BATMAN AND ROBIN TO THE RESCUE!

London Protest Represents Change of Tact

By, Roger F. Gay

October 23, 2003

Fathers 4 Justice, a London based fathers' rights group, staged a second day of protests today. According to a spokesman for the group, approximately 2,000 fathers marched through the streets of London to protest lack of access rights to their children. Police confirmed that traffic problems resulted from the protest.

Yesterday, two members of the group dressed as Batman and Robin scaled the front of the Royal Courts building in central London and are now on their second day of a rooftop protest. Campaigners Jolly Stanesby, from Ivybridge, Devon, and Eddie Goreckwi, from Romford, Essex, climbed onto the roof of the building on The Strand just after 4 a.m. BST Tuesday.

Group spokesman Glen Poole said the men are called “the caped crusaders for justice”. They intend to remain on top of the Royal Courts of Justice for a week and have taken food, clothes, and bedding with them. Scotland Yard has been monitoring the situation and has been trying to talk them down.

Until recently wronged fathers were merely writing letters to newspapers or their MPs. Many more wasted hard earned money seeking rights in family courts. This latest protest highlights that the mood amongst disempowered fathers has turned.

For two years, moderate fathers' rights leaders have cautioned government committees about a mood of intense outrage against the court system, against lawyers, and against other organizations that operate to reduce contact between children and divorced fathers. The outrage has translated into ever more daring acts of civil disobedience.

Previously, a Fathers 4 Justice protester sat atop a 200 foot crane near the Tower of London for 16 hours while police tried to talk him down. Members of the group have also occupied the roof of a local courthouse.

The group is also unhappy about new government "fatherhood" policies modeled on the government sponsored National Fatherhood Initiative in the United States and government workers involved in them. Reforms have injured children by creating barriers to already difficult family relationships, particularly through systematic assaults on fathers' rights. "The government and its civil service advisors recently offered some cosmetic changes and a few new faces, but the crisis around fathers is now too deep. Government will not be able to buy peace by providing extra funding to tame fathers' groups and teach fathers that fatherhood is about being are mere Sunday McDad."