Please Sir – Can I See My sister?
As I sat thinking of what to write today my mind was filled, not quite with images of poor little Oliver Twist holding out his bowl to the workhouse manager, asking timidly, ‘Please sir, may I have some more?’ but of queues of little children, lining up the court steps with their little hands held out towards the so-called doors of justice, calling piteously to those stalwarts of justice, robed and enthroned inside their secret family courtrooms, ‘Please sir, can I see my sister’, ‘or my brother’, (for such denial of contact is not gender specific).
The Dickensian image of Oliver Twist, standing within the dark confines of the dark, austere Victorian workhouse, portrays vividly a time in history when social policy failed to redress the horrors faced by millions of poor throughout Britain. All that stood between the majority of people living in those conditions now, and then, were a relative handful of social reformers who believed strongly that, for the good of all, the situation must change and the lives of children must improve drastically.
And so, after a great struggle to make those changes nationwide, the lives of many children and adults improved, though not for all it must be said.
Change happens, as it must if society is not to stagnate, and if we are to ensure that those changes are for the better, we must constantly be aware of what is happening within our society, and be ready to address those issues which cause problems not only to individuals and their families but, inescapably, to society in general.
A great number of social issues need to be addressed within our society and one of those with which we are particularly concerned, the denial of contact between a child and one of its parents, affects the lives of not just the parent and child involved and their extended family, but also of society as a whole. Education, Crime, Health and Mental Health problems are only some of those issues caused or exacerbated when a child is deprived of its parent.
But for me today the issue is a small one. Very small actually! The issue is my very beautiful, curious, energetic and extraordinary two year old daughter. She was looking at the photographs around our sitting room, as she often does, and asked where her big sister was (her half sister, but we make no distinctions in our home). I have no answer to that question at the moment since her mum has disappeared taking my partner’s daughter, her sister, with her, but my daughter doesn’t know that, though she will undoubtedly be aware of the pervading sadness and strange atmosphere within our home, resulting from the situation.
You see my daughter has never seen her sister. Her mum wouldn’t allow it and argued in court that it would be distressing for the children to see each other and have a relationship together. ‘Distressing for the children?’ asked the judge, ‘No, distressing for me,’ said my partner’s ex.
And so contact was denied between two young, innocent children, despite my step-daughter’s desire to see her sister. (Just to clarify, in case you’re wondering, I didn’t cause the breakdown in the relationship, my partner and I didn’t meet until 6 months after his relationship with her ended and she had walked out on him taking their daughter with her, so ‘a woman scorned’ is not a major factor in our story.) Also at the time we were in court, his ex partner was herself in a relationship and pregnant, though this was not divulged to the court.
My daughter has two brothers she sees all the time, and a sister she sees only in photographs, but she doesn’t understand why she can’t see her sister, and maybe she even wonders if her sister is real just like her brothers, because she has never been allowed to see her.
Unless the previous court decision for no contact is overturned my daughter will have to wait until she is considered by the court to be old enough and mature enough to lodge her own Motion For Contact and fight through court to see her sister, (but by the time she could probably do this her sister will no longer be a child and may hopefully have come looking for her instead).
At present our daughter can’t even send her sister a birthday card since her name is not mentioned on the indirect contact order, and nor are my sons, as step-siblings who treated my partner’s daughter as their full sister, they rate no importance in the equation whatsoever, and no-one cared what devastation being denied contact with their sister caused to them, or her.
The Children’s Act 1989, was introduced to safeguard children’s best interests, but it has failed to do that and many children will suffer the consequences of that for years to come. The family law system in our country needs to change and to address the failures of its brutal regime or more children will suffer in its wake.
In the meantime I can not shake the image of those little children, like my daughter, pleading to see their siblings, or the image of those poor children denied the right to see their parent, family and siblings, all under the guise of their best interests.
I, for one, fail to see how it can be.
