you if we can, but frankly, we're not going to go out of our way to do it.

Yeah, yeah, and I sort of have sympathy with the courts as well because of the overload that they have.

That I don't know how they managed to to make any sane decision at all.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, the court is, the court is in a terrible state currently and, you know, there's nobody in the court that will argue that point.

it's under-resourced, underfunded, you know, there aren't enough courtrooms, there aren't enough court hours, there are because of the, the, the way that we in this, in our society have moved towards that we feel the need to fight for everything.

We've become obscenely litigious in this in in in British society now.

and so yeah, there is an overwhelming amount of workload pouring into the family courts.

the the numbers are just, just obscene, the numbers of cases that are opening, you know, every year in family court, and leading to massive delays as a result.

Yes, because we had COVID that put a big blocker on everything.

COVID, yeah, COVID was a bit of a COVID was a bit of a mess, cos Family Court decided, well obviously we can't have people port anymore, for fear of obviously what might go wrong.

So what we'll do is we'll switch everything to video hearings.

, so we'll continue, we, we need to continue to function as a court, but we'll do it over video.

, and, and there was an interesting, it's an interesting pivot, we, we're just going off at a slight tangent, but I'll, I'll talk about it anyway.

There was an interesting pivot because the problem with video hearings, the reason that judges, and here, here's the revelation, the reason that judges don't like video hearings.

It's because they don't, they don't feel that they are afforded the same respect in a video hearing as if you were stood in front of them, in a courtroom, because if we're on you and I are obviously on, on video now, Heather, so I'm sat in my office, I'm, I'm comfortable because I'm in my office, I'm fairly relaxed because I'm in my office, which means if you were a judge, I'm probably not going to afford you the same respect as if we were in your courtroom, because I haven't got that degree of nerves, I haven't got that degree of anxiety.

, and so, judges were really quite annoyed by the advent of of video hearings because it removed an element of respect.

And the problem that we had is, as soon as, as soon as the normality came back in whatever, whatever that looks like, but as soon as normality came back, judges then said, I want everybody back in court.

Now there was an argument for the fact that actually video hearings were incredibly efficient.

Because I would sit in my office and I would do 3 hearings a day.

Whereas now, because I have to travel to court, I do want.

, and obviously you amplify that by everybody else who's doing exactly the same thing.

So, so there is an argument to say that during, during the lockdown periods, the family court actually became quite efficient.

Right.

because of videos, but then the judges said, well, that's, yeah, well, putting efficiency aside, because we don't want any of that here.

we want people back in court because I want my respect back.

Right.

but lockdown did, and, and, and I'm, and I'm sure you've seen this as well, but lockdown did a lot of things to us as a population, both globally and locally.

and, and I think one of the things it did certainly in respect to family court was it removed respect, and we've never had it back.

, it is noticeable to me as somebody who's been in family court for years, both sides of COVID.

It is noticeable to me that the difference in the respect in family court pre-COVID to after COVID.

And there is significantly less now.

, and that's, that's not helping, that's not helping proceedings.

No, because you need the, the gravitas somehow to take it all very seriously.

Yes, yeah, and people aren't taking it seriously, people aren't bothering to turn up for hearings, because why should I?

You know, I can't be bothered, frankly, so I'm not gonna bother.

so yeah, you're absolutely right, that, that, that is, that is a glorious word to use.

It is, there is a complete.

Diminishing of the gravitas of court.

You know, it's a court, and I say to my clients all the time, it's a court of law.

Respect that fact, and the court will respect you, and that's a comment I've used ridiculous amount, tens of thousands of times, probably over the years.

the problem is now that respect is not there anymore.

It's just not there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, thank you, Daniel.

I just want to say to everybody the the powerful statement that you said to me at the end of our brief conversation.

Patriarchal society we live in.

Maternity trumps paternity all day long.

In the family court.

I'm afraid it does, and, and sometimes that's OK.

Sometimes that's OK, that, that somebody should be representing, you know, the, the maternal argument and the maternal side of society.

Of course.

But unfortunately, yeah, I say, but the other side of that coin is that, a paternity, so the dad, dad's side of the argument is, is not upheld.

It's just not upheld in family court.

It is disposable.

It is waved and can be swept aside.

, with the same regard that we have for putting out the bins, and that's incredibly sad.

Yes, absolutely.

What can fathers do to empower themselves in that process?

, it's, it's a, it's a difficult question to say, you know, I spent, I've spent years obviously trying to empower others in family court.

Unfortunately, in family court, it is about preparation.

, the first thing fathers can do to empower themselves is recognise the fact that you are going to be the underdog.

, the moment you pass through those doors into a courtroom, whatever you believe you were.

, in society in terms of a, you know, a contributing member of, of, of our society.

all of that is now in your back pocket and no longer on display.

You are the underdog.

so you need to prepare and you need to overprepare.

So you need to, you need to gather evidence, you need to, note, take notes, you need to be able to provide a detailed chronology of what has happened in your life.

and this is all things that we shouldn't have to do, you know, and, you know, a relationship shouldn't be about the fact that, you know, every, every night I just need to sit down and write what happened today in case in 20 years' time I've got to present it in a family court.

, but that's where we are, that's where we are.

So fathers need to protect themselves, by, by accepting the fact that maybe one day I am gonna end up in court, and I need to be able to present my story.

, and I need to be able to present it with some substantiated evidence, and it's, yeah, and that's horrible, that's disappointing, you know, but, because at some point, these are two people who, who love each other and who adore each other, we would kind of hope, you know, at the point of their children, and it's disappointing that at that point, people, well, yes, I accept the fact you adore her, but listen, just make a note.

That, that, that, that today she might have said something that's a bit undermining, just make a note of that, or today she did something that's a bit abusive, just make a note of that and you think, well, that, you know, that's really quite sad that we are at that stage, but we are.

Yes, yes.

Gonna keep us both in work for a long time helping people recover.

I, I, I, yeah, unfortunately, as I say, you know, I operate in a, in a ring, you know, that, you know, or a cage if you want to use the mixed martial arts analogy.

But yeah, so I operate in a ring, people come to me and they come to me to fight.

I, I, you know, and I spend a lot of time saying to them, look, you know, we can probably do this without really having to fight, but at some point, it becomes a fight.

OK, right.

Well, listening everybody, if, if you need to find Daniel, he's that family law guy.

And you can find him on Mackenzie Picard.com.

And that will be in the show notes so you'll know how to spell it.

He's a good guy.

If you need somebody in your corner, he's the man to look for.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of revolutionise your love life.

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