The press are having kittens. It's not every day the news begins with, "A man dressed as Batman has scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace and is protesting on a ledge".
Cute trick. Unfortunately it's one of the gits from Fathers 4 Justice. They threw the condoms full of purple powder at Tony Blair from the public gallery in the House of Commons too.
We need to take from their ideas for funky stunts, but we need them to not ever succeed in any more of their misogyny and the hatred of women which fuels so much of their action and words.
In terms of the Batman stunt there is, of course, much speculation now of what if it had been an Al Qaeda terrorist and what if the royals had been there. I still stand by what I have said before. The royals are no more or less important than any of the rest of us.
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Hi,
I haven't looked at your site before. Just happened upon it through Anna Pickard's, and only read this post.
So with all that in mind, I only have to say that I agree with you barring the misogyny part. I think that comment is unwarranted and needlessly inflamatory and well, wrong.
Being contoversial might probably your thing, and fine if it is, but I for one, not having any connection with the matter personally, would very much like to see a more even hand being dealt to parties who find themselves in the Family Court. Both in the UK, and in my own homeland of Eire, where it has only taken us five years or so to import the British tradition of bias lock, stock and all the other bits.
I'm not sure I'm for fathers being a nuisence, or fathers getting arrested on purpose, or fathers dressing up like thrift-store superheroes; but I'm all for Fathers getting Justice.
...the thing that annoys me most (and it does annoy me) is the fact that people keep saying *what if he was a terrorist* - well, he'd be dead!!!...
...the reason he wasn't joined by 'robin' is that the police threatened to shoot him...the police reviewed and assessed the situation...if they'd have shot and killed the bloke the papaers would be in an uproar about that...
...the hard fact is - does his daughter still want to see him after he's ponced around like a prat in a batman suit :^)...
...that was me, billy :^)...
In response to Buckley, I have to say that I totally agree with Pippa's comment about the misogyny behind Fathers for Justice and I disagree completely that there is anything like the bias in the family courts in this country in favour of mothers that is portrayed by Fathers for Justice. I am training to be a solicitor and I do have some experience in family law. The reality is that the courts will bend over backwards to maintain contact between children and their fathers. If you look at the Children Act 1989 you will see that there is a presumption in favour of contact and the courts have to be satisfied to a very high standard in order to act contrary to that presumption. It is only in extreme situations that a father would be denied contact, for example, where the father has a history of violence toward the child or mother. Usually violence against the mother alone is not enough to pursuade the courts against contact. On top of this, the courts have a tendancy to be extremely harsh toward women who are implacably hostile to contact for those (I believe, very good!) reasons. Fathers for Justice very conveniently gloss over the issue of violence against women. They would have the courts force women who have been subject to extreme violence to put their lives in jeopardy in order to maintain contact with a violent individual who probably terrifies the child at the same time. If you don't think this is a real issue then I suggest you scan the news over a period of weeks and pay attention to the number of women who are murdered or seriously injured by their violent partners - the statistics are truly heartbreaking. It takes tremendous courage to leave a violent partner, and, sadly, a tremendous amount of luck to get out alive in many such situations. Pippa is not being inflammatory or deliberately controversial in raising the issue of the misogyny behind Fathers for Justice. She's calling them for what they are.
Caroline
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