Fathers call for denial of contact to be abuse offence

Wilful disruption of meaningful contact with one's children should be recognised as a form of coercive control amounting to domestic abuse, according to the organisation Families Need Fathers (FNF) Scotland. 

In its response to the Scottish Government's consultation on proposals to change the law on aspects of domestic abuse and sexual offences, FNF highlights "occasions where the non-resident father has arrived to pick up his children for agreed contact and has been told 'they’re no coming – and there’s nothing you can do about it!'", even where a court order exists. Police refuse to become involved, regarding it as a civil matter.

"Our experience, drawn from extensive casework, is that control of a non-resident parent’s time with his children covers a spectrum from a casual cultural presumption that 'it’s a mother’s right to give or withhold', to examples of overt intention to break the relationship entirely", FNF states. "This is a scenario that is happening daily across Scotland and is a brutal form of coercive control that is used with impunity against former partners. It is also a form of child abuse in the damage it may do to the wellbeing of the children involved."

Arguing that existing legal remedies are slow, expensive and ultimately unsatisfactory, because they require the "victim" of coercive control – the person whose contact is denied – to raise an action that may damage the relationship with the children, if it is seen as threatening the mother with punishment, FNF adds: "We feel that unfounded and unjustified denial or control of the opportunity for a non-resident parent to fulfil his paternal rights and responsibilities (as encouraged in other areas of Scottish Government policy) should be included explicitly as an offence within domestic abuse."