We will never get back those 12 years, 12 years of heartbreak and hurt. In 2006 the first of a series of smears aimed at discrediting Fathers4Justice began. My tale of woe doesn’t end there. For further information on the use of cookies and how you can manage your preferences, please see our website, We Are Fathers4Justice – The Official Campaign Organisation, Fathers 4 Justice - The Official Campaign Organisation, GOT ACCESS PROBLEMS SEEING YOUR KIDS? They also confirmed for the first time, the existence of a recruitment programme that enlisted “stakeholders” and “information resources” to gather intelligence about O’Connor and F4J. 2001 / 2003: From injustice to Fathers4Justice. A Fathers 4 Justice campaigner dressed as Batman is staging a protest on the Buckingham Palace balcony. 2008: London Mayoral Election, Harriet Harman and the move to political campaigning. Whilst grassroots politicians support the campaign, the political elite refuse to tackle the cancer of fatherlessness and family breakdown. Fair enough I thought, she doesn’t want my money, I’d done what I can. Research published by F4J found that 23% of Scots believe that mothers love their children more than fathers. No “Hi, how are you today” or even any kind of identification as to who I was speaking to, just “Can I take your National Insurance number?”. For further information on the use of cookies and how you can manage your preferences, please see our website, We Are Fathers4Justice – The Official Campaign Organisation, “Fathers4Justice: The Men That Stormed The Palace”, plotting to kidnap five-year-old Leo Blair. A behind-the-scenes documentary, “Fathers4Justice: The Men That Stormed The Palace”, was subsequently broadcast on Channel 4 alongside a documentary about separated fathers made by Bob Geldof. When it will come is anyone’s guess. In May 2012, Matt was again banned from entering London during the State Opening of Parliament. Later that year, he sold the motion picture rights to his life story to the Disney-owned Miramax Pictures. Dads should have contact with their children unless the children are in danger from this contact in my opinion. His first interview about the campaign was published in the Evening Standard in 2002. More for FATHERS FOR JUSTICE LIMITED (05954235) Registered office address Rear Of 9a Westgate, Patrington, Hull, England, HU12 0NA . In contrast to the cover up surrounding Ms Nokes, Matt’s arrest was widely publicised by Hampshire Police. You can’t fight them, they will take the money one way or another, but you can always prepare yourself for it. The Sun newspaper ran a front-page story claiming that men “on the lunatic fringe of the Fathers4Justice group” were plotting to kidnap five-year-old Leo Blair, son of then Prime Minister, Leo Blair. In 2004, two members of the group threw condoms filled with purple flour at Tony Blair, who was then Prime Minister, as … Read full story I told them I couldn’t pay that kind of money all at once and was told “that’s ok, we’ll just take it from your wages”. It's terrible to be able to name and shame like this when the other half of the partnership can't give their side of the story. I asked for an explanation as to these charges and they refused. I was also told that I had already accrued arrears to the tune of £1500 for a claim that was supposedly only a week long. In February 2007, protestors scaled Stonehenge in protest about comments made by Tory leader David Cameron. If you’re struggling to come to an agreement with your ex try offering things to sweeten the deal (offer to have flexible payments so if they’re struggling you can pay slightly early that month, offer to give more around birthdays and Christmas). Despite repeated denials, and a concerted cover-up by Hampshire Police, it transpired Caroline Nokes MP had driven to London to collect a friend and bring him to O’Connor’s home, before waiting for him while the attack took place. On 28th December 2013, Matt and Nadine O’Connor were interviewed by George Galloway MP on his Sputnik programme on Russia Today. “Without F4J I might never have seen my son again.” Ben A, Dad, Manchester . I set up a direct debit with them and they took the £400 and £250 anyway. Broken promises by the Conservative Party, their targeting of Fathers4Justice, and their ability to evade justice and accountability, raises serious questions about the relationship between our politicians, the police and the establishment media. The Scottish Government subsequently responded to the campaign. Richard Watson gained access to the heart of their operations in the run-up to the march. Our relationship was a loving, fun father-daughter relationship and then suddenly I found myself having to ask some old overpaid lawyer permission to be her dad. Research published by F4J found that, We use technology such as cookies on our site to personalise content and ads, provide social media features and analyse our traffic. No child should be denied their human right to a father yet nearly 1 in 3 children now lives without a father in the UK – that’s nearly 4 million fatherless children. I was removed from her life and replaced with a cash point. In July 2012 the ASA banned a national newspaper advert by F4J which accused Mumsnet of publishing ‘anti-male hatred’ on their website. How wrong is that!!!! To date I have paid in excess of £70,000 in child support to my daughters mother and not seen my daughter. Matt became the subject of press and police intrusion following the protests. Fearlessly honest and utterly irreverent Matt's own story will appeal to anyone whose family relationships have been torn to pieces by divorce and the family courts system. my part is the achievements which seems to be the hardest. If you want to improve/increase contact, this would be the place for it. Fathers 4 Justice have run a high-profile, often controversial, campaign for improved rights for men denied access to their children. Through Fathers 4 Justice a letter was sent to Jennifer’s mother and I requested a picture of Jennifer to put by my hospital bed in the Royal Marsden whilst I was fighting for my life. The former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families, Tim Loughton, claimed in an article he wrote for the Guardian, that when he was a Minister the group threatened to target his family home. Farage said of the commitment, “UKIP value the role fathers and grandparents play in the upbringing of their children. Hi, this is for my as level politics presentation, our aim is to do a presentation of a pressure group of our choice, my team have decided to do fathers 4 justice in the UK. I cannot stress this enough. I have tried everything from negotiation, mediation to the threats of court action. Our struggle continues. Of course I objected, but I was told that her mother would get a Court Order to remove her to Scotland. I just hope and pray that we will be reunited soon and Jennifer will realise for herself that I’m not the big bad wolf that she has been lead to believe I am. Fathers Day is spent either at work, on a Fathers 4 Justice March or locked in my room crying over her. In November, the High Court ruled that Aldershot Magistrates Court acted unlawfully in excluding the public from attending the trial of Matt O’Connor, for a Section 5 Public Order Act offence. In June 2016, the group launched the campaign in Ireland and announced the start of a Child Support Strike when they stormed the Loose Women studio, forcing the show off air. Fathers 4 Justice (F4J) launched the social media campaign featuring Miss Flack days after she was charge with assaulting her boyfriend Lewis Burton, 27, … By typing in your email address and clicking submit you are consenting to receive information from Fathers4Justice. Collyer Bristow solicitors, acting for Caroline Nokes, threatened to seek an injunction against Fathers4Justice for ‘libel and harassment.’, Before the election, Matt and Nadine O’Connor also met with Nigel Farage, Tim Aker and Suzanne Evans from UKIP, who subsequently backed their plans for Shared Parenting in their manifesto. First to support all estranged parents to reverse UK's policies that incentivise alienation, coercive control, suicide, abduction, child & domestic abuse. All Visual Materials, Names, Content and Intellectual Property Copyright © Fathers4Justice 2019. Fathers4Justice was founded by Matt O’Connor in 2001 after he was denied access to his two boys, Daniel and Alexander, following a difficult divorce. The cards were supported by media coverage in the UK and Ireland. Over the course of the next year-and-a-half, there followed five court hearings, one judge recused himself and one Crown Prosecutor stood down after he was overheard coaching a prosecution witness. Again the first payment was £400, then £250 followed by my regular payments. Matt was later interviewed for GQ magazine by author Will Self who described him as “…fiercely intelligent, charmingly foul-mouthed and a fantastic turn of phrase.”. By typing in your email address and clicking submit you are consenting to receive information from Fathers4Justice. Significantly, EDM 210 was signed by 104 MPs from all political parties, including John Redwood (Conservative), Andrew Brigden (Conservative), Julian Lewis (Conservative), David Blunkett (Labour), Frank Field (Labour), Gerald Kaufman (Labour), David Lammy (Labour) & Caroline Lucas (Green). Despite three comprehensive libel assessments, just before publication, government lawyers threatened publishers with a DA Notice on the grounds of national security, citing a section in the book about Tony Blair’s daughter. We use technology such as cookies on our site to personalise content and ads, provide social media features and analyse our traffic. We need to find the aims, methods and achievements. Matt followed this up with a comment piece in The Telegraph, “It’s time we recognised that a father’s love is just as important as a mother’s.”. The event attracted widespread media coverage in the Scottish press. Protests included the painting of a Cafcass door in Ipswich and an occupation of the main family court in London, the Principle Registry of the Family Division, on Father’s Day 2003. I thought it was over but a few months later I was forced to think again. I refused and told them to do their job and get the direct pay set up like they were supposed to. Turning his back on the court, as Matt walked out, a court welfare officer pleaded with him not to walk away. All about fathers!' Today, 15 years after it was founded, Fathers4Justice is the world’s largest equal parenting campaign group with over 80,000 registered families in the UK and Ireland. 'Angry and upset' Group founder Matt O'Connor said the news might force him to consider dismantling the group - a press conference will be held on Thursday to announce its future. For general enquiries contact Fathers4Justice at office@fathers-4-justice.org. In September, Batman protestor Jason Hatch staged one of the groups biggest protests on the royal balcony at Buckingham Palace. Said Matt at the time, “Given the wholly disproportionate lengths the Police, CPS and Courts are going to in an effort to silence me, one can only conclude they have something to hide.”. They’re not. He was GQ Magazine’s 7th Top Communicator in the UK, GQ Magazine’s 92nd Most Powerful Man in Britain, Esquire Magazine’s 35th Most Powerful Man In Britain Under 50 and one of twenty people shortlisted for the Royal Society’s Great Briton of the Year Awards. Campaign staged on Palace balcony. Fearing for the safety of their children, and in the absence of any police protection, the family moved home. In September 2011, F4J staged their second protest at Buckingham Palace, where Matt and several others handcuffed themselves to the railings in protest at Cameron’s comments and the Conservative Party’s broken election promises. For a little while, it was the most influential guerrilla campaign in the world. The trial was adjourned in February 2015 after Aldershot Magistrates Court arbitrarily denied entry to the public, trial witnesses and a county councilor in an attempt to hear the case in secret. “They took away my children, my home, my dignity and my self-respect. They record all your calls and will use little snippets of it out of context to make it look like you’re refusing to pay. After all, does she not deserve that? Within a week of doing so I had more threatening letters and phone calls ordering me to pay maintenance despite me telling them that I didn’t have a job. 2006: Government smears, dirty tricks and threats. The intruder has been named as Jason Hatch. Fathers 4 Justice have become well-known for their publicity stunts. The government and Crown Prosecution Service subsequently failed in what Matt described as an attempt to impose ‘Chinese-style’ restrictions banning him from going within 100 metres of any venue at the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Olympic Torch Relay route. On April 27th, George Galloway, Matt O’Connor, Irish writer John Waters and ex-EastEnders star Mo George joined a platform of speakers at a public meeting, “London: The Fatherless Capital”, to debate the issues of fathers and fatherlessness. You may revoke your consent at any time. This was followed by a protest on the roof of the Royal Courts of Justice. Later that month, The Telegraph marked the 10th anniversary of the Fathers4Justice protest on the BBC’s National Lottery show with an interview with Matt and Nadine O’Connor about the protest. Jul 11, 2020 | Contribution, Visionary Men. 2015: F4J wins more political support before the General Election, but is subject to further smears by the Tory Party. Fatherlessness is an obscenity. In the absence of any criminal prosecution, the O’Connor family began a civil case against the MP for aiding and abetting, and the continued harassment of their family by Nokes and her associates. Fathers 4 Justice has distanced itself from what it called a "grotesque" plan. They stole my life.”. After so many dealings with this vile organisation I think I’m pretty qualified to give out some advice on dealing with them, so here it is: Never assume they’re telling the truth. In July, Matt was a guest speaker at the Men & Boys Crisis Conference in Washington DC, alongside author and activist, Warren Farrell and Dr Stephen Baskerville. I now have the money coming direct from my wage and after two years I’m finally paying what I was supposed to be paying in the first place. In November of 2012 I split with my ex who I have a daughter with. He later described the action as “a chilling example of state censorship.”, Despite this, the book was positively reviewed. Every judge was warned of the alleged risk, as were various government departments, compromising Matt’s ability to secure a fair hearing in any future legal action as well as causing serious harm to his reputation. Later that month, F4J launched their ‘Change The 8th’ campaign on buses in Cork, Ireland. Nokes then began making a series of false allegations about the campaign, in an attempt to distract attention away from her broken promises and discredit Fathers4Justice. Today, Matt O’Connor and Fathers4Justice remain defiant, committed to ensuring that automatic parental responsibility for dads, and a legal presumption of 50/50 shared parenting and child support, becomes law by the end of the decade. Fathers4Justice general office hours are Monday-Thursday 10.00am – 2.00pm. When I questioned this I was told the claim was started when I had made the initial call. A few days after I made my first payment my ex posted a photo of two leather sofas on Facebook with the caption thanking me for them. After the caller refused to identify themselves I told them the conversation was over and hung up. These were often paid informants, arrested on protests, and then “turned” to provide information in return for financial inducements. outside the Scottish Parliament. In 2008 I was diagnosed with Leukaemia. Please see our Privacy Policy for how to manage your consent and for information on how we process your personal information. In April 2013, the BBC broadcast an apology to Fathers4Justice by the former President of the Family Division, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who had wrongly claimed the group had made death threats against her, in yet another smear of the organisation. Counter Terrorism Command subsequently insisted on interviewing Matt in Romsey, Hampshire, to interrogate him about his future plans. It was later revealed during the trial of protestor Dave Chick, that the road closures were a deliberate tactic by Police to try and force the protestor down. Refusing to take any further part in court proceedings in protest at being treated like a criminal, Matt told a judge in the Royal Courts of Justice that the treatment of fathers in the family courts was a violation of their right to family life and that he no longer recognised their authority. In early 2008, Matt O’Connor briefly tested the political waters when he stood as a candidate in the London Mayoral Election. Watch the report MATT O'CONNOR: (Fathers for Justice) This campaign will change. The campaign has persuaded politicians from across the political spectrum to accept that shared parenting is responsible parenting, and will lead to better outcomes for our children, our families and our country. By clicking below you consent to the use of non-essential cookies on our site. You may revoke your consent at any time. He was later interviewed by Piers Morgan and Amanda Platell on their Saturday night show on Channel 4 after Home Secretary David Blunkett was denied access to his son. Deputy Labour party leader Harriet Harman’s ’pink bus’ tour of the south west was disrupted in Gloucester last week by protesting members of Fathers for Justice. In May, Stand By Your Manhood author Peter Lloyd and Matt O’Connor hit back in the Daily Mail at claims that 50/50 shared parenting was ‘agony’ for mothers. Forced into a contact centre to see his boys as part of a “cooling off” period – imposed by a judge after his wife had prevented him going to his house to remove his belongings – Matt was left fighting depression after losing everything. On Father’s Day 2015, Fathers4Justice launched their Manifesto for Men and Boys calling for Shared Parenting and the appointment of a Minister for Men. The timing of this latest incident marks something of a return to direct action protest The groups iconic protests garnered worldwide publicity for a cause shrouded in secrecy by the courts and ignored by the political and religious elite. I did not have the money to fight the case and all case law is against the dad (the mothers well-being is considered paramount in leave to remove cases) plus I was ‘advised’ by lawyers, Families Need Fathers and even someone from the Citizens Advice Bureau that any attempts to block such a move were at best futile. If it’s not set up straight away then they will make up any amount of arrears they want and force you to pay it, tacking on their mystery charges at the same time. I called them and was told that they hadn’t contacted my ex so I would have to pay by card. Fathers4Justice was founded by Matt O’Connor in 2001 after he was denied access to his two boys, Daniel and Alexander, following a difficult divorce. It is a very tricky subject and I think Fathers for Justice do a good job in highlighting a problem with the way things have been done for the past few years. Jennifer turned 18 on the 4th of July this year, 2012. That same week, he was also interviewed on the Lorraine show on ITV1. Nokes then used her political influence to launch an attack on the group’s civil liberties and democratic right to free speech. Matt also appeared on ITV’s This Morning to talk about the book. I have a daughter, Jennifer, whom I have not seen for 12 years now. In November 20006, before the State Opening of Parliament, Matt and other activists received a letter from Scotland Yard claiming that their “personal safety could not be guaranteed” if they entered London on that day. This book seeks to address the reasons why the father or the potential father could suffer from a mental disorder or […] Posted on : 10. The scale of the abuse is on an unimaginable scale. But the suspension of the campaign was a tactical retreat, giving F4J breathing space away from the glare of publicity. I told them I wanted to take the direct pay option. By clicking below you consent to the use of non-essential cookies on our site. Despite submitting a 1,000 page submission to Ms Nokes, who sat as an MP on the Children and Families Bill Committee, Nokes refused to uphold her election promise and subsequently refused to work with F4J, her constituents and local Conservative Party Members who supported shared parenting. A spokesman for Fathers for Justice told MailOnline: 'Fathers4Justice have been running the #AbuseHasNoGender campaign highlighting male victims of domestic abuse … At a court hearing on 19th July 2009, O’Connor proved he had been out of the country at the time the email had been sent and that the Ministry of Justice had failed to perform any basic due diligence. We will keep chopping and changing strategy. The EDM ended by acknowledging the work of F4J, stating “…taking into account the testimony of the many thousands of fathers who feel their rights are being ignored or abused in relation to their children and in particular the organisation Fathers4Justice and the 36,000 families it represents.”. FNF is a parenting organisation. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with the latest help and campaign information from Fathers4Justice. Families Need Fathers work with a range of family law professionals, including Family Law Panel I feel very sorry for anyone who is the victim of a malicious ex who refuses to allow contact solely because they hate their XP, but regardless, this is not the way to handle things.