DAD’S BOOK ON BATTLE TO SEE HIS DAUGHTERS

Campaign A founding member of Fathers 4 Justice has written a book about his ‘battle’ to see his children following the break-up of his marriage.Father-of-three Mark Harris, who lives in Plympton, clocked up a massive 133 court appearances and went before 33 different judges as he tried to gain access to his daughters over a 10 year period.

At the time he was accused by a High Court judge of being an “unprincipled charlatan” who had brought about the estrangement of his daughters through his own “obstinacy” and “blindness”.But Mark, who is 48, refused to give up hope, and was even jailed twice for contempt of court, serving 129 days in total.
After he met other dads in similar situations, the campaign group Fathers 4 Justice was formed. In 2003 they staged a protest on the roof of Plymouth Crown Court to raise attention to Mark’s case

Mark was reunited with his daughters in 2003 after his eldest and youngest arrived at his home with bags packed following an argument with their mother.
He called the High Court hotline where a judge spoke with both girls “for a matter of minutes” before faxing over a temporary residency order.

In court the following week, every previous court order was set aside.
“It took ten minutes to put right and end ten years of injustice,” says Mark, who still lives with his two daughters and sees the third regularly.
Mark and his eldest daughter Lisa, aged 16, have now written a book about their experiences, called Family Court Hell.

Recently published, the book aims to highlight what Mark sees as institutionalised discrimination against divorced fathers.

He said: “I wrote the book because situations like this are still going on now. I missed out on my children’s childhoods and I regret that every single day. I would not wish anybody to have to go through the same thing.”
Family Court Hell is available online through Amazon.

Family Court Hell

This is one man's harrowing story of frustration and determination as he battled for access rights to his young daughters following the bitter break-up of his marriage.

Incredibly, his was a journey that spanned almost ten years, with 133 hearings by 33 judges, and which reportedly cost the taxpayer over GBP1 million. What should have been a "simple contact dispute" somehow resulted in this innocent family man effectively being criminalized by the family courts, resulting in a stretch on the A Wing of the infamous Pentonville prison, which housed convicted murderers, terrorists, gun runners and drug dealers.

Mark Harris eventually took his case public and the campaign for fathers' rights took off - with the formation of Fathers 4 Justice. This is a shocking story that deserves to be heard.

Family Court Hell
Mark Harris
ISBN 1-906206-12-0 U.K.
£8.99Order from Amazon or call penpress on 0845 108 0530

Jailed for waving at my daughter

By JENNY JOHNSTON and RACHEL HALLIWELL
25th June 2007

Denied access to his three children after his divorce, Mark was jailed for standing outside his house to wave to them. It took ten years and 133 hearings before they were reunited. How CAN the Government insist cases like his are kept secret?

Jailed for waving at my daughter

Denied access to his three children after his divorce, Mark was jailed for standing outside his house to wave to them. It took ten years and 133 hearings before they were reunited. How CAN the Government insist cases like his are kept secret?

Every day there is some reminder of what Mark Harris calls 'the lost years'.
It could be his daughter's reference to a particular birthday party or a family holiday. It could be talk of exams sat, dentists visited or pop stars worshipped.

Each time it happens, he feels a stab of regret. 'I missed so much,' he reveals, with understandable bitterness. 'They took my daughter's childhood, her formative years, from me. Lisa is 20 now. I didn't see her between the ages of ten and 16. An awful lot happens in a child's life in that time, and I missed it all.'
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Reunited: Lisa, 20, with her father, Mark Harris

Lisa missed a lot, too. She sits by Mark's side as he talks, a beautiful and assured young woman, but one still coming to terms with the fact that her father simply wasn't there when she needed him - and for an entire decade she did not know why.

'There were times when I needed a father figure - for reassurance and advice,' she says, with quiet restraint. 'There just wasn't one there.'

But the story of what happened to the Harris family isn't just another tragic case of broken homes and estrangement. Mark, Lisa and her two younger sisters were wrenched apart by the state.

Mark was not a feckless, irresponsible father. He did not walk out of his children's lives. Rather, he was ordered out by the family courts, and when he objected - insisting it was his right to see them - he was dealt with in a scandalous way.

Mark Harris went to prison for his girls. He was jailed for waving to them after a court order demanded he sever all contact. It was the most shameful chapter in an extraordinary ten-year custody battle.

He has now 'won' - today, two of his daughters live with him - only because they shared their father's determination to re-establish their relationship.

He has lived every father's worst nightmare, and every miserable step is etched on his face. 'It took ten years, 133 court appearances before 33 different judges, two prison sentences and a hunger strike before I was given permission to be with my daughters again,' he says quietly.
'What happened to my family is unforgivable. And that it was all sanctioned - ordered - by a system that is supposed to help families is outrageous.'

The controversial family court system has much to answer for in this case. Mark Harris isn't the first father who has questioned how it operates. Family court proceedings are notoriously secretive, and campaigners have long appealed for the proceedings to be more open and judges more accountable.

That is not to be, however. Last week the Lord Chancellor ruled that proceedings must remain secret - something that horrifies Mark and his girls.

So angry is he about his experiences that he has written a book, Family Court Hell. 'Surely my story is evidence enough that the system needs to change.
'If it doesn't, the family courts are open to abuse by unaccountable judges and social workers with their own agendas, whose word is taken as law and who almost invariably favour the mother.

'It's a scandal which has left hundreds of fathers like me in desperation. The only solution is to have a court system that's transparent. Otherwise it is simply not fair to fathers or, more importantly, to the children it is supposed to protect.'

When Lisa was born in 1988, Mark felt 'like the happiest man alive'. He had been married to his wife - whom we cannot name even now for legal reasons - for three-and-a-half years, and he had longed for fatherhood. Over the next four years, two more daughters followed.

MARK says: 'I remember thinking how lucky I was because I had a job that I could organise around the children. I'm a driving instructor, so my work was flexible. I loved the time I spent with Lisa. Not every father could read their children stories, bath them or take them out for walks in their pram.'

Mark thought he had a happy marriage, too. The only difficulty was his strained relationship with his mother-inlaw. Yet it didn't concern him much.

'Looking back, we rowed constantly about my mother-in-law, but I never thought it would lead to drastic action,' he says. Perhaps he will never know exactly what was wrong in his marriage, but his wife was clearly unhappy.

One day in 1993, Mark returned from a football match to find the house 'looking as though it had been ransacked'. Almost all the furniture had disappeared. So, too, had his wife and children, and he had no clue where they had gone.

'I went to the police,' he says. 'I was beside myself, distraught. They said my
wife was in a rented house nearby, but that I shouldn't go round until the next day. When I did, she told me she no longer loved me, but said I could see the children whenever I wanted. I was bereft.

'I took the children home for a few hours and they spent the time crying - they were only six, four and two, and it must have been horrific for them to see their parents like that. They wanted to know when we'd all be at home together again, and I didn't know what to say. I was as shocked and bewildered as them.'

Over the next few weeks, Mark stumbled through life in a daze. He saw his girls every day he wasn't working, but his anger towards his wife was building up.

Two months after she left, she asked if he would take her back. Mark was too hurt to contemplate that. Instead, he launched divorce proceedings.

'At that point, it didn't even occur to me that access to the children would be an issue. I was granted unrestricted access - but later I discovered that even then my wife was seeing a solicitor, with a view to having my time with them reduced. She said it was confusing for them to see me.'

THE FAMILY court agreed, and his access was reduced to three times a week, then to once a week and finally to once a fortnight. Mark was stunned to discover he was powerless to resist. 'I petitioned the judge every time, but there was nothing I could do,' he says.

A year after they had separated, the couple divorced. Again, Mark made a bid to see more of his girls, and asked the court if they could live with him. His wife retaliated, claiming that seeing him at all was unsettling them. The court's reaction? It banned him from any contact at all with his daughters.

'I was just floored, disgusted. On my wife's word, the judge simply severed all my rights of access. When I protested, no one listened. I was devastated, but there was no way I was going to turn my back on my children. How could a court order stop me from being a father?'

Every morning, while he waited for a court date to argue against this judgment, Mark saw his children being driven past his house to school by their mother. He'd wave - angry that he couldn't say hello, but grateful for their smiles.

Then his former wife was granted an injunction stopping him even gesturing to his children as they passed. 'It was incredible. She said it was harassment, and the court believed her. But I carried on waving. I was looking for a job and I'd walk to the Jobcentre every morning - knowing how to time it so they would come past.

'I was damned if I was going to be prevented from waving at my own children. Naively, maybe, I assumed the whole business would be cleared up at the next court hearing.'

It wasn't. Instead, Mark left that courtroom in handcuffs, sentenced to four months, having been told that waving was tantamount to stalking his ex. He couldn't believe what was happening.

'On my first night in jail I shared a cell with a murderer,' he says. 'It was so intimidating. The next few weeks just blurred into one long nightmare. Every waking hour I pined for my girls, wondering if I would ever see them again.

'When I got out, the nightmare continued. It took another year for me to convince the courts I should be allowed to see them at all. Life was an endless round of court hearings. It was a wretched existence. Time and again I'd be facing a new judge and having to re-tell the story. To me, it was a matter of life and death, but to them, it seemed I was just another pushy, undeserving father who was trying to interfere in his former wife's life.

'I was so messed up by it all that I had a vasectomy to ensure I couldn't find myself in that position again.'

Finally, five years after the separation, Mark was granted permission to see his daughters. He was excited about the planned date - but devastated-when Lisa didn't turn up. 'By then I was livid at the system. It was destroying my life. I know it was a foolish thing to do, but I started picketing the homes of the judges who had denied me contact, hoping they would take pity on me.'

His protests were to no avail. Instead, in 2001, he was sentenced to ten months in prison for contempt of court for driving past his girls' house to catch a glimpse of them. By then spiralling into depression, he went on hunger strike. For two weeks he refused food and water. 'I stopped only when I realised that if I died I would never see my precious daughters again,' Mark says.
Who knows how this desperate fight to be a father would have ended had Lisa, then 16, not intervened. 'After a row with her mother, she called Mark and told him she and one of her sisters wanted to live with him.

'I got this call saying they had packed their bags and were at a bus stop. Would I pick them up? In breach of all court orders, I got in the car and brought them home. Seeing Lisa again, for the first time in six years, was incredible. I didn't know how to speak to, or look at, this young woman before me. She was wearing make-up. She had her 6ft boyfriend in tow. It was surreal, but in the end we fell into each other's arms and sobbed.'

It was only then that the family court system seemed to consider Mark's rights. He called the High Court emergency hotline and eventually spoke to a 'decent, humane judge'.

Ten minutes after their conversation-he was faxed a temporary residency order. In court the following week, every previous court order was set aside. 'It took ten minutes to put right and ten years of injustice, which made me realise just what power those judges have,' says Mark.
The ruling meant that Lisa and her sisters could choose which parent they lived with. Lisa and her youngest sister - who, again, we can't name for legal reasons - now live with him.
Lisa is studying to be a legal secretary. Her story is even more poignant. She tells of the confusion that has blighted most of her life, and you cannot help but wonder what long-term damage has been inflicted on her and her sisters.

'One minute we were normal children. The next we were in a rented house with Dad hammering on the door demanding to be allowed to see us,' she says. 'We were scared. None of it made sense. Sometimes we'd be allowed to see Dad regularly, then there were times with no contact at all.

'When Dad disappeared out of our lives, we just thought he had stopped loving us. I was certain I'd done something wrong. 'The first time we saw him waving to us as we went to school, I was thrilled. I remember thinking: "He still cares."

'Every morning, Mum would tell us we shouldn't look at him - that he was a bad man - yet we couldn't help but grin when we saw him. It made our day.' It was impossible for Lisa's mother to go a different route.

WHEN her father went to prison, no one explained to Lisa why. 'Mum said: "You see - I told you he was bad." I was ten years old. As far as I knew, you had to do something pretty awful to go to prison.'

She turned against her father, telling social workers she didn't want to see him. Yet with hindsight she explains she was simply trying to gain control over the horrific situation.

'There was this endless pantomime with social workers wanting to know what I thought. All I wanted was to be allowed to love both my parents, but I knew that was never going to happen.
'Mum's hatred for Dad was so deep that to keep her happy, and to get them off my back, I said I wouldn't see him. Turning love to hate made that easier. I told myself that my dad had been wicked, so he deserved it.'

When the courts finally granted access, Lisa was so tortured that she often didn't turn up to see her father. She thought she was protecting her mother by siding with her.

However, when she fell out with her mother during a phase of teenage rebellion, it was to her father that she fled - and when she discovered he had never stopped loving her, she was left reeling.

'I'd never forgotten Dad's number. I know I was only ringing him then to get back at Mum, but when I heard his voice, I wanted to cry. I told him I loved him and that I wanted to see him. Everything just flooded out.'

The first meeting was as hard for her as it was for him. 'The last time I'd seen him I'd been ten and carrying a skipping rope. When I walked into my old bedroom - and saw it was as I had left it - I wanted to sob. I didn't dare do so, though, because I knew if I did I'd never stop.'
Four years on, Lisa and Mark are only just beginning to rebuild their relationship. Every day, more gaps are filled, and more trust regained.

Meanwhile, Lisa rarely sees her mother, and she is angry at her mother's behaviour. It is a desperately sorry story, with no real winners. But then, as Lisa points out, it was never supposed to be a contest.

'I wish to God that my parents had avoided the courts from day one, and simply shared us, the children they created together,' she says.

'Instead, complete strangers were allowed to get involved in our lives to such an extent that everyone lost sight of the needs of us children.

'I love both my parents; I always will. But I will never get my childhood back. It is gone for ever.'
• FAMILY Court Hell by Mark Harris, costs £8.99. Call 0845 1080530, or visit www.amazon.co.uk or www.penpress.co.uk.

Sunday Independent

The People - MY PARENTS' BITTER DIVORCE TORE ME APART FOR 10 YEARS.. TILL I RAN AWAY FROM MUM TO BE WITH DAD I HARDLY KNEW

TEENAGER'S HEARTFELT PLEA TO WARRING COUPLES EVERYWHERE

HIGHLIGHT: TRAUMA: Lisa felt robbed of a normal childhood



PRETTY Lisa Harris has been enjoying a special Christmas with her dad - after a bitter parental feud meant they were banned from seeing each other for TEN years.

Her childhood was ripped apart by an endless round of custody battles until she finally ran away from her mum to live with the Fathers 4 Justice campaigner she hardly knew.

Now 18, Lisa has spoken for the first time about her traumatic upbringing, revealing: "It was a nightmare being pulled in both directions by my parents.

"I want to tell my story on behalf of all the voiceless children whose lives are being torn apart in the same way."



Determined Lisa told how she was:

- DEVASTATED at six when her mum moved her and her two sisters out of the family home and then divorced.

- HEARTBROKEN at eight when the courts banned her dad Mark from seeing them.

- STUNNED at 10 when he was sent to prison for waving to her on the way to school.

- HORRIFIED when she saw him on TV picketing as a Fathers 4 Justice campaigner outside a judge's home.

Lisa vividly recalls the Saturday in November 1993 when her nightmare began.

She said: "Dad had gone to the football. As soon as he left, relatives turned up and my sisters and I were taken off to the house of an auntie we hardly knew.

"One minute we were normal kids living a normal family life. The next we were in a rented house with dad hammering at the door demanding to be allowed to see us."

At first Lisa and her sisters, aged four and two, had regular contact with their dad - but it was not to last.

Lisa recalled: "When he came to collect us I'd see him and mum talking and pray that they were sorting things out.

"I was desperate for them to get back together. I wanted him back putting me in the bath, reading me bedtime stories and helping me with my homework. Instead we had to cram our relationship into the few short hours we spent together.

"Then a few months later we suddenly lost even that. Dad stopped seeing us and being a child I thought it was because of something I had done wrong."

In fact, Mark Harris had been banned from seeing his kids by law because their mum believed his visits were upsetting them.

"I didn't know that dad wasn't allowed to see us," said Lisa. "I started to feel angry with him for abandoning us."

Lisa started to recognise a pattern in her mum's behaviour. "Every time she came downstairs in her suit it meant she was going to court to argue about us with dad.

"She always came back with a headache and didn't want to play with us or talk. I felt guilty, wondering if it was all because of me." Over the following years, Lisa's parents went to court more than ONE HUNDRED times in custody battles.

To show the kids he loved them, he started slowly driving past the house. And he'd stand on a street corner and wave to them as they went to school.

But his actions breached an order forcing him to stay away - and he spent 45 days in jail.

"I was 10 and it was too distressing for me to think of my dad behind bars," said Lisa. "So in my head I turned him into the bad man I thought he must be to have gone to prison. It was easier that way."

Lisa had to endure a parade of social workers quizzing her about how she felt about her dad. She said: "They'd ask if I wanted to see him. They said I didn't have to if I didn't want to.

"I started wondering if things might get better if I went along with that. Maybe then the social workers might leave us alone to get on with our lives.

"Most of all I thought it might make mum happy again. So I forced myself to hate him - it was so much easier than loving him."

Mark came out of jail, only to be sent back inside for a further 84 days for a new breach. This time he went on hunger strike - and joined Fathers 4 Justice. Lisa recalled: "One night I was watching the news and there was my dad on TV. He was protesting outside the home of a judge who'd banned another father from seeing his kids.

"I felt ashamed and embarrassed and just wished my dad would let it go." More recently another Fathers 4 Justice member protested as Batman at Buckingham Palace.

But at 16 Lisa had a change of heart towards her dad. She said: "I had a row with mum - I'd started rebelling and staying out late. I marched out and rang dad from a phone box.

"I was only going to do it to hit out at mum. I was sick of her running my life.

"But as soon as I heard my dad's voice I wanted to cry. I blurted out I wanted to see him and I loved him."

This time a sympathetic judge ruled that Lisa was free to live with her dad, a driving instructor in Plymouth, if that was her choice. Lisa said: "Finally, after all those years, it was over.

"It was hard at first. The last time I'd seen my dad I was 10 and still wearing knee socks. Now I was a young woman with a boyfriend. He looked older and worn down by it all, but our love for each other was stronger than ever." Mark, 45, says: "The battle to see my children broke my heart and I worried about the effect it had on them, but giving up was not an option."

Lisa's mum still feels her own pain. She said: "Anything Lisa has said has been influenced by her father. I do not believe anything she has to say should be published. She has only just turned 18 and is still a minor in my eyes."

Lisa said: "I love BOTH my parents. Surely I'm allowed to do that - isn't it every child's right to love their mum and dad?

"I would tell any parent fighting over their kids to put your pain to one side and listen to your children."

Western Morning News (Plymouth) - Solo protesters who became a dads' army

T HEY'RE the "super-hero" dads who dress up as Spiderman, Batman and Robin and camp out on the rafters of the Tamar Bridge. They've sat out the skin-biting cold of nights atop cranes, and even scaled the Royal Courts of Justice.

Their fondness for heights as a platform for protest is matched by the bitter humour of their costumes.

And one of their number, Ron Davis, catapulted them into the national spotlight by peppering Tony Blair with purple flour in the House of Commons.


Yesterday, up to 100 members of Fathers 4 Justice were threatening more protests, and risking imprisonment, over a Government Green Paper aimed at giving fathers greater access to their children.

Significantly, it did not include any legal presumption to shared parenting and was condemned as "playing politics with children's lives".

This is all dramatic stuff.

Anyone who dismisses the campaigners of Fathers 4 Justice as comic sensation-seekers has overlooked their passionate seriousness. They liken their separation from their children following divorce to a "living bereavement". And they are as well organised as they are motivated.

Their tactics have been vindicated, because F4J, as it is snappily known, has become a phenomenon - so much so that it has even been compared with the civil rights movements of the 1960s. That's how rapidly it has progressed from a few dads whispering of revolution to an organisation that claims up to 10,000 members, and is expanding into Holland, Australia and the USA.

Matt O'Connor, who founded Fathers 4 Justice in December 2002, explained: "It's quite astonishing the sea-change that has come about since F4J came on the scene. We've got so many people wanting to join that we are struggling to cope." He set up F4J along Greenpeace lines with a strategy of attention-grabbing "direct action" protests. These were to be the vehicle for the message.

The gravity of that message has now been underlined with the group's own document - "A Blueprint for Family Law in the 21st Century: The Case for Urgent, Radical Reform".

It sets out the heartbreaking effects of British family law on fathers, mothers, grandparents - but especially children. F4J argues that there should be an automatic presumption in law that both separated parents should have equal contact to their children, unless there are demonstrable reasons otherwise, such as the threat of violence or abuse. The document sets out ten articles for a Bill of Rights for the Family which it wants enshrined in law.

Mr O'Connor said: "Our campaign is for equality between both sexes. We want justice for mothers and fathers." The Tories have backed the call for equal parenting rights - and the Government has been moved to respond with its Green Paper.

That's how far this issue has moved up the national agenda. It is a world removed from a campaign that began with scrawled slogans on placards, solitary fathers chaining themselves, suffragette-like, to railings, or picketing judges' country homes on a Sunday afternoon.

It's happened with great speed, and it was activists in the Westcountry who were at the forefront - not least 45-year-old Mark Harris, who battled for ten years for access to his daughters, and went through a record 133 hearings.

He is an unlikely rebel - a driving instructor from Plympton, Plymouth. But Matt O' Connor describes the man who was often dismissed as a crank as a "trail-blazer".

Mr Harris formed Dads Against Discrimination, a forerunner of F4J, and set about maximising publicity for fathers' rights. It culminated in a hunger strike after he was jailed for contempt of court.

He said: "The fathers' rights movement started here in Devon with protests at judges' houses, and it's developed very well. I was just an ordinary man who wanted to see his children. What the courts did wasn't for the benefit of my kids. But I wouldn't give up and I wouldn't go away." His eldest daughter, aged 17, now lives with him, and he has good contact with the two others, aged 15 and 13. So if he's now a "fit" father, what's different from ten years ago? He says there would be no need for a change in family law if judges applied existing law fairly.

"The natural father has to prove before the courts that he should see them. Even when he's clearly a loving parent, he has to apply and be assessed. It's absurd and cruel," he said.

He believes those early protests created an unstoppable momentum. They were also tapping into wider social symptoms. One reason they converged into a movement was that for each maverick there were many more aggrieved fathers watching from the touchline. British society had changed so radically within a generation that the breakdown of relationships had gone from being an issue concerning scattered individuals to a social problem.

The statistics point up the scale of it. There were more than 147,000 divorces in England and Wales in 2002, the highest since 1996. F4J calculates that 650 children a day have parents who separate or divorce - 237,250 children were affected in 2001. And 40 per cent of marriages end in separation.

That stacks up to a lot of anguish, broken homes, careers cut short and financial hardship.

Jolly Stanesby, 38, from Ivybridge, has become one of F4J's most prolific protesters, spending three days up a crane in Exeter last September, three days on Tower Bridge in December, and seven days up the Tamar Bridge in January.

He's been campaigning for greater access to his five-year-old daughter, and said: "Everyone is either affected or knows someone who is. I spent a day on the roof of the family court in Plymouth, and the fireman who came up on the ladder said: 'Don't worry, I'm going through the same thing'. We've had policemen at the bridge protests who say: 'We've got to do our jobs and bring you down, but we wish we could be up there with you'." He believes the protests have become more spectacular the more that people feel they have nothing left to lose. But that does not mean that change might even yet be painfully slow in coming.

For the "super-hero" dads who feel they can only make their voices heard by taking to the bridges and rooftops, each day of waiting is too long.
.

Western Morning News (Plymouth) - Fathers up on roof in new protest

Two men dressed as cartoon superheroes last night ended a day-long rooftop protest at Plymouth Crown and County Court. Veteran protester Jolly Stanesby, 38, from Ivybridge in the South Hams, donned a Spiderman costume and was joined by Gary Swain, 36, from Crewkerne in Somerset, who dressed as Batman. They climbed the building at around 6am yesterday morning and unfurled protest banners to hang over the entrance to the court.

Mr Stanesby said the protest aimed to highlight the alleged injustices suffered by fathers in child custody decisions.

Both he and Mr Frain are members of the pressure group Fathers 4 Justice, which campaigns for equal parenting rights and a legal presumption of contact for parents and grandparents following separation or divorce. According to figures from the Lord Chancellor's Department, 100 children a day lose partial or total contact with their fathers in the UK.

Mr Stanesby last night told the WMN that he had brought provisions to last more than a week but thought he would limit his protest to a day.

Yesterday the city centre court was surrounded by police, who cordoned off the front entrance, although people were still able to enter the building from the side and the day's proceedings were not affected.

Fire engines were also present at the scene with turntable ladders, and a police helicopter periodically hovered overhead.

Motorists honked their horns at the two men and passers-by stopped to read the signs, saying they had mixed feelings about F4Js protest methods.

One family lawyer who works in the court said: "I am meant to be meeting clients whose cases could be delayed because of this - that doesn't seem fair. I do have some sympathy for what they are doing but not the way they are doing it because it disrupts other people's lives." However, another passer-by, 25-year-old Plymothian Adrian Pope, said: "Good on them. They have to defend their rights and I would do the same if I were in their position." Mr Stanesby, a registered childminder, has previously carried out rooftop protests at the Royal Courts of Justice in London's Strand and the Plymouth Courts, as well as spending a week on the gantry of the Tamar Bridge, campaigning for more contact with his five-year-old daughter.

He said: "It has been a year now since we were last up here on the roof of the courts and nothing has really changed since then. There is a lot of talking but there has been no action.

"Our protest is also to preview our main demonstration in London which is taking place on Friday June 18.

"The ball started rolling with Mr Justice Munby's comments last month that the legal system was failing fathers and calling for mothers who ignore contact orders to be jailed. We want other judges to come forward now and add their voice to his." Mr Stanesby said he was also up on the roof to support fellow F4J member Mark Harris, a 45-year-old driving instructor from Plympton, Plymouth, who appeared in the county court yesterday to claim compensation from a child psychiatrist who he alleges was clinically negligent and instrumental in barring him from contact with his children.

Mr Harris, who has notched up some 133 court appearances in ten years, did not see one of his daughters for six years and spent a total of 129 days in prison for contempt of court after he attempted to bribe his former wife to allow him increased contact with their children.

Sunday Express - BRITISH FATHERS ARE TAKING DIRECT ACTION TO END THE 'LIVING BEREAVEMENT' OF BEING ESTRANGED FROM THEIR CHILDREn

DADS WHO WILL FIGHT TO MAKE THEIR DAY

TONY LEWIS plays happily on the beach with his sons. It is a scene played out the world over but for Tony it is the culmination of years of heartache. He is one of numerous dads who have had to fight for access to their children after their divorce - and he is one of the lucky ones who won his battle.

Throughout the English-speaking world an army of fathers is mobilising against the legal systems it believes are hopelessly biased against fathers. And the commanders are prepared to use militant tactics to win the battle. Australia's militant dads operate under the rather chilling name of the Blackshirts and have earned themselves a reputation for disturbing vigilante tactics in their efforts to secure access to children - standing outside single mothers' homes, making nuisance telephone calls, even abducting children involved in custody disputes.

Here in Britain, divorced and separated fathers are also getting tough. Fathers 4 Justice (F4J) was launched last December with a sit-down protest - by 200 Father Christmases - in the lobby of the Lord Chancellor's Department. The group now numbers 1,200 and has been compared to its Australian counterpart. This Friday, two days before Father's Day, F4J intends to get its message across to a wider audience, and members are anticipating mass arrests.



In the next month four F4J members go on trial, charged with criminal damage after their "purple door" campaign, in which the doors of several Court Welfare offices were painted the colour of international equality. So is this the thin end of the wedge? Are the methods of the Blackshirts coming to Britain? F4J's co-founder Matt O'Connor is adamant the groups have little in common and condemns the Blackshirts as a "thoroughly reprehensible bunch".

According to O'Connor, his group is a civil rights movement which, while it has no truck with intimidation, unapologetically embraces direct action as a way of getting what it wants - to end the "living bereavement" of fathers estranged from their children. To that end F4J seeks to raise public awareness and change the law to give fathers equal rights to see their children. It aims to achieve this within three years.

Many F4J members are prepared to go to jail if necessary. They have already picketed the homes of judges and lawyers involved in the family court system. Co-founder Tony Lewis admits: "I've picketed homes and they don't like it but we don't like being stopped from seeing our kids.

"Both parents should have equality of opportunity to be parents. Neither should be treated like second-class parents. Ending the injustice is what drives me and I'm prepared to go to jail over this."

Lewis, who lives in Great Yarmouth, classes himself one of the "lucky ones".

He has full residency of his two sons, James, eight, and Anthony, seven, but it took 22 court appearances and left him with debts of more than GBP 40,000.

"In many ways I'm a success of the system but the system is, by its adversarial nature, very destructive.

My ex-wife and I went to court and we scrapped good and proper. I was made to feel like a criminal. My advice to anyone is to keep out of court."

Instead, Lewis would like to see a "mediation service with teeth" for estranged couples, with the interests of the children at heart.

In 2001 more than 55,000 contact orders were made in the British courts, affecting more than 80,000 children.

Of these nearly half were flouted yet few were enforced by the courts that issued them. Most judges take the view that penalising the mother would add more stress to the situation. Matt O'Connor points out that such alternatives as community service orders, or a simple transfer of residency, could persuade recalcitrant mothers to comply.

The 1987 Children's Act took away the right of a father to be legal guardian to his children after several high-profile cases of children suffering at the hands of parents, but it made explicit the fact that children should retain the "love and care of both parents". O'Connor believes the system as it stands ignores this proviso.

Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the Family Division, admits that 40 per cent of fathers lose contact with their children within two years of a relationship breakdown.

DRIVING INSTRUCTOR Mark Harris was forced to take on the legal system to gain access to his three daughters. He has made 132 appearances in court.

His increasing frustration has convinced him that direct action is the only way of getting his voice heard. He started picketing the homes of family court judges three years ago.

"I was at my 104th court hearing and I couldn't believe the judge's attitude, " he says. "She wasn't listening, she was supporting the mother regardless. I just thought I had to do something."

Today Harris finally enjoys contact with his children and his eldest daughter recently came to live with him in Plymouth. He fervently believes that the legal system is unfairly loaded against fathers battling to maintain a relationship with their children.

"There needs to be a legal presumption of contact for the father, " he says. "Mum can bring a new boyfriend into the house each week if she wants. They could be anyone, even a paedophile. No one knows, no one cares. Dad's the only person in the world who's not presumed fit to see his children.

"My experience of the legal system makes me convinced it's a corrupt industry. I've waved placards outside the homes of these judges. They live in palaces. That's why they do it. There's a whole industry of barristers, solicitors and child psychiatrists carving a fortune out of our misery."

And mud sticks. Fathers who are prevented from seeing their children in hearings that are held under a cloak of secrecy find that many people take the view that there must be a reason for contact to be withheld by the authorities.

"People assume there must be a problem with the fathers, " says Harris, "that there must be something more behind it, but there's not. It's too ridiculous for words. What passes for justice in a family court has to be seen to be believed."

O'Connor agrees that the current legal set-up does nothing to help. "If divorce is a burning house, then going to the family court is like emptying a plane-load of napalm on the situation."

Southampton barrister Michael Cox is no stranger to the machinations of the law, yet when his first marriage broke up and he was fighting for access to his three sons he found the very legal system in which he earns his living merely made the situation worse.

"My case was fairly typical: Mum was very bitter. I wanted to remain close to my children and the only weapon she could enforce against me was to withhold contact and she did so with gusto. The crux of the system is what's in the best interests of the child.

The system is by its very nature adversarial - appropriate in corporate law, but it has no place in families. It's not in the best interests of a child for each party to have to dig the dirt on the other, to denigrate and besmirch the efforts of the other parent. I say to fathers embarking on this process now - as the law stands, you're going to get shafted."

The commonality of experience between men of all ages and backgrounds has been a powerful recruitment tool for F4J. Hundreds of fathers, as well as grandparents who are denied access, are joining the movement each month.

THIS FRIDAY'S demonstration is being planned with military precision. O'Connor is prepared to give only limited information.

Hundreds of members will descend on a secret location in London and many are prepared to be arrested. There is likely, says O'Connor, to be an "almighty ruckus". It will be followed by another demonstration in Glasgow on Father's Day.

"The fact that people are willing to be hauled off to prison is testament to the strength of feeling out there. It's bloody heartbreaking stuff. We get people ringing up bereft because they can't see their grandchildren; fathers who haven't seen their kids in years. We're trying to make the injustice visible because the suffering is so great, " says O'Connor.

For Michael Cox, involvement in the effort to change a legal system he believes to be unjust is a matter of duty.

"I'm doing this for my sons. They'll be fathers one day and I don't want them to suffer like I did. Women didn't get the vote by asking nicely. You have to make waves.

I don't intend to get arrested on Friday but if push comes to shove, then so be it."

For more information log on to www. fathers-4-justice. org

Western Daily Press - Divorced fathers in custody protest

DIVORCED fathers demonstrated outside the country homes of two judges who they claim take the side of mothers in custody cases.

The group targeted two properties in Somerset calling for the courts to be more sympathetic to pleas for equal access to children.

The fathers chanted slogans and waved banners and placards outside the home of Justice Graham Cotterall, at Curry Rivel, near Langport.

He was out on Saturday afternoon but they left a letter setting out a claim for equal access made by the Equal Parenting Council.

They then took their protest a few miles away to the Lynch Country House Hotel, at Somerton, which is also the home of Justice Joy Bracewell.

One of the protesters was father-of-three Mark Harris who has been fighting for equal access to his children for eight years.

Mr Harris, of Plympton, Plymouth, said:

"Divorced wives can move their boyfriends into their home and they don't have to get welfare reports to have access to the kids. There is a great injustice and the judges could bring about change." He claimed courts generally ruled in favour of mothers with only limited access for the father, even when the man has good social service and welfare reports.

Parents take access fight to judge's home .

DIVORCED or separated parents fighting for access to their children took their protests to the Seend home of a senior judge at the weekend.

About 35 parents holding placards took part in a demonstration outside the home of Lord Justice Mathew Thorpe, one of the country's most senior appeal judges on Saturday afternoon.

The parents had come from London, Cambridge, Plymouth, Bristol and Wiltshire. They have all been battling with the courts for access to their children.

As they stood outside the driveway to Lord Justice Thorpe's house they shouted "children need both parents."

Protest organiser Mark Harris, and Tony Coe, both members of the Equal Parenting Council, knocked on the judge's front door to deliver letters outlining the concerns felt by parents about the way family courts are run.

In the drive was a white L-registered Volvo 440 car. The shutters on both ground floor windows were drawn. No one answered the door so Mr Coe posted the letters through the judge's letter box.

The protest continued for a few minutes outside the drive and as the protesters dispersed, two police cars pulled up, but there was no trouble.

Lord Justice Thorpe had been invited to the Bell Inn in Seend to discuss the problems, but he did not attend.

Mr Coe, the president of the Equal Parenting Council, said that family courts were not carrying through the ruling contained in the 1989 Children's Act that parenting should be shared.

He said: "The key point is that one parent is being excluded for no good reason. If there is abuse or violence going on then of course there should be limitation of the parent's role, but we are talking about ordinary, loving, devoted parents that are being excluded from their children's life.

"Why is it that one parent has all the say? The other parent has the right to make an application to the court but the other parent can keep saying no and it can go on for months and years.

"If the system doesn't value the other parent (the parent who is not living with the children) then the children will think that. From the point of separation we need to treat the parents equally. "

Mr Coe dubbed the protests outside judges' homes the "judicial education programme." He added: "Not everybody agrees with the approach we are taking and I fully understand that view.

"But we have to make these people feel a little uncomfortable because the process makes our lives and our children's lives uncomfortable."

Richard Day, a 50-year-old father of two teenage daughters, has been fighting with the Child Support Agency and the courts for the past seven years. He says as a result he has suffered financially and emotionally and sees his daughters no more than twice a year.

Mr Day, of Market Lavington, said: "The Child Support Agency trebled the maintenance payable to my ex-wife for my daughters and each time I have appealed to the courts they have totally ignored the situation and have done nothing to encourage positive parenting. I think we should be looking at a public inquiry.

"We are reasonably minded people. We want what is best for our children and we need the system to be doing the same. If judges are not doing their jobs properly they should be sacked."

Lord Justice Thorpe, 62, has been an appeal judge in the family division of the High Court since October 1995.

His first marriage ended in divorce in 1989 and he remarried in the same year. He has three sons.

He was unavailable for comment about the protest outside his home in Seend.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON) - Judge brands 'martyr' father as a charlatan

A FATHER who "cast himself as a martyr" in a high-profile legal battle over his three daughters was described by a High Court judge yesterday as an "unprincipled charlatan" who should have no direct contact with them.

Mr Justice Munby said the children's welfare was best served by them having no direct contact with Mark Harris, 42, a driving instructor from Plymouth.

He referred to one of a number of demonstrations by supporters of Mr Harris outside the homes of various judges. The demonstrations were publicised on the internet.


Posters were displayed criticising Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, president of the Family Division.

One read: "If BSE-infected meat is bad for kids . . . why is this mad cow in charge of Family Courts?"

Mr Justice Munby, sitting in the Family Division in London, said: "No amount of intimidation, whether demonstrating outside their homes, vilifying them on the internet or bombarding them with offensive letters, will have any effect on the judges or their families, or deflect the judges from their sworn duty to do right to all manner of people without fear or favour affection or ill-will, or alter their approaches to the cases they are called upon to try."

The judge said Mr Harris's daughters had lived with their mother following her divorce from him. The daughters wanted and enjoyed contact with their father.

The judge said that the mother did not significantly oppose contact, but "all three daughters have ended up opposed to and refusing to participate".

He said: "Mr Harris is the author of his own immense misfortune. He is also, even though he probably cannot recognise it, the cause of the blighting of his daughters' lives."

The mother and children have been left, he said, with a "beleaguered feeling of being stalked and harassed".

The judge said one reason he was giving his ruling in open court was that the case had been promoted as a cause celebre both by Mr Harris and by a number of campaigning organisations, including Families Need Fathers, the Equal Parenting Council, the UK Men's Movement and the group set up by Mr Harris himself, Dads Against Discrimination.

Mr Justice Munby said: "Mr Harris has cheerfully cast himself and allowed and encouraged others to cast him in the role of martyr.

"I believe there is a public interest in the members of these organisations knowing just how they have been bamboozled and cynically manipulated by a man, devoid of all moral scruple, who is singularly ill-suited either to assume the martyr's crown or to act as an ambassador for such organisations.

"Mr Harris has manipulated the press by feeding it tendentious accounts of these proceedings, enabled to do so because he has been able hypocritically to shelter behind the very privacy of the proceedings which hitherto has prevented anyone correcting his misrepresentations."

Mr Harris, who is serving a 10-month sentence for contempt of court, was in court for the ruling, as were a number of his supporters.

The judge rejected an application by Mr Harris to "purge" his contempt and release him from prison "to start with a clean sheet".

Evening Herald (Plymouth) - Dad loses fight over children, Judge rules in open court

A FATHER who 'cast himself in the role of martyr' in a high-profile legal battle over his children was today described by a High Court judge as an 'unprincipled charlatan' who should have no direct contact with his children.

Mr Justice Munby, sitting in the court's Family Division in London, took the unusual step of giving his ruling in open court in an 'immensely saddening case' involving contact between Mark Harris, a 42-year-old from Plymouth, and his children.

The judge said he had been driven to the unavoidable conclusion 'that the welfare of all the children is best served by there being no direct contact with Mr Harris' and that there should be, at present, a reduced amount of indirect contact.


He said: "It is in essence the story of a loving and devoted father and his children. The children do not live with him following his divorce from their mother. Mother has residence. The children wanted and enjoyed contact with their father."

The judge said the contact was not opposed or thwarted by the mother, but 'all three children have ended up opposed to and refusing to participate in contact'.

Mr Justice Munby said the mother and children needed a breathing space from Harris who had made them feel 'stalked and harassed'.

Harris, who is serving a 10-month sentence for contempt of court, was present for yesterday's ruling, flanked by security officers. His supporters were also in court.

The judge rejected an application by Harris to 'purge' his contempt and release him from prison.

Mr Justice Munby, who said he must return to prison, said Harris had carried out a 'deliberate campaign of lawless defiance of the court'.

He added the case had been presented as a 'cause celebre' by Harris and campaign organisations. He said: "Her Majesty's judges will not be deterred from doing their duty by such antics as Mr Harris and his associates have chosen to indulge in. No amount of intimidation, whether demonstrating outside their homes, vilifying them on the Internet or bombarding them with offensive letters, will have any effect on the judges or their families."

Western Morning News (Plymouth) - Judge condemns 'pig-headed' father

A FATHER who "cast himself in the role of martyr" in a high-profile legal battle over his three daughters was yesterday described by a High Court judge as an "unprincipled charlatan" who should have no direct contact with his children.

Mr Justice Munby, sitting in the court's Family Division in London, took the unusual step of giving his ruling in open court in an "immensely saddening case" involving contact between Mark Harris, 42, of Plymouth, and his children.

The judge said he had been driven to the conclusion "that the welfare of all three children is best served by there being no direct contact with Mr Harris" and there should be, at present, a reduced amount of indirect contact.


He said: "This is an immensely saddening case. It is also a tragedy - a tragedy all the more tragic because the outcome was, as it seems to me, unnecessary and almost entirely avoidable. It is in essence the story of a loving and devoted father and his three daughters. The daughters do not live with him following his divorce from their mother. Mother has residence. The daughters wanted and enjoyed contact with their father."

The judge said the contact was in no significant way opposed or thwarted by the mother, but "all three daughters have ended up opposed to and refusing to participate in contact. The virtually total breakdown of the relationship between the father and his daughters is not, in my judgment, the consequence of anything done or not done by the mother".

Mr Justice Munby, who said the mother and children "desperately" needed a breathing space from Mr Harris, continued: "Here, as it seems to me, the non-residential father's estrangement from his daughters has been directly brought about by his own obstinacy, pig-headedness and blindness.

"Mr Harris is, if truth be told, the author of his own immense misfortune. He is also, even though he probably cannot recognise it, the cause of the blighting of his daughters' lives."

The mother and children had been left, he said, with a "beleaguered feeling of being stalked and harassed".

Mr Harris, who is serving a ten-month sentence for contempt of court, had his application for release from prison rejected.

Mark Harris Jailed

IN THE HIGH COURT IN LONDON YESTERDAY , a loving & devoted dad was JAILED FOR 10 MONTHS for trying to remain a parent to his three daughters (10, 11 & 14).

Mark (36) came into contact with EQUAL PARENTING COUNCIL a couple of years ago and I've kept in touch with him and his case ever since. He's a driving instructor from Plymouth - a thoroughly nice, down to earth bloke, who just loves his children to bits, and (like all of us) doesn't understand why the family courts have failed to stop his ex wife's determined efforts to exclude him for his daughters' lives FOR NO GOOD REASON.

MARK'S "CRIMES"

Mark was jailed for 10 months and fined £500 for contempt of court, because he did the following:

Greeted his children when he encountered them, when apparently he should have vanished immediately he saw them;
Drove into an "exclusion zone" in the hope that he might see his kids whilst he was conducting driving lessons;
Handed a birthday present, and a note to his children without first having them vetted by social services (although no complaint was made about the gift or note);
Had his girlfriend send to one of his daughters a copy of an article in the local press which reported on Mark's campaigning for reform of the family court system. (This is the closest Judge Munby got to revealing his true motive in jailing Mark - more on that below);
Sent a postdated cheque to the mother for £900 saying she could cash it if she persuaded one daughter to start seeing him again.
These terrible actions were found to be in defiance of court orders and justified Mark being immediately removed from the court in handcuffs.

Judge Munby said that, in sentencing Mark, he had taken account of the fact that none of the breaches involved any violence or threats of violence. He said he had also considered the fact that all these actions were motivated by Mark's desire to re-establish his parenting relationship with his daughters.

It was accepted that there was no evidence of any harm being caused by any of these breaches of various court orders.

I would add that, previously, Munby had commented that, with all these orders and injunctions which had accumulated over time, their effect was difficult even for lawyers to decipher, let alone someone trying to represent themselves in court. (Mark has mainly represented himself for financial reasons, while the mother has run up hundreds of thousands of pounds on Legal Aid.) Munby conveniently forgot this when he sent Mark down yesterday for 10 months for failing to obey the various orders.

THE WISDOM OF JUDGE JAMES MUNBY

He said that Mark's worst punishment was self inflicted, because these actions (and his "other antics which did not involve contempt" of court) meant that his children now wanted to have nothing whatever to do with him. Munby called this Mark's sheer "stupidity".

Well, just who is the stupid one here? Mark is a man who has tried everything within his power to overcome the poisoning of his children's minds against him. He is a loving, devoted father (Munby's own words from previous day's Judgment), a decent, hardworking man who simply can't understand why the State would support this amoral behaviour. How is he supposed to re-build his relationship with children he can never see or contact!?

It is the State and this Judge who are teaching these children to hate their father and to treat his attempts to see them with utter contempt. Now this Judge has made him into a convict. Yet these same courts routinely say that they can't jail mothers for breaching contact orders with impunity, because jailing the mother would not be in the best interests of the children. But jailing the father for trivialities is perfectly acceptable!?

THE REAL REASON MARK WAS JAILED

Mark has led a number of protests outside Judges' houses, supported by many other separated parents who have also been excluded from their children's lives for no good reason. More are planned. These protests have been hitting home and the judges want them to stop. So, in my view, they decided to imprison the ringleader for 10 months - it's as simple and disgraceful as that!

Of course, most separated parents in Mark's position give up because it's virtually impossible to get anywhere through the courts, who continue to show no interest in promoting shared parenting, as Parliament wanted. Family court judges are in contempt of Parliament - they treat public opinion with contempt every day.

Had Mark given up and abandoned his children, and then tried to pick up with them a year or so later, the courts would have said his relationship could not be re-established with them because he had not made any effort to keep in touch! As a parent who can't live with your children, you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't!

WILL MARK DIE IN PRISON?

Immediately before the jailing of Mark, I had lunch with him. His lawyers were not expecting him to be jailed, but he was clearly a bit frightened and apprehensive. He told me that if he was sent to jail, he would go on an immediate TOTAL HUNGER STRIKE - no food or liquid - and he would commit suicide at the first opportunity. I pray that will not happen, although I can understand the despair Mark must be feeling.

MUNBY'S MADNESS

I hope the Authorities will act swiftly to correct Munby's Madness, before Mark's children suffer an irrevocable blow that could have an appalling impact on the rest of their lives.

I would also hope that Munby will not be allowed to have any further involvement in this, probably the worst British access case in history. It has been going on for many years and Munby was supposed to sort it out. Instead, he has made a bad situation far worse.

Although the children, post divorce, had enjoyed good "contact" with their dad, that contact was allowed to dwindle to nothing because the courts failed to support the children's right to both parents. Munby followed the usual line British courts take, of ordering the status quo - ie. no contact, save that he may send Christmas cards, birthday cards, and a summer postcard.

Munby's rambling Judgment (the day before the committal) is flawed in many respects. He placed reliance on an Expert witness he found to be deceitful, omitted important facts which supported Mark's case, and displayed bias and a total lack of understanding of the dynamics involved in a high conflict children case.

Assuming Mark stays alive, I have not the slightest doubt that Munby will be appealed and that ultimately this case will come before the European Court of Human Rights.

I was accompanied in court yesterday by two of my oldest and best friends who were both utterly stunned by what they saw. One is visiting from the USA, and I must say I felt ashamed of Judge Munby's brutal display of power and total lack of compassion. In common with most people who have had direct experience of the British family court system, my faith in British "Justice" has reached rock bottom. No doubt Judge Munby would call me stupid too!

Western Mail - MAN JAILED FOR SEEING CHILDREN IS OFFERED JOB.

A BUSINESSMAN has offered a job to a father jailed for trying to see his children.

Port Talbot company owner Pat Lyons is so angry at the sentence handed out to Plymouth driving instructor Mark Harris that he has offered him a job.

Mr Lyons, a member of the Equal Parenting Council, is helping organise a protest outside the home of the judge who jailed Mr Harris last month.

The 36-year-old Plymouth man was jailed for 10 months two weeks ago and fined pounds 500 for contempt of court for trying to see his three daughters, even though he had been barred from doing so.

Mr Harris, who is a leading campaigner for reform of the Family Court System, is on hunger strike at Pentonville Prison.

Yesterday Mr Lyons, 41, who owns PJL Survey, said he felt so angry at the case that he had offered Mr Harris full-time employment while he is in prison.

"I feel so strongly about this that I'm quite prepared to support this man any way I can.

"I've spoken to his mother this morning and she is very concerned.

"Why should a father be jailed simply for saying hello to his children?"

Mr Lyons said he had sent a fulltime contract to Mr Harris for a 30hour week based on the minimum wage to his prison hospital and would pay him however long he stayed in prison.

"I'm quite prepared to fund his wages for the full 10 months and if, when he comes out, he would like to come down here for two to three weeks to get his head back together then I will be happy to support him."

Mr Lyons said he was taking the action as a concerned father.

"The Equal Parenting Council wants to see parents, both mothers and fathers, treated equally under the law after divorce or separation."

Mark Harris was jailed at the High Court in London on March 23.

Among the charges he faced were that he drove into an exclusion zone while

conducting a driving lesson in the hope that he might see them and handed a birthday present and note to one of them without it being vetted by social services.

Western Morning News (Plymouth) - 'I planted hoax A38 bomb,' says campaigner

A SUPPORTER of the pressure group Dads Against Discrimination has claimed responsibility for the hoax bomb on the A38 that left Plymouth gridlocked on Friday, the WMN can reveal.

In an anonymous letter to the group's leader, Mark Harris, of Plympton, he claims that he and another person planted the fake device to highlight the anguish of divorced and separated fathers denied access to their children.

Referring to a newspaper cutting on the incident, which closed both lanes of the A38 for almost six hours and caused traffic jams throughout the city, he says in a note to Mr Harris: "I and another are starting a campaign over access. Attached... a copy of what we did."

Mr Harris, 41, who leads demonstrations by aggrieved fathers across the Westcountry and in London, was quick last night to distance the campaign group from the incident. Bomb disposal experts had to be called to explode the device - found under an information board near the Deep Lane turning on the Exeter -bound carriageway - which was designed to look like a genuine bomb.

Mr Harris said: "This is someone who has attached himself to the group. We would never condone something like this that disrupts the public or could jeopardise public safety.

"I don't know who it is. Feelings are running high. Divorced fathers feel they are suffering a grave injustice at the hands of the legal system that denies them their basic right to see their children. It is someone who has gone beyond the limit. But if you push people too hard they can lose their reason.

"If you take a man's responsibility away from him - ie, his children - then he probably starts behaving irresponsibly."

The note, which was dropped through Mr Harris's door in what he describes as "the dead of night", refers to a demonstration in Trafalgar Square last Monday, attended by about 200 fathers from the Westcountry and another 200 from around the country. Mr Harris believes the person who planted the device is "definitely local".

The note singles out the head of the Family Division of the Courts, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who lives at Marsh Green, Exeter, and whose home has been a regular target for the group's demonstrations. It says: "Don't think Butler -Sloss and her judges are listening to the protest. I and another are starting a campaign over access rights. Attached a copy of what we did. Both have contact orders but cannot get them enforced."

It adds: "We did this in light of what the UK government are doing - opting out of the European council motion to have enforceable access rights across Europe." The letter is signed: "Dad, denied access two years..."

Mr Harris, who has three children from his former marriage and is campaigning for increased access to them, said last night that the group was fighting for shared access to become the norm in accordance with the Children Act and European protocols.

A fellow supporter of the group, who has asked not to be named, said last night: "If people are denied basic human rights, it's hardly surprising that they feel they have to do things like this to draw attention to their suffering."

A CID spokesman last night confirmed that police were investigating and took the allegations seriously.

Express & Echo (Exeter) - CITY Crown court protest over access rights

EXETER dads are joining forces to demand better access rights for fathers.

Around 30 protesters are expected outside Exeter Crown Court on Friday 16 Juneto lobby leading family law experts.

They are coming out in support of a national call by Dad's Against Discrimination for fairer access for fathers to their children.

DADs supports fathers who find themselves denied access to their children after a divorce or separation from their wives or girlfriends.

Simultaneous demonstrations will also be taking place in Taunton, Bristol, Birmingham and London.

'There are thousands of children who are not getting contact with their children,i said DADs founder Mark Harris, 41, from Plymouth. 'Or it is increasingly normal to get a contact order for your children for just six or twelve days a year. It is a grave injustice.

Mr Harris added: 'Children should be able to see both their parents unless there is a serious reason why not.

'There are 150,000 children effectively losing a parent through the courts and that is more than lost their father during the Second World War.i

Mr Harris founded DADs in April and the group now has grown to around 60 members. He currently sees his three children for six days a year and has spent GBP 9,000 on legal fees.

Mr Harris said he had been surprised by the strength of support for his cause and was hoping that the demonstrations would persuade judges to rethink their position on th issue.

'Children want both parents - preferable in the same home - but if they are not they need to see both parents,i he explained.

'I am getting a lot of phone calls and it is the same story - fathers cannot get justice.
Mr Harris went on: 'At the moment, if you want to see your children there have to be compelling reasons to let you and that is all the wrong way round.1

Anyone affected by this issue, their family or friends, are invited to attend the protest.

DAILY MAIL (London) - Father is sent to jail for waving to his children;

A FATHER has been jailed for four months after being filmed waving to his children.

Mark Harris had been denied access to his three young daughters after a dispute with his ex-wife.

But when he stood at the end of her road to wave and blow kisses to the girls as they were driven to school, he was videoed by a private detective acting for Mrs Harris.

Last week a judge jailed the divorced driving instructor for four months for breaking the court order banning him from seeing his children, Lisa, Laura and Lindsey.

Speaking from Exeter Prison last night, 36-year-old Mr Harris, from Plympton, near Plymouth, said: 'I was stunned when he said I was going to prison.

'I am the only man in here for a non-criminal offence.
'It means my business is destroyed and my daughters now know they have a jailbird for a father.

'It is madness to send me here.

I have no idea what the judge was thinking.' Mr Harris was divorced from wife Tania in 1993. Since then the couple have been to court several times during an increasingly bitter dispute over access to their daughters aged ten, eight and six. Finally, after a dispute with his ex-wife's new partner, Mr Harris's twice-weekly access was withdrawn by a court. He said: 'I was desperate to see the girls, to let them know that I still cared about them and had not forgotten them.

'All I did was to stand on the roadside and blow a kiss and wave as they drove by. How can that be worth sending a man to jail when real criminals are getting let off every day?' Mr Harris was unable to obt-tain another telephone card to call out again last night and the prison governor refused permission for the Daily Mail to telephone him.

But a spokesman for the Families Need Fathers organisation, which fights for men's rights in family court disputes, said: 'We view this decision as bordering on the insane. To take a law-abiding businessman and lock him in a jail for four months with criminals cannot be sane or right.

'The problem is, as ever, that where there is a difficulty with access it is always the father who suffers. There is an all pervasive assumption that the mother is always right.

'All this has done is jail a perfectly decent man who wanted to see his children. And who wouldn't?' Mrs Harris's legal team argued that his appearances in Moor-land Road, Plympton, did not stop at waving and blowing kisses, but included flashing his car's headlamps and following her and her children - something Mr Harris denies.

Mark Harper, of the Solicitors' Family Law Association, said yesterday: 'If someone is in persistent breach of court order then the court has power to jail someone for up to two years. In the light of this four months is not too severe.' But in a letter from his cell to a close friend, Mr Harris wrote: 'I only wanted my children to know I still existed. It's crazy and I cannot understand why I am here.'