I have looked at some cases in the past week that have had me shaking my head in sheer disbelief at how unjust and badly administered our laws are these days. Basically the scales of justice are tipped crazily in favour of convicted criminals and those who want to cause harm to others, the human rights brigade have excelled in making crime pay handsomely for the most depraved in our society while at the same time ensuring innocent, vulnerable people have no means of retribution or protection whatsoever.

At the start of the week we all read about the dreadful tragedy of little Elise and Harry Donnison who were killed by their dangerously mad mother Fiona; she had taken the kids and flown the coop with them despite them having a loving, caring dad who could have looked after them while she received the treatment she needed – had she bothered. They would still be alive and she would be in a padded cell somewhere…but no, she had to murder them. Why was nothing done to keep this woman away from those kids – why was there no law to apply that could have had her carted off and those children kept safe away from her…? she had rights you see…not the kids though.

Then just yesterday came the news that a truly repulsive young man, Thomas Smith, was imprisoned for 32 years for the torture, rape and murder of a little girl and her mother, Holly and Diane Fallon. This monster had been allowed to live unchecked beside the home of this mother and daughter despite his previous conviction for assaulting a 10 year old girl – for which he served a paltry six months prison. He was literally freed to go that one step further – and he did – taking out a mother and her child in a most horrific manner. One does not even want to try and contemplate what both of them endured…

During the week I received correspondence from Hugh McCloy regarding  anomalies in the law which affect non-custodial parents, namely fathers, and the unbelievable and dangerous contradictions they present. Hugh is part of an organisation that not only fights for the rights of dads to be dads, but also recognises the appalling figures of child abuse and deaths of children subject to custodial issues. An excellent example is that of baby Peter Connolly; here was a child whose own father was not allowed custody and yet he had to endure living with men unrelated to him.

Why, if an allegation of abuse (even one that is fraudulent and made out of spite) against a father results in him being stopped from seeing or being with his child/children, does that not also apply to all males so that the child in question is adequately protected…? why, if a man cannot visit his own child, can then complete strangers take up residence in that child’s home with the mother. Why does the law prevent the father from having contact with his child supposedly for welfare reasons but then NOT extend that to protect that child from unrelated males living with that child?

If the dad cannot see his kids in the least then no way should ‘mum’ be allowed to bring in other men to live in that child’s home – where is the protection for the child, where is the respect for the child to live safely in his/her own home…? right now there are men who can only stand by and watch in anger and helplessness and they are kept apart from their children – on the word of just a bitter ex-partner – while she shacks up with another bloke who moves in on his home and his child. And too often the child that was kept from his/her dad for no good reason at all has ended up abused and/or killed by the mother’s new partner who was allowed to live with the child totally unvetted, totally unsupervised.

If laws were put in place that ensured children were safe from their mother’s new partner and were as rigid and inflexible as those applied to divorced, caring dads who are effectively blocked from seeing their children then maybe, just maybe, children like baby Peter would stop happening. Maybe if laws were in place that treated convicted sex offenders as harshly and protected children as stringently as the laws that allow these monsters to roam the community at will and anonymously, then maybe little Holly Fallon and her mum Diane would still be alive today.

The law today enables those who we have to fear the most to behave as they wish, when you become their victim you simply become a part of the process that works to protect them and stop them from suffering any real consequences. Without a victim they have no rights – we in effect justify their existence, and we of course pay the price.

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