Thank you for signing our petition. Thanks to you, it exceeded more than 10,500 signatures in a week. Thank you.

We need many more.

The Domestic Abuse Bill is critical. It is designed to protect victims for harm. We support that. No-one should live a life in fear. No child should be unprotected.

The issue is it is presented as only 'violence to women and girls' = false

In the UK, we believe we live in society which champions equality.

One which recognises the unique contributions from all our citizens, irrespective of colour, creed, or gender. Where all those residents in the United Kingdom are valued, supported, and protected. Where all children are loved, nurtured, and shielded from harm.

But, sadly, we do not.

Instead, there is a battle raging. A propaganda battle of immense import. A battle which has major repercussions for us all, depending upon who ‘wins. As surprising in its intensity, as its polarity.

One which questions our basic humanity. What is right and what is wrong. What is truth and what is fiction. It is important we take note. The future of our children depends heavily on it.

We speak of the fight for women’s rights – a just and noble cause - which has transformed without us realising, into what appears to be the exclusion of half our community.

The rallying cry of ‘patriarchy’ and ‘toxic masculinity’ which is now so mainstream in our public discourse. In our Government. In our higher educational institutions. In our judiciary.

It has, it seems, become socially acceptable to refer to all men as ‘potential abusers’ and those accused of domestic abuse, no longer defendants but ‘perpetrators. An important legal distinction which has conveniently been disregarded. Alongside the repeated clarifications from our UK Statistics Authority that domestic abuse victims are not ‘overwhelmingly female’.

It is playing out right now in our Parliament, in the third reading of the new Domestic Abuse Bill. A critical piece of legislation intended to protect all ‘humans’ from abuse.

As a survivor of life-threatening abuse, myself, this author is a passionate advocate for the right of everyone to live their own authentic life without the pervasive shadow of fear and anxiety. Denigration and chaos.

We all recognise the urgency of tackling the scourge of domestic abuse. It is a blight on the very fabric of our society

We have come a long way from the 'behind closed doors' scenario where it was unspoken, stigmatised and discounted as just a 'domestic'. We now understand that domestic abuse is not just about violence. It is far more insidious than that.

We now recognise the extreme harm caused by psychological abuse and coercive control. Control which often extends long after separation. A weapon which, when repeatedly deployed, can wear down the victim, making them question themselves, their capabilities, their worth and their very sanity.

We are all united in our agreement that any form of domestic abuse is intolerable and has no place in a compassionate and just society and we recognise that children within abusive households must be protected, in whatever form this abuse manifests.

Yet, there is a form of family violence which remains hidden from view. Obscured by the secrecy of our Family Courts. A seething mass of misery and devastation only visible within secret groups.

The most brutal form of abuse any perpetrator could enact on their victims. Safe mothers, fathers and their children - eradicated without justification from each other’s lives. Children effectively abducted in plain sight. Often aided and abetted by the very organisations who have a statutory duty to prevent it.

We might assume that our UK Family Courts represent justice, equality and fair process. Yet, alarmingly, it presides over institutional malpractice - causing serious harm to children and victim parents – and human rights violations.

Where children, precious and vulnerable, are prevented from maintaining a close loving relationship with both parents and wider family, post separation. Usually – although not exclusively – because one parent is determined to expunge the other parent from their child’s life.

Aberrant parental behaviour which seeks to disrupt a child’s innate attachment bond with a parent. The attachment system does not malfunction without cause. It is an evolutionary primal function which served to keep children safe from predators.

A child who suffers the sudden or cumulative disruption of a previously strong attachment with a parent, grandparents and wider family suffers grievously.

In 1980, Bowlby recognised the unnatural behaviour of a child de-activating their attachment system and rejecting a loved parent as ‘disordered mourning’

It is a scientifically proven fact that children need secure attachments with both safe parents -if they are available - in order to live their best lives. To reach their highest potential. Their neurological and social development is optimised by growing up with a secure attachment to more than one carer.

Gendered ideology cannot change human biology, yet in the tragic cases contained within this document, the entire half of a child’s familial heritage has been wiped out.

A child’s greatest fear is abandonment and loss of attachment. Any attempt to suppress or destroy a child’s attachment with a loving parent is psychological abuse.

This is well evidenced, no matter how much effort is expended to deny its existence. DSM-5 category 995.51, V61.21 refers to it as:

“Non accidental verbal or symbolic acts by a child’s parent or caregiver that result, or have reasonable potential to result, in significant psychological harm to the child”

The former Chief Executive of Cafcass, Sir Anthony Douglas, got it exactly right when he stated:

“Alienation is one type of adult behaviour which causes adverse childhood experiences. At worst it is emotionally violent. This is why I have suggested that alienation is a form of child abuse. It can have as devastating an impact as physical abuse and can lead directly to child or adolescent mental health problems”

While the drivers behind the alienation a child from a safe parent can be complex and rooted - as in all other cases of family abuse - in trans-generational trauma or psychological disorder; the adverse effects (ACE) on children, simply cannot be ignored any longer.

Our evident lack of respect for attachment-based science may help explain why the UK scores so badly in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Better Life Index in comparison to other countries with healthier parenting and family court models.

Is this what we want for our children?

Where one in eight children are now diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder according to new research commissioned by England’s Children’s Commissioner.

Where the UK is suffering epidemic levels of crime which the National Lead for Serious Crime, Jacqui Sabire courageously links to our ‘fatherless society’.

These are all connected, and we ignore all of this at our collective peril.

We fully accept that children who are suffering other forms of abuse may wish to avoid the abusive parent. We are not talking about that here. That is referred to as justifiable estrangement.

What we are talking about, and soon publishing evidence of, is the most horrific act of cruelty anyone can enact on a safe co-parent and their child/ren. A pattern of abuse so common, it is recognised instantly by all those who suffer from it.

The target mother or father – loving, normal range and affectionately available parents – plunged into a living nightmare. One that garners scant public recognition, sympathy or support. Made worse by a paradoxically ‘victim – blaming’ culture which assumes they must have deserved it.

It is NOT a gender issue. We work with as many alienated mothers as we have fathers.

It is a mental health issue, a legislative issue and a public health issue of scandalous proportions. The massive overall cost to our already financially drained society by turning a politically correct, blind eye, incalculable.

If this abuse is not covered by our new Domestic Abuse Bill, then we become complicit.

History will judge harshly those in power who take no action to end it.

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