Real Fathers For Justice member Ray Barry appeared of the BBC Big Question TV programme on Sunday 22nd November 2009, to take part in the debate regarding a Domestic Violence (DV) Register.

The proposal put forward by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) are to allow single women the ability to vet potential new partners for violence. This sounds a wise step considering many of our members are concerned about the company their ex-partners keep and allow unfettered access to their children. However, RFFJ see this as yet another gender discrimination against men, and fathers.

The proposed register would only allow women to check against violent partners, and entrants on the register could be on there for a vast array of reasons. The one reason that concerns RFFJ members is the making of false and malicious domestic violence claims against fathers in acrimonious family legal battles. It is common practice to embellish situations with violent anecdotes to win the upper hand in the secretive civil family courts where there is no burden of proof, and hearsay evidence is accepted. When it comes to the winner and loser family court battles, DV is a trump card used by many to vilify and label otherwise non-violent partners.

Now, don't get us wrong here. We deplore any and all kinds of violence against men, women and children.



We fully support the need to protect vulnerable people from controlling and manipulative individuals, and to ensure these issues are addressed. We fail to understand the rational of female campaign and support groups who time and time again fail to recognise or even accept that male victims exist in any substantial numbers, and that females are incapable of being violent and abusive in relationships.

The gender battle here, focusses on promoting the female cause to the serious detriment of male victims, their children, and those falsely accused of being violent by women empowered to make such claims in a propaganda fuelled environment where men are ultimately seen as generally the violent party.

RFFJ want to see the sexism and discrimination associated with DV campaigns removed and equal access to all support and resources for both men and women. If there is to be a DV offenders register, we would want it to only hold validated data from proven offences, and be available to men and women.

We would not envisage that many men vetting their female partners, but we could see fathers wanting to get the new partners of their ex's vetted to ensure the safety of their own children. How many besotted women are going to have the new love of their lives checked out against this register? We would suggest very few, and in the majority, it would be concerned fathers who would want such checks carrying out.

We can cite many cases where an excluded father has had to witness the mother and new partner of his children abuse or ultimately kill his child/ren, and the father being unable and dis-empowered to offer any affective safety or support. Such a DV register if correctly managed and open to men and women could potentially be helpful in protecting vulnerable women, men and children.

Real Fathers For Justice do not support the current proposals for a sexist and discriminative DV offenders list only available to women.

ACPO Proposal 10. Persons who, through a ‘Course of Conduct’ of abuse, cause another person to take their life should be criminally liable for their actions.

ACPO are also proposing changes in the law to attribute causal affects of domestic abuse to suicides (in Women and Girls). With the highest rate of suicides being amongst the male population, we would like more research and understanding into the causes of male suicides. We believe a major factor related to male suicides is the emotional trauma and abuse caused by parental divorce and separation. Abuse of male victims is not widely understood or accepted, and we call for this area to be reviewed before sexist laws are put in place that don't consider male suicides and their causes, which would therefore ignore abusers of these male victims.

Some reference sites:

Men are nearly three times more likely to take their own life than women. Among men under the age of 35, suicide is the second most common cause of death.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Suicide/Pages/Malesuicide.aspx

Divorce Doubles Suicide Risk in Men By Michelle Beaulieu
http://www.menstuff.org/issues/byissue/suicide.html#divorce

Depression and suicide in men
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/menshealth/facts/depressionsuicide.htm

The silent epidemic of male suicide
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7219232.stm

Are Fathers' Rights a Factor in Male Suicide?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,44183,00.html

Men more likely to commit suicide after divorce, study finds
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/03/15/divorce.suicide.wmd/index.html