Abused Father Syndrome
Why some non resident fathers are pushed over the edge.
There is no such syndrome in existence, so what is it we are talking about and could there be such a psychological condition recognised in the future that could be used as a defence or partial defence in the law of provocation?
Abused Father Syndrome (AFS) arises when the victim has been a long and constant sufferer of Domestic Violence (DV) perpetrated by his children’s mother and/or the maternal family over many years. The type of DV that a non resident father suffers most from is emotional and psychological abuse.
Unlawfully denying a father to a continuing loving relationship to his children by the children’s mother when the relationship fails constitutes emotional and abuse. We use unlawfully to mean without a lawful reason to stop contact such as being convicted of child abuse or DV.
The mother informing the children’s school that the father cannot see the children to prevent the father from being involved in his children’s education even when the father as Parental Responsibility (PR), calling the police and lying by telling them that the father goes round to her house to harass her, so she can frustrate family court proceedings and to get the father arrested and locked up; which would keep the father from seeing his children, getting the maternal family to beat up the father to keep him away from his children are a few types of psychological abuse.
After suffering years of abuse at the hands of his children’s mother and maternal family it has a devastating affect on the father. Sometimes, mainly around Christmas time a father may commit suicide because he cannot handle the abuse any more. But what happens in the most extreme cases of a father suffering from AFS is that he kills the mother of his children. Can this behaviour be interpreted as DV?
The Department for Constitutional Affairs, which used to be the Lord Chancellor’s Department, published a paper in 2003 called Domestic Violence: A Guide to Civil Remedies and Criminal Sanctions, which gives the legal definition of DV as being:
“Domestic violence and abuse is best described as the use of physical and/or emotional abuse or violence, including undermining off self-confidence, sexual violence, or the threat of violence, by a person who is or has been in a close relationship. Domestic violence can…involve…the destruction of a spouse’s or partner’s property, their isolation from friends, family, or other potential sources of support, threats to others including children, control over access to money, personal items, food, transportation and the telephone, and stalking” (Probert R., Cretney’s Family Law, 5th Ed. 2003, p.107).
After reading the legal definition it is easily seen that AFS is the result of years of suffering from DV very much in a similar way female victims have suffered, and as a result, when women have lashed out they have been able to use the term ‘Battered Women’s Syndrome” to assist the defence of provocation in murder cases to prove it affected the accused’s personality for it to become a relevant characteristic, (Taylor CJ, R v Thornton (No 2) [1996] 1 WLR 1174, Jefferson, M., Criminal Law, 5th Ed. 2001, p.90).
If we are meant to live in a society where men and women are treated equally in the eyes of the law then it would only be right if non resident fathers if they have been victims of DV have the same defences as women and be able to claim AFS. After all, non resident fathers are only human too.
Pete Molloy
My wife of 18 years left me for a married millionaire and has since turned my children against me. Were I not a Christian raised by two of the finest parents on the face of the earth, she would be dead now. Some of her lies include telling my children I first had an affair on her and it was me that filed for the divorce. I have offered to take a lie detector test on the affair business and told the kids (both now over 18) to go to the county seat to read the divorce papers. They refuse.
A woman I dated put it to me such that I can cope, "Your kids know you love them and that love is unconditional. With your ex, they are not so sure. They would do anything to try to win her approval and that includes hurting their father." These wise words from a woman with little in the way of education beyond high school made me investigate sociopathic personality disorders. I got the answers I need to go on in this thing we call "life".
Because I love my children so very much, and this is indeed not a contest between my ex and I as she would have it be, I worry most about my children and how crushed they will feel when they discover they have given up a relationship with a father who did nothing wrong for a mother who was for and about lies. How betrayed will they feel whether I am in my golden years or in my gr ave? How devastated will they be? How could a mother do this to a man who helped her conceive and who supposedly loves the children she conceived with him?
Illinois
