My Wife Is A NARCISSIST: She Did This To My CHILDREN

29:55But I also, you need to go and socialise and do these things and at the time, you know, it was almost unthinkable that I would do something like that, see friends, go out for a drink or whatever else but I knew that it was known that I was not attending things socially. There was a time within this company where they took everyone, it was a good company, you know, they took everyone to Cyprus as a team bonding thing for a long weekend. And I was the only person in the company of about sort of 70 odd people that didn't go because she wouldn't allow that. So she knew that this do was on and she would spray me with ketchup, head to toe, ketchup, you're not going, you're going to look a state, right?

30:34So I'd get sprayed with ketchup before I'd go. And then I'd just have to buy new clothes when I'm out and bin the old clothes. And then I went to the event, I came back, I went to sleep in the front room to avoid her. And she came into the front room, filled up, she went through my phone actually, and was being nasty to my friends, because I thought it was, you know, a self-esteem issue. I thought she was very insecure. So she had access to my phone, no problem, nothing to hide. If you can see that, then there's not going to have this abuse, right? Because you're not going to be so insecure. But she went through my phone and was messaging my friends and that was a big downfall for her because the police could then see that she was on my phone doing things and she got a glass of water poured it over my head and to wake me up in order to have a confrontation and she didn't get it you know I'm not going to be confrontational you know I was annoyed that that's how she'd woke me up but I was more annoyed the fact that I've come in the another room to avoid you and you've sought me out to do this so I then went into the bedroom and fell asleep she then decided that she called the police and had accused me of all a lot of different things, attacking her.

31:38And then the police came. Because I'd been out, and as she said many times over, it was a positive arrest policy for domestic abuse, they actually did arrest me. And then they released me and said that they could see. I said to the police, have a look through my phone, look at the messages, because it was excessive amounts of encouragement to commit suicide and other things that were on that phone. And I said, you'll see the aggressor. And she had deleted every message we'd ever sent on my phone and hers. but she left the ones where she was being nasty to my friends so they could see that she'd been on the phone.

32:10Also, she didn't have any injuries and she'd said that I'd been excessive. It was actually quite daunting because I didn't know what she'd accused me of. So I was just sat in the cell, really frustrated that I'm here and she's done this. And I sat down and there was a police officer that gave me incredible advice, which is why I recorded everything that I did. And he said to me, so you look like, you know, I look a bit different now. I put on a few pounds of the chocolate eggs over Easter. But, you know, he said to me that you look like you're a big lad. You go to the gym, you work out, you're an ex-Marine, right?

32:45So you're obviously quite a strong guy. Do you think it would leave a mark if you was to punch someone? And I thought that this was sort of entrapment, you know. I said, well, I'm not that kind of person. I'm not a violent person. I certainly wouldn't punch, you know, a girl. I wouldn't do those things, right? He says, no, no, no. What I'm saying is that she has said that you have punched her three times to the temple, the side of the head here, and they had a picture of her. They took pictures, and there's not a mark on her at all. And I said, yes, because it didn't happen. And then they saw the evidence on the phone of her being nasty to their friends.

33:16I gave them the phone in the hope that because I really wanted this no stone left unturned. It needed to be consequences for that action because of going back to a narcissist, a self-aware narcissist like you said that person is, it makes no difference a narcissist will only change their behaviour if they realise it's their behaviour that's negatively impacting them and even then it's not guaranteed so I really wanted to have repercussions for what she had done because then only then I could potentially be protected and yeah he told me that she's never going to change you need to protect yourself don't go back do not go back if you do for whatever reason record everything because you're going to have to because she'll do this again Did you find that she had history for this?

34:01Since ending the relationship, moving on, I have heard from people that knew her in the police and have said that her time in the police came to an end and she was removed from the police because she was doing this similar sort of controlling and abusive relationship that she had with someone who I think was in the fire service. And he had reported that to them. And they had essentially, and this is all speculation, I have to say, because I don't have evidence of it, Because as far as I'm aware, you know, the police service had just said, right, you need to go or we're going to have to progress this.

34:34So then she was given that choice. So she left. So then going back to the time where she made these other allegations after you'd reported her. Yeah. Do you know why they didn't arrest you on that occasion? Because by rights, if an accusation has been made, they should really make the arrest. Only if she's reporting to the police. She was reporting it to family courts of, you know, stuff that she's accusing me of. and she threw the kitchen sink at it. But if she had reported that to the police, then yes. But, I mean, it's a good point, actually. But essentially what she was asking for wasn't police involvement.

35:06It was protection from the court in terms of this order that would stop me from being at the family home. It's like she missed a trick there. Yeah, potentially. Because you would have had to have been arrested if she'd have gone to the police. It would have not helped her because not only was she not there, and if she'd gone to the police, that comes under criminal. So they would have said, well, hold on a minute. you're actually under investigation for domestic abuse yourself and you've got bail restrictions that are not letting you go near that property or contact him. Okay, so she's actually boxed very clever.

35:35Yeah, and I was actually in Dorset. It was half term with the children and it was obviously very traumatic because, you know, essentially when they were due to make that arrest my son, I wasn't in the family, they told me don't go back to the house. So I left the house and my son in that time had broken his leg and he was in her care. And in the end, I needed to go back. I needed to go back. So I went back and then she exploded at me, which ended in the police getting called and they took her away and they arrested her. And obviously, you know, it was not great because although it wasn't that they were dragging her away, kicking and screaming, she is very volatile, very angry, very shouty.

36:16And the kids witnessed all of that. And it was a bit traumatic for them. So let's go to Dorset. I've got family that live there. We were spending a bit of time there. or we were trying to sort out this consent order. But it was at that point that, like I said, we had the application that she made to say that I'd abducted the children. And we then had all these accusations about alcoholism. And I got the Hairstrand test to show that I was near abstinence level drinking, which is basically nearly just not drinking at all. So you can't be an alcoholic and not drink. So it was clearly misleading the court.

36:50She's also neglected to tell the courts that she was under investigation for domestic abuse. and that she had bail restrictions that she had removed by making an alarmist claim and that I was also trying desperately to pursue a consent order to make sure that the children were ring-fenced away from any kind of acrimonious proceedings that are going to ensue. So I'd try to, and the judge had read her statement for this urgent hearing and when we had asked the judge, have you read my statement? The judge said, no, no, I'm too busy, I've been sitting all morning. I'll read it now as we're talking.

37:22So he's not read it. He's not done his due diligence on that. And it was really disappointing because then he doesn't see both sides of it. And what he said really was really telling for the family court system. And he told me that, and I quote, call me old fashioned, but the children should be with mum. And from that, he didn't look at the order. He didn't look at the history, the background. And he just sent the kids back to mum. And he said, oh, is mum happy for contact? And through crocodile tears, she nodded. and he sent them back. And the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life was look at my four-year-old, who was my oldest son, who at the time he was four, because the other two were too young to really understand it.

38:05And I had to explain to him that you're not going to see daddy for a long time now. And it's not because I don't love you and don't want to see you. I do, but it's likely. And it's difficult because you have to explain it to a child without putting blame on mum, because they don't understand, they don't deserve that. So you have to sort of say, we've got to work out a few things and it's likely that I don't see you for, but I love you so much, I'm really proud of you. After that, true to her word and her threats that had come in the abuse, I didn't see the children for four months. And the only reason I did was because my solicitors applied enough pressure to tell her solicitors and her side that if you don't do that, it will be catastrophically bad for you because it's not child-focused.

38:50So she agreed to let me see them for one hour in a contact centre every fortnight. And I paid to get notes taken as well. So I had someone sitting over my shoulder with a pen and paper marking me on my parental skills, having not seen the children for two months in a very small environment as well. And three very bounteous kids, it's, you know, it's difficult. And what makes it worse is that I was the main carer, you know, for these children. Since COVID hit, I was working from home exclusively, 100 % of the time. I did the breakfast, lunch, dinner, baths, bedtime stories, tuck them in at night, take them to the nursery, pick them up from the nursery with the days that they went.

39:28And, you know, she, the mother was a, you know, a porter or a healthcare assistant in hospital. So she was going in about 40 % of the week she was in hospital, you know, doing her work. So I was the main carer for the children. And it seemed to be that none of that really, you know, was considered by that judge. And that situation didn't change. until what should have been October, then they would be coming overnight. But she refused to send them to me and we had to go back with an enforcement order. And eventually in November, I was able to start having them overnight again. So it was so prolonged.

40:07And the big concern is they say from studies, there's a chap in America called Robert Garza who does a lot of good work. You can alienate, fully alienate a child in about 30 days. and I had months and months of not seeing all three of them. How did the astronomical bill accumulate? Was it£450 ,000 it cost you? There or thereabouts, yeah. How does that happen? One of the tactics that people use is you can price people out, essentially. Family court proceedings that are privately funded are extremely expensive. I think the average is about£40 ,000. and the average length is about 40 weeks. And that's for non-complicated cases.

40:56If you wanted to weaponise the system, then you can really tie people up. And the idea is that, especially if you've got legal aid, and you're a bad parent, by the way, because this is not the case for good parents. We're obviously talking about parents that are looking to weaponise. If you need legal aid and you've got legal aid, there's no concerns. But if you're doing it and you're strategising as how you can impact the other parent, then you would want to make as many accusations, as many emails, as many hearings, as many third-party expert witnesses and stuff as possible. And it just drives up the costs.

41:33Every email that I would write to my solicitors would cost£30. Every email that she would read, my solicitor, and then respond back is£30. Every message that the other side, the other solicitors send in, is generating these costs. If you need to have a discussion about something, a phone call, it's however much per hour you're doing. And family courts, you'll have a hearing, but in order to get to that hearing, you'll have a pre-trial review. For a pre-trial review, you then need to instruct solicitors to write position statements. You need a barrister to swat up on the case. They need to create a bundle, the court bundle, which is everything.

42:11They need to write down the chronological order of everything that's happened. And all of this takes time and you're being billed for every single thing. So the longer that drags on for, the more it's going to cost. And, you know, it's very easy to do that. We were talking about the standard of evidence that's needed for different things. We were talking before we came on about how criminal law is beyond reasonable doubt. And they say within family law, it's based on probabilities. So if you make up an accusation and you're able to be really clever in the way you articulate that, then a judge, and you can convince a judge, then he just needs to think that it's more likely it happened than less likely.

42:53And that's not really an evidence way of looking at things. It's not a scientific way of looking at things. It's how you feel about the argument that's been presented to you. So if you was to make, you know, 15 accusations and argue each one, your hope is that you've argued well enough on one of those two of those you know 10 of those and then a judge will go yep that's a finding of fact but in order to make those accusations what you're doing is you're making a series of work that needs to happen and also where the court system is so inefficient you need to have maybe four days if you've made up all these accusations where you can sit down and you can be cross-examined and the other side can be cross-examined and you can go through each one, leave no stone unturned.

43:37And in order to find those four days, they then go, right, okay, well, we haven't got anything now, so we're going to have to wait a year. And then we've got a block of four days that we can use. So then you have to wait an entire year of correspondence back and forth, of talking through each thing, from having a conference with your representation, all of that stuff. And for my case and for many people that I know and have spoke to since I've started doing this, they say that actually the fact finding almost in a lot of cases doesn't end up happening. For me, she made all these accusations and I was very keen to go through each one because I wanted to clear my name.

44:17I wanted to show that actually this was wrong and then we can actually start addressing the issue of how the system is being weaponised and how she's misleading the courts. But 30 minutes before going in, so we've waited an entire year, 30 minutes before sitting down in that courtroom in front of the judge, she retracts every single accusation she'd made. And the courts, they want to free up that time. So they'll say, oh yeah, okay, yeah, good job, well done. And she frames it as, well, I'm just thinking of the children. But if you thought of the children, you wouldn't have made those accusations to start with.

44:48And, or you would have retracted them a month later or six months later, but wait 30 minutes before you go in because you don't want to be cross-examined, but you've wanted to prolong proceedings so that in the hope that I run out of money or that you're able to successfully alienate the children, which is what it's all about. So the family court process lasted a year? No. From the waiting for the fact-finding hearing, waited a year. Right. The Child Act proceedings, which is what it's called for when you start the process and then you get to the final hearing that took about two and a half years to get there so what was the total duration from start to finish four and a half years four and a half years yeah okay and that's because when we got to the two and a half year point and we got that order uh which was shared live with order uh essentially 50 50 um you know more or less it's like out of a two-week cycle it's like eight days in favor of mum six days in favor of of me because i essentially wanted to work around mum's work schedule that she had.

45:55So that essentially cost you 100 grand a year to go through that process. And I'd imagine it took its toll on your mental health. Oh, yeah. How did you cope with that mentally? Did you have support? Yeah, I'm incredibly lucky. I had support from my family. I just, you know, the priorities is everything, is family to them. you know they would have spent 10 times as much for an outcome of less than that because it's so important that these children have you know a relationship with me and with them as well and their cousins you know we've got quite a big family we've just actually yesterday I've had another nephew been born and so that brings the total grandkids up to I think 12 now so there's you know they've got a lot of cousins they're all around the similar age all very young grandparents they and my parents are you know very hands-on very caring so they would they would have they would have done it all but I've also you know throughout this proceedings you know I was able to find you know my wife I remarried in the four and a half years that I've been going through this process and you know she's been incredibly supportive because it's a very difficult place for her to be as well you know because she's had issues with this person you know physical issues when she was pregnant she had a you know a boot bag from the one of the children's boots they placed football thrown in her stomach when she was heavily pregnant and it was designed to sort of you know bait her into something and she's more calm than I am she's you know straight out of a Disney film you know she's she's very caring very you know child centered I mean where we live is essentially an open house there's lots of kids around the area and they congregate around our area because she's always doing arts and crafts with them.

47:39So she's been incredibly supportive throughout this process as well and she's taken a lot of flack from people because of the happiness she brings me and because of how, you know, clearly how much the children love and respect her as well. So that puts a target on her back as well. So, yeah, I've been very lucky, very lucky. So how did it all come to an end with the narcissist? and is there a happy ending to this story? There is a happy ending, hopefully, obviously. So there's always people that have got a more extreme case so I don't have any kind of right to say, well, look how crazy this is.

48:20But it was sufficiently crazy enough and extreme enough for a judge to see fit to attach a penal notice to the arrangements order that we have. so towards the end of because two and a half years family court proceedings and then immediately stop the children coming you know and we then had to make an enforcement application to enforce the order that was just been made which is one of the things i want to deal with with fair family justice what i've organization i've started so we had to make enforcement proceedings towards the end of those proceedings uh you know the judge sort of sort of fit that what was happening as the psychologist, I paid for a psychologist to do an assessment of me, of her and the children, the children with her, the children with me.

49:06And the psychologist had said essentially that I set boundaries, the children are very happy. The main one that she focuses on was the oldest. And I've missed probably in total of the time that has been taken from him spending time with his dad and the rest of his family. It's probably over the four and a half years, probably nearly there are about three and a half of those years is in large chunks. He's not been coming, not been able to have that relationship. But when the cycle is jumping up and down, when you remove, you know, the manipulator from the equation, whether that's directly or indirectly, people that know of her, you know, whether that is people that report back from the school or, you know, social media, if I take a picture with him, he doesn't want to smile.

49:52As soon as you put the camera away, he's smiley and happy. So take away all those stresses, all of those tools of manipulation, and he is a really happy, he's bouncing up, and the psychologist put down in the notes, he was literally bouncing up in the hour of excitement to see his dad. So the relationship is their happy child. So the courts could see that, and in the end they put, like I said, a penal notice, which then carries the power of arrest. So if the children stop being made available, rather than make an application back to family court, Essentially, what should happen is I can contact the police and that carries a power of arrest for not making them available.

50:33So hopefully happy ending with that. I mean, it's actually quite recently ended. So how often are you seeing your children now? So now, like I said, it's called a shared live with order. So previous orders, if it's in favour of one party, predominantly it would be they live with this parent and then they spend time with that parent. Our arrangement is this shared live with. And it's, you know, if you think of it as a fortnightly cycle, because one weekend they're with one parent, another weekend they're with another parent. So it's essentially, you know, think of it as a two week cycle. Six days out of those 14, they're with me.

51:11Eight days, they're with mum. So there's light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, there is. And obviously this whole experience has really opened my eyes to how things happen within family courts. And like I said, I've been very lucky to have the support networks that I have and also to have things that are so extreme that I can point to to say that I've remained child focused throughout and this person hasn't. and I can demonstrate and evidence that. But people within that system are so reluctant to take that first step to criticise one party over another, and they operate off this sort of outdated care dynamic where they think that mums are more maternal, they should be the primary caregivers when that's not what modern-day family dynamics represent.

52:00So it's about really sort of trying to move the needle and have a rate of progression where we're bringing the family court system into the modern day and the modern family dynamics. Because at the moment it's just not there and it hasn't moved for decades or ever. So it's really about finding those broken areas to fix because there's so many people that go through this type of system and they, like I said, aren't as lucky as to have the people around me that I've got and the children are the ones that are impacted by not having those relationships with their parents. How bad and how common is domestic abuse where the woman is abusing the man?

52:44And I've read that we're losing three to five men a week through suicide because they're being domestically abused. Have you looked into that? Yeah, I have. So this study is done by the Mankind Initiative, a charity, that sort of deal with male mental health issues. And one of the biggest stressors is family courts, family separation and things like that. But also it encompasses lots of other things around domestic abuse, which then obviously feeds into the sort of family courts we're discussing. But it's one of those things that is hugely underreported. And it's worth pointing out that it's underreported in men and women as well.

53:31People don't come forward with this. I think that it's underreported slightly more in men than it is in women, but it's also very difficult to really sort of say where it's underreported because it's not reported. But this, to me, highlights something that's really important because we give a lot of attention to violence against women and girls, and rightly so. I think that there was a study done that I read recently by an organisation called Living Without abuse and they've tragically highlighted that we essentially lose two women per week due to murder from domestic abuse which is just absolutely terrible and we need to make sure that you know we are doing everything that we can to protect women and girls from violence in that way.

54:17The study I also had found I think was also done by the University of Manchester was saying that we lose about one man to murder from domestic abuse every two weeks. And I then sort of thought, well, male suicide rates are actually quite high and they're linked to domestic abuse as well. And I read that study from Mankind Institute that says that three to five men commit suicide linked to domestic abuse related incidents. So effectively, you know, it's extremely high and we can't discount the fact that we have got a big problem with male suicide and male mental health. So as big as the problem is with women, which is terrible and tragic, we've also got a huge issue that I don't think is getting enough help really.

55:06And I've experienced that myself once when I ended the relationship. I remember speaking to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline because I wanted guidance on certain things that I was then having to go through now. and when I picked up the phone to them, they said, oh, okay, you're a man, hold on two seconds, I'll pass you over to the department that deals with perpetrators. And I said, hold on, I'm not the perpetrator, I'm the victim of this, I'd just like to understand a couple of things. They said, oh, well, we don't deal with you, we deal with women. So this was the national, it wasn't the national for women, it was just the national helpline for it.

55:48And they said, if you want help, then maybe you should speak to this charity, Mankind. And Mankind do incredible work. But it was very disappointing to think that, you know, as a man that was looking for advice on domestic abuse stuff, that they wouldn't have dealt with me and they naturally assumed that I was the perpetrator over the victim. How does your average Joe support, help and encourage people to talk more about the abuse they're on the receiving end of? You see, for me, I know there's helplines that you can call and you can be anonymous and you can seek help. Like you've got the Samaritans and you'll probably list a whole load off before we finish this interview.

56:31But for me, I'm thinking, I think everyone can do their bit, no matter how big or how small. And as you were talking, I sort of went off in my own little world thinking, you know, if I see somebody with a bruise on their arm, a man or a woman or a mark on their chin or their face, I think if I get the opportunity, I wouldn't ignore the bruise. I would ask, how did you get that out of interest? Because you never know. Yeah, you never know. And it's really difficult, to be honest with you. What can we do to help each other? It's going to be the people around you that you've noticed drifting away.

57:04Because if you're a successful abuser, then you're looking to isolate. That's how you get away with it. That's how you get to progress to the next level of abuse. you know so it's really the people that you find pulling away from their support networks that you need to be more mindful of and you know it's difficult because you naturally you know over time with different circles of friends just lose contact with with different people and you don't necessarily always notice it it's a gradual thing that they but it's something to be aware of I would say so if anyone is thinking how can you help look for those signs because they'll be the telltale signs.

57:41And also, um, you know, the reason that, um, I'm doing this is to, to also to help people realize that, you know, it's more common than you think, not just in men, you know, because obviously with what we're doing, it's not, you know, men versus women or, or, or, or, or dads versus moms. It's, it's, it's, it's good parents versus bad parents. Uh, and it's very important that, you know, we, we make that, uh, help available to anybody that's suffering, You know, don't make it exclusive to one group. You have to make it universal to everyone that's going through it because it shouldn't exist. That sort of abuse shouldn't exist.

58:15So I'm hoping that I know that there's a lot of stigma around men that are, you know, victims and survivors of domestic abuse. And hopefully by me coming forward and saying it, you know, maybe those people, they don't want to approach their friends that they're being isolated by. But they may reach out to me and I can obviously help people and I would help anybody that asks for it. And how biased are the family courts? From my experience, very. But from my experience, you know, and from the people that have come forward, like I said, since I've started doing this, there's been people that have come forward and they've told me that they've been coached by certain solicitors to say, well, why don't you should raise a nominal station because you can't afford, you know, legal fees, you'll get this legally.

58:55So they're encouraging people to do that. But like I said, the judge for the first hearing that I had had discounted all of the stuff that I could objectively prove. It wasn't subjective. It wasn't my word against hers. It was a lot of stuff that was clearly laid out on the table as objective. I had been trying to do this. She had accused me of being an alcoholic. Here's my hair strand test to prove that that's not true. There was all these accusations of abuse that have got no evidence. Here's the accusations that I had made that she was arrested for with the arrest documentation and everything else, which obviously she was later convicted and pleaded guilty to.

59:33But the judge still said, call me old fashioned, that the children should be with mom. But what it is, is that, you know, anyone that's involved with family courts, if you're a solicitor or you're a barrister and you'll be listening to this and you'll say, no, no, no, the law isn't biased against dads. what they'll say is, and clearly this judge was, he just said, call me old-fashioned, the children should be with mum. So that's clear biasness there. But maybe he's a bad apple. But what you'll find is that they operate off, like I said, this historical care model where they think that the mum's the primary caregivers.

1:00:07And maybe in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, maybe that was the case. Things were a bit different. You probably had a large proportion of men being the breadwinners and mums staying at home. but that only works when you've got a dynamic like that which is uncommon now in today's world we need everyone to work because of cost of living and everything else and also even if that was the case where you've got one parent who's a primary carer over the other that only that division of labor only works when you work together as a team and you're under one roof when you separate that dynamic you need to both be the primary earner and the caregiver for the children independently and if there is the ability, willingness to do that from both parents, then neither parent should be penalised for spending time with that child and that division of labour should just be completely broken.

1:01:00So the idea of what I'm getting at is that they call it maintaining the status quo. Okay, well you did the work, mum or dad did the caregiving, so we'll keep that dynamic. And generally speaking, still men are predominantly the breadwinners and they have been historically. So that's why it always ends up that way, where they say, right, okay, well. And also it's predominantly dads that leave the family home when they start proceedings. And when you leave the family home, so the children are used to this home, they're used to mum being there, now dad's left, so we won't change things that much because it's too much for them to deal with.

1:01:35But their world has already changed. So trying to maintain the status quo, status quo doesn't exist anymore and you need to adopt a new model. and when you put the children in the middle of a very adversarial, and family court has built its foundations on an adversarial combative nature. From the offset, that's how it is. So if you put the children in the centre of that battleground, you'll just have battles. If you start by saying, well, mum and dad can facilitate, you know, equal amount of care and looking after them and everything else, give me a reason not to give 50-50, and you start from that position, then you've changed the way in which family court structure would run.

1:02:17You know, we've got Clare's Law, which was introduced to protect women from domestic abuse. Is there any law that protects men? So with Clare's Law, it was brought in, I think, to replace a domestic violence disclosure system, I think it was. And it was in 2009. And essentially what it does is it's not for women against men. it's for both men and women it was brought in because of the tragic incident with a girl called Claire Wood who was murdered by her partner and her partner had a history of violence and abuse and her father had advocated that this law is amended and made readily available to people that have got concerns potentially about their partners and it is phenomenal It is an incredible piece of legislation that everyone should be aware of.

1:03:12Because if you have niggles and concerns about your partner, then arm yourself with the facts if there's anything that you should know about. Because they're not going to be forthwith with that information. They're going to want to not have you know that they've been arrested previously for domestic abuse or violence or whatever else. So it's for men and women. And if you Google Claire's Law and you go to the government, sorry, the police website, police.co.uk, you know, you go, they will take you through step by step of what you need to do, why you're requesting that information. And you're requesting it for people that are essentially new partners or potential partners for somebody, man or woman.

1:03:50And you can just say who it's about, who you are. And it's completely anonymous. There'll be no one that will be able to find out that you've done this. You don't have to worry about repercussions of it. And then you'll have a phone call from the police. and they will tell you if there's anything to tell you and they'll just tell it to you factually as it is and then you've got the information, the facts to make an informed decision whether those concerns that you may have about your partner are justified or not. You can act accordingly. That's refreshing to know because a lot of people that I've spoke to over the years, they think that Clare's Law is exclusive for women but you're saying it's for men and for women?

1:04:27It's for everybody, absolutely for everybody, yeah. For anyone watching this that's suffering domestic abuse, whether you're a man or a woman, take note of Claire's Law and do exactly what Richard's suggested you do. Yeah. Now you've launched, what's your actual campaign? So Fair Family Justice, and as I've previously said, it's for good parents versus bad parents. Good parents don't weaponise the system, they don't strategise. They have the children first and foremost over everything. So, you know, it's for good parents versus bad parents. It's not a dad's advocacy group or father's rights issues.

1:05:01All of that comes naturally anyway. But it also looks after mum's rights and things like a good parent. We're looking after, we want to change things. If you're looking to change the family court system, you're not going to do it the traditional ways with an all-party parliamentary group looking to overhaul the system because you don't get radical change that way. They don't want to touch certain things because it won't get through Parliament. It won't get through the Lords. you just won't be able to get there and it will take forever. So the idea of what we're doing, and there's loads of advocacy groups that are doing that we need to coordinate and work with, all of us working together is going to be a much more impact.

1:05:36But we're looking at different areas that the system is being weaponised, being used, not for its intended purpose and it's broken. And we're making arguments that you can't argue against. For example, one of the things that we're starting and I'm talking to a number of different MPs and have got support for this is, you know, as I mentioned previously, having those cross-checks between criminal and civil law. If you're making these orders in civil law to, you know, oh, my ex-partner did this, that, and the other, and he really hurt me and I need this protection. We're not saying don't grant that protection, but what we're saying is to have a check, is the granting of this order going to impact anything else from criminal proceedings as well?

1:06:22Will it have unintended consequences? And if that's a yes, then you can't grant that what's called ex parte, which means without notice. You need to come into court and plead your case. And what will happen then is if someone needs protection, they'll get protection. But if they are doing it in order for a gateway to get legal aid, then that will be stopped. You know, so there's that. There's also different things that we want to do in terms of legal aid. legal aid is the biggest weaponisation tool that there is if you're getting the state to essentially back one party over the other financially and even though you should be paying back legal aid it's almost never paid back and as I said my costs run into the hundreds of thousands you know private legal representation is astronomical astronomical and there's a group of people that can't apply for legal aid and they're not millionaires and they just are priced out of having any representation.

1:07:21What happened was, I think I mentioned this before, you have something called LASPO reforms, which was the Legal Aid and Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. And that came into force in 2013. And from that point, the accusations of domestic abuse and family law skyrocketed to, family courts skyrocketed to 86 to 92 % of all proceedings had that. And that's because they now needed to show that there was domestic abuse so I can get the legal aid. Once you've got legal aid, you don't put your hand in your pocket. You can now prolong proceedings to, like you said, price out the other person.

1:08:02And if you care about the children, you're not thinking of that. But if you're putting your annoyance and anger at your adversary, you know, in this, you know, your ex-partner over the welfare of the child, which is what happens, it gets lost in this adversarial combative area that the family court operates in, then everything else is lost and you're then just playing this game in order to weaponise the system by driving up these costs. So there needs to be some way of combating that where people can get it if they need it, but there should be some sort of repayment model for that because otherwise what's happening is people are prolonging it And then you've got in 50 % of family court proceedings, at least 50 % of them are litigate in person, so self-represented.

1:08:53And if you're self-representing, you don't know how to present your argument to a judge in court. You don't know how to do it. And you could be completely correct. You could be an absolute saint, completely child-focused. and you could walk away with suboptimal outcome for the children because you've just not been able to articulate your argument properly in court. So it creates disparaging different outcomes for people that have access to legal representation and don't. And we've got other campaign groups out there that do the same thing, essentially. But what separates Fair Family Justice to the other campaign groups that are out there?

1:09:31From what I've seen, and there's some incredible people, and I'll name Papa, which is People Against Parental Alienation. They do amazing work. There's also Robert Garza in the States and he is also trying to, some of the bills that he's making for the States, he's also got UK stuff. And I've actually, one of the things that we've got, I've got about seven points that we'll be doing and one of them, in fact, two of them I've put, have come directly as inspiration from what he's doing. And so there are people doing it, but predominantly what people are doing is raising awareness for things. And that's so important.

1:10:06And it's great that they do that. This fair family justice is about, you know, robust and relentless action in order to achieve these things, because you can't take the soft approach with this. And I'm not suggesting that they do, but I know how tenacious and how much I care about this. I care about my time in family court is done, But if I can save some children and some good parents from the issues that I've had to deal with, then absolutely I will work my absolute socks off until my fingers are to the bone in order to modernize this system because it's absolutely failed. And all these different advocacy groups are great for raising awareness and they're great for their target areas of what they're trying to impact.

1:10:50but what we need is looking at it in the way that I think Robert Garza has been successful but also, this is really important, coordination with everybody. If I can get as many groups singing from the same song sheet working towards the same aims rather than working in silos then we will revolutionise the way that family courts are run in this country. So are you confident that the system can be fixed because by your own admission, it's completely broken. It is completely broken. It can be fixed. It has to be fixed. There's not really any other choices. And it needs to be fixed, essentially, because we won't have a settled country.

1:11:31We won't have, you know, settled communities unless we deal with the root cause of how communities grow, which is, you know, from children, from families, the family dynamic. If you've got a child that grows up in a single parent household, they are twice as likely to develop depression, anxiety, low self-esteem. They are significantly more likely to come into contact with the criminal justice system as well. 70 % of young offenders have limited access to their father figure. So like I said, this is not about fathers versus mothers, good parents versus bad parents, and there's a huge problem with the family courts in creating that harmonious dynamic of families.

1:12:17So it needs to be fixed. And yeah, absolutely, it can be fixed, and it will be fixed. We will fix it. There'll be people watching and listening that are going through the family courts as we speak. What advice would you give to them? I would say no matter what you've been put through, whatever you're being put through, it's and you know for most people they don't need to hear this advice but it is about the it's very easy to personalize it how can this person be attacking me because it is a personal attack but you need to take yourself out of the equation become super selfless everything you do and it is but it's about the children but you need to articulate that it is for the children because when you say it's not fair I don't get to see my children you mean your children don't get to see you but it's so important to the way that you phrase it that mindset everything you do is child focused every step that you take every breath that you take is for the betterment of the children that's how you articulate it and if you do that you're you're the the family court system that's the language that they like to hear and secondly you'll be able to look at yourself in the mirror and you'll know that you you didn't compromise morals and it's fair that is important right and uh you know the third thing i would say and what advice i would give is is contact me you know um fairfamilyjustice.com if you go there you can become a supporter i'm on x as well and i'll shortly be on facebook uh fair family justice search that send a message to me and i will i'll hold hand you through it it's traumatizing and it is a terrifying experience for for mums for dads for anyone going in that arena.

1:13:58I will do everything to make sure that you're supported, that you get advice from someone that's lived it and has gone through it on how to be, how to feel, how to think. And even if you need somebody there with you, I'll go to court, I'll go with you to support you. It's so important that people know that there's that support there and they can get that advice as well. Well, we'll put all of your Fair Family Justice links in our description. let's end this with you telling me and the audience a little bit more about your book When My Brothers Come Home Again just tell me a little bit about this book it's a feel-good book it's like I said it's my daughter's perception of her world and her brother's coming home one minute everything's in its place and she's there she's got access to mum and dad and it's all very calm and next minute it's just chaos it's crazy the boys are there her brothers are there and you know the idea of it is how she feels about that coming and going that blended family dynamic of people coming and going and the idea of it really is is to to sort of um you know i i suppose some way of of of helping people support the organization right as well so if you wanted to help support family fair family justice uh you you can obviously sign up and i really do need people to sign up because that gives me a larger voice.

1:15:19But also if it's about sort of, if you wanted to donate that to the school, to the library, to your grandchildren, to your children, your nieces and nephews, it's a very positive story that's all about how children think and feel. But also it helps us to be able to raise awareness more. It helps me campaign on the law changes that are needed and everything else. Can people purchase this book on the Fair Family Justice website? Yes. Yeah. If you go, like I said, Fair Family Justice, it would take you, At the moment, it's going to be a landing page, but the whole website's being built. But even on the landing page, it will give you a link to where you can buy that on Amazon.

1:15:53You can go to Amazon directly. Okay. And is there anything else you want to add to this conversation? Yeah, I think that it's important, again, that we stress that this is anyone who's a good parent, anyone that's impacted by this, anyone that is indirectly impacted by this, anyone that was a child that grew up through the system of being alienated by parents and things like that. we want to work with everybody we need to fix this system we need to need to need to it's failing miserably and there isn't and it's one of those things is accepted now we just sort of commonly accept that this is what's happening the system isn't fit for purpose it's not reflect modern day life we can fix it we can fix it and it isn't just about saying well this is my story it's about all of us telling our stories it's about all of everybody you know contacting whatever advocacy group you want, whether that's Fair Family Justice or the amazing people at Papa, like I suggested, or there's lots of them.

1:16:50But if you give your, tell your story, because your story tells people how it's broken. And this isn't a vehicle for me to fix the ways I was wronged. It's important that it's not a traumatized dad or a traumatized mom's perspective. It's about identifying the issues that are there and coming up with a very sensible, very logical way of plugging those holes or fixing those broken parts so that we're making that rate of progression to fixing the system. And we can fix it absolutely 100%, but we're going to need a lot of support and a lot of people to help us do that. And if you want to help and support Richard, all the links will be provided in the description.

1:17:29Please like and subscribe to our channel so we can keep having these conversations. And if there are people out there point scoring, in, I'd like to echo Richard's sentiments and put the children first. And for you, sir, I thank you for trusting me with your story and sharing it with me and my audience. And I wish you and your family a beautiful and stress-free future. Thank you so much. Get off, mate. Cheers, brother.