Talk:Fathers 4 Justice

Refusal to Allow Any Other Point of View?
I note that any attempt to alter this page to reflect a more balanced view or other experiences of F4J is being re-edited to return it to its original entirely pro-F4J stance. Having been on the receiving end of F4J at "its worst", I can only reiterate that cheerful non-violence is not its only approach.

This is not a forum for debate. If you have had any adverse experiences of the Fathers 4 Justice (and I'm not disputing you have) I suggest sending an account of them to a newspaper or finding another means of promoting them. (StudentSteve 16:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC))

Those maniacs have gone too far!
F4J have gone to far. If they can kidnap Leo Blair, then who next? Daniel Radcliffe? Hermione? One of the Queen's corgis? This has got to stop NOW. How long before they are hooked up with Bin Liner and the rest in an invincible international terrorist conspiracy designed to bring this country to its KNEES? We should send in the SAS (disguised as DangerMouse and Penfold or Count Duckula) to infiltrate them in whatever cave their lair is located and wipe them out to a man. Badgerpatrol 03:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)


 * You mean you believe what The Sun says? I have to admit though that they are going to end up going the way of the Animal Rights idiots, which would be a shame. 88.110.36.113 10:06, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

(PS- The state of this article is embarassingly bad) Badgerpatrol 03:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

The state of this article is apallingly bad. The Politics section reads like you had thrown the F4J manifesto into a food mixer and then printed whatever came out. DJ Clayworth 14:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Minor edit
I made a small change to the tense that one of the paragraphs was written in, in light of the fact that the founder of the organisation has said that they have 'disbanded'. Let me know if i'm breeching ettiquette in anyway here.86.2.147.140 22:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

What the Police said about Kidnapping Leo Blair
which is true?

In the disbandment section is written: "Police said that they were aware of such a plan, but that it had never got beyond 'the chattering stage', and did not comment on who was involved."

In the Leo Blair article "Downing Street and the police officially refused to confirm or deny the story."

Fegor 16:30, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Redrafted article
I have redrafted the article, I was primarily concerned with removing POV which was quite strong throughout. The boldest part of the edit was the removal of the politics section which was essentially a manifesto. I have added instead an Impact section. In the process, the article has been shortened. This was not an attempt to remove relevant information but merely to make it more concise and to eliminate POV. I've reordered some of the page to break it up into headings slightly more easily. I have copyedited and wikilinked throughout. I haven't yet touched the links or the see also which appear to be quite numerous but may do so in a future edit. I am happy to discuss reasons behind any of the redraft. MLA 13:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

The article if terribly biased. The fact that it even mentions the alleged kidnapping of Leo Blair in the opening paragraph indicates this. There was no such evidence of any such plot. No one was ever arrested. No details were even released of this supposed plot. The police said they had uncovered a plot and everyone took this as gospel. When terror plots are broken people are arrested and tried. Where were the suspects here? It was merely a smear campaign by the authorities to get the fathers rights movement to disappear quietly. People in power do not want the secret family courts to be exposed for what they are because it would be too embarassing for the establishment. If people knew what an unjust system exists in this supposed "free country" there would be uproar. One thing is fact - in this country you do not have a right in law to see your own children. Therefore, if one parent denies another access (usually the mother) then the father will have to seek a court order. This takes months for a start to even get a court hearing - in the mean time there is no contact - all precious father time that can never be made up is lost. Then when it finally does come to court a judge will merely rubber stamp what ever the mother wants. This is usually 1 hour per week supervised contact, sometimes 1 hour per fortnight. If an order is broken it will never be enforced. Father will simply have to wait many months for the next court hearing without any contact with the kids. I fail to see how this in the "interests of the child" which is the guise the corrupt family courts and CRAPCASS hide behind. In what other section of society does a father have to be intorduced or re-introduced to his children? None. Returning military personnell do not have to be re-introduced to their children. Even criminals are released from prison and no one feels the need for them to be re-introduced to their children yet, these are sometimes murderers and rapists. Yet, separated fathers who love their children and once had regular contact find themselves on the receiving end of an unjust system that says they need to be re-introduced to their children by form of supervised limited contact. It's utter nonsense and if the family courts were open to public scrutiny then this sort of mind boggling madness would not go on. On top of all that father has to pay the Child Support Agency maintenance and is classed as an absent father through no faught of his own, as well as having to pay the cost of taking the ex-partner to court to try to get contact with his children and then the cost of maintaing the children when he finally has contact again. One thing I am certain of - history will look back on this herculian struggle the same as it does with other moral and social wrongs such as slavery in the last century. The kids will be thankful and whatever your views on Fathers 4 Justice no other pressure group has highlighted the moral wrongs that currently exist in the UK family courts and put the subject of fathers rights high up in the political stratosphere. Me personally, I just want to be a father to my own daughter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 135.196.21.11 (talk) 12:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Portal needed
This article ranges all over the place and covers numerous related but different issues arising in any number of jurisdictions. I think it would greatly benefit from creation of a Portal and urge you please to vote in favour on page Portal/Proposals - -  Kittybrewster 22:11, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Links ReORG
I have reorganised the links section, there were many unnecessary links as well as older news articles with little relavence. I have also removed any broken links. Michaelrccurtis 15:52, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Edit regarding activities
I have just made what I feel to be a fairly neutral edit to this page regarding F4J's activities. However, given the volatile nature of this article I'm sure it'll generate some heat. Before it gets deleted I'd like to note that the addition was purely factual and sourced with a Times article. It does not deal with the politics of the group's cause but only with documented actions many of which have also been admitted by the group and/or Matt O'Connor. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.32.4.63 (talk • contribs) 07:07, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Contact figues
Wrt to the denied contact figures, I've added a reference request for the figure, but it also needs clarifying what the two sides are saying. From what I understand, both could be correct, but talking about different things. For example, one news report on F4J I read suggested that while the father may have access granted by the court, often the mother would refuse contact, so the figure for "contact denied by the court" and "contact denied by other parent" might be significantly different. (Indeed, I have read that the main F4J complaint was just this - that there was no way to enforce access granted by the court if it was denied by the other parent. Regards, MartinRe 21:50, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Duplication
The May 20th 2006 incident is described in 3 separate places, with a lot of redundancy... AnonMoos 21:59, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I make it 4. It's pretty ridiculous--Gordon (talk) 23:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Reinstating cited comments
I notice from this page's history that somewhere between 23rd and 27th July an entire section of text under 'Criticisms', detailing F4J attacks upon personal members, was removed without rephrasing, substitution or explanation.

Now, I don't claim to have any personal experience of the group's activities, but the excised section was sourced from a perfectly legitimate article in the Times and merely cited information already present in that said article. Whether or not the allegations are true, the fact that they have been reported in the national press (to my mind, and I would hope most minds) constitutes a valid reason for their inclusion in this entry, albeit with a clear explanation of what has been confirmed and what is speculation. Just to remove them is vandalism - perhaps with an agenda.

I have therefore reinstated the text with minor rephrasing to reflect more clearly the article from which it was sourced. --137.222.218.10 19:26, 5 August 2006 (UTC)Jimmy burton 05 Aug 06

Self Serving
Each time I come to this page (it's on my watch list), I am amazed at how doggedly Matt's minions revert edits that are critical of his selling out to the system, or any criticism of F4J. There is no mention of the huge contributions of Dave Ellison or Jamil Jabar.

It is important to note that F4J USA is a separate organization that chose to distance itself from Matt and his henchmen in the UK. He has never understood the difference between the UK and the USA, and that is part of the reason for the failure of the organization to achieve its goals. Cia123454321 14:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * In that case stuff about the F4J USA really should be in an article of its own. Paulleake 01:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Why not add a paragraph about Dave and Jamil? - Kittybrewster 07:58, 17 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Kitty - I will do that when I get a "round tuit." I also think a paragraph about Ohio's John Fowler is in order. Cia123454321 20:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

There is a pattern here. Any criticism of Matt and the basically defunct F4J UK is deleted, as is anything positive about the USA. Cia123454321 02:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism
This page is being vandalized by "Hunter365," a sockpuppet from one of the radical feminist anti-father organizations. This only shows the useless nature of Wikipedia, since any fool like Hunter can come to an article and vandalize it. Useless. Absolutely useless. If you want to learn anything about F4J, go to the website, www.f4jusa.com or www.f4j.com for it is highly unlikely that you'll get anything of substance here. Cia123454321 16:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC) --Hunter365 16:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC) This is vandalism. Stop it now.--Hunter365 16:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hunter365 is a sockpuppet troll of Liz Richards and Cindy Ross. Hunter365 is a troll and vandal and has been directed to stop more than once. The matter is being escalated to the upper reaches of Wiki-land with the intent of permanently banning this "person" who cannot but spread lies, libel people, and vandalize pages that disagree with her warped political perspective. Cia123454321 21:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You poor sad man. If the powers that be take a look you are the on who will be banned forever, not to mention the libellous allegations you have made against Liz and Cindy--Hunter365 21:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You sad sod. Libel. Hmmm, it seems you have just violated one of the Wiki-rules and alleged the commission of a crime. You are on the "to be banned" list, and even more! Cia123454321 04:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Removal
I removed this sentence;

"Other critics have challenged that while there are occasions that fathers are prevented from seeing their children, there are many other cases of absent parents failing to maintain contact even when allowed by the courts, or making agreed maintenance payments."

as it is both irrelevant and sickeningly stupid. 80.192.46.15 00:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

This article should be split
This article should be split into articles for the original UK F4J and related bodies and the US F4J as this would allow a better structure, greater clarity and less general aggro. Any thoughts? Paulleake 14:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree completely, the article doesn't read very well at present with all the US references - very confusing. US, Canadian, Dutch braches etc need to be in a different article or each have their own articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.3.255.72 (talk) 02:47, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

This article should not be split
I disagree. The f4j began in the UK and spread to the USA. It ended due to the efforts of the founder Matt O'Connor. It continues to exist today due to the efforts of Jamil Jabr and several other dedicated family rights activists. It should not be split, but the path of F4j needs to be clarified. Once past the introductory paragraph, this article is a train wreck. Cia123454321 04:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

BBC Show - a bit POV
"The show had to be taken off-air for several minutes after six Fathers 4 Justice protesters ..."

"Had to be"? Nothing in the source indicates this. Surely 'was taken off air'? Maybe even 'was taken off air because....'

Am I unduly pedantic?

Terrorism
Use of the word terrorise in the criticism section lacks credibility. The article cited disassociates itself from the word by putting it in quotes, then fails to source the "quote".

The tone is very POV; the whole article needs an overhaul.

Citation
Are there any citations to show the quote below is true?

"Internet chatrooms are frequently hijacked and used as a form of free advertising, this is achieved by flooding the target room with bots until all but a few available spots in the room are filled. So anyone joining the room will see the fathers for justice name. It is unknown if fathers for justice also employ 'boot' programs to evict geniuine chatters from the rooms, though it is likely that without employing such measures that total dominance could be achieved. (note these programs cause data loss on some networks as all communications will be instantly terminated and closed, not only disrupting people but harming them.)"

Thanks!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.108.138.139 (talk) 04:23, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing badly needed
This article is in desperate need of some truly critical editing. Many parts of it are poorly written, there's not enough citation, and then there was this: "Whilst family law workers are taking millions of UK children away from fathers by labelling fathers with personality disorders without proof it has become evident that those taking the children have themselves shown signs of Sadistic Personality Disorder:" It isn't just unverifiable and original research (and did I mention WP:SOAP and WP:NPA?) it's also terribly written. It's gone now, thank God, but the article can still do better. (ETA forgot to sign. Oops!) --ChandlerH (talk) 17:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Attacking?
"They have also protested by physically attacking two female government ministers. [2] [3]" One of these incidents, handcuffing himself to the minister is clearly assault, though I'm not sure I'd call it an attack. The other...how is scaling her house with or without her presence a 'physical attack'? I think we either need substantially more evidence, or to rephrase.

My preferred language: They have also protested by scaling the house of _____ Minister of _____ and on one occasion Jolly Stanesbury, a member of Fathers 4 Justice handcuffed himself to Margaret Hodge Children's Minister.

Comments? 24.19.241.40 (talk) 03:45, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Good. Kittybrewster  &#9742;  03:52, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Much better wording.  -- SiobhanHansa 01:12, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality
This article is headed by 2 banners - one saying that the neutrality of the article is disputed; the other that a major contributor is pushing a POV. Both of these may or may not be true but I would be grateful for clarification as to why? Otherwise we have no hope in clearing up the article. Can we have a bit more detail please. Contaldo80 (talk) 09:41, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Just came here hoping to learn something about the group, but the article really is written strongly from the POV of the organisation. The section on criticism is the most problematic with highly POV phrases such as vitriolic polemics, and every criticism is countered and dismissed from the POV of the organisation. I don't really know the history so can't comment on the conflict of interest issue. Babakathy (talk) 16:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Fathers for Justice US(A)
I removed a link to F4J.US and was reverted with the comment: ''...f4j.us relates to F4J, the topic of this article. change the article topic to F4J UK or incluide F4J us, the link to F4J usa is a webage on the F4J UK site, with no known members in the US''

This comment seems to claim that the group with the website f4j.usa has no US members though from the clear affiliation with the 4fj.co.uk site is related to the f4j UK group that this article is about. So is 4fj.us a part of the same group as f4J in the UK or is it a separate group with the same name?

Because if it isn't related we shouldn't be mentioning it here on this article. (Disambiguation is a separate issue - if it's a separate group and notable enough for an article it should have a separate article - not be mixed in with this one. If it's a separate group and not notable enough we should probably be ignoring it).

My reading of the IPs comment and of the websites is that the f4j.us group isn't actually affiliated with the group this article is actually about. Any one have clearer understanding? -- SiobhanHansa 14:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Since no one has commented otherwise, I'm going to go with my interpretation and remove the link again. -- SiobhanHansa 12:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Criticism
As the Times article referenced is no longer publicly accessible, how much of the Criticism section is actually taken from that article? I've added a citation tag to an early sentence just in case. Ben Finn (talk) 14:02, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I have deleted the phrase "pushing rotten meat or fish through letterboxes" as this was nothing to do with Fathers 4 Justice, I was actually a witness at the trial and subsequent successful appeal of the person charged with this act (despite the police and CPS knowing who actually did it!), without naming names the individual responsible was a sole individual with personal grievances over CAFCASS Portsmouth and not a member of Fathers 4 Justice, hence the correction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stuart264 (talk • contribs) 13:14, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Deborah Ross comment.
The article states

"Deborah Ross, after interviewing him for The Independent described O'Connor as 'aggressive'."

However the actual article reads, "There is quite a lot of aggressive male stuff going on here". The only valid context is that the article is not calling Matt O'Connor aggressive in himself, more the idea's being talked about. Even if you doubt that, it's far from calling him aggressive in himself.

Akin to how someone would call radical feminism aggressive, even if the the individual is not.

As such I think the quote from the article is very misleading. Also reference 3 has no baring on the previous points.

Also in interests to neutrality, reference 2 seems very biased. Although it is a mainstream new article, in itself the author seems to have a very skewed perception of the movement. In itself simply putting "Deborah Ross, after interviewing him for The Independent described O'Connor as 'aggressive'." while giving no context to the conversation seems very misleading.

A better way to word it would be "Deborah Ross, after interviewing him for The Independent described O'Connor views concerning father's rights 'aggressive'". This would be a good compromise but I still feel the Deborah Ross reference is misleading in it's use.

The Deborah Ross source in itself is not very reliable as all sources need to be as neutral as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.220.122.95 (talk • contribs)
 * The Ross interview with O'Connor is by an award-winning journalist, published in an award-winning, high-circulation national broadsheet newspaper. What would you consider to be a more reliable source? I've improved the context by quoting the sentence more fully, but there's really no reason to keep deleting the reference citing one of the few interviews he's given to a mainstream newspaper. It might be critical of him in places, but it's not a hatchet piece, and she compliments him a few times in the course of the article. Ruby   Murray  19:00, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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Fathers for Justice Purple Period and the painting of the Cafcass Doors
Hi there

Can anybody explain to me why there is no information on the purple painting of the Cafcass Doors in Ipswich and Portsmouth and the reasons behind why they were painted purple. The painting of the Cafcass Door in Portsmouth in of particular importance as there is serious evidence of Portsmouth Judicary,police and CPS acting unlawfully to cover up the reason why Pam Merritt's Cafcass Door in Portsmouth was painting Purple.

Regards

Paul Summerfield

painter of the Portsmouth Cafcass Door — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.149.127.144 (talk) 23:29, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

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Removing badly sourced accusation
I want to suggest removing the statement from Caroline Nooks accused F4J of criminal behavior as the only source for it is herself. LordFluffington454 (talk) 10:09, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I've added another source. Theroadislong (talk) 10:47, 15 July 2018 (UTC)