A short film by Richard Oliver and Simon Bugg about the struggles two fathers face dealing with being separated from their children.
New Fathers 4 Justice
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Ivybridge veteran campaigner walks free after Exeter Cathedral protest
AN IVYBRIDGE man who scaled Exeter Cathedral in a protest about equal rights for parents walked away from court scott-free yesterday.
Jolly Stanesby scaled the 700-year-old sacred building on Father’s Day last June, along with accomplice Archit Ssan.
They appeared at Exeter Magistrates’ Court on Thursday (May 28) where two charges of criminal damage against them were dismissed, meaning no fines or punishment were brought against them.
Mr Stanesby, aged 48, had threatened to call the Archbishop of Canterbury, Most Reverend Justin Welby, as a witness if his case had gone to trial.
The veteran campaigner had to fight for nine years to regularly see his daughter Rosy after his divorce from her mother.
He and his ex-wife now have shared custody.
Mr Stanesby said his protest in Exeter had been his daughter’s idea. However, he said he didn’t “think it was a good idea” for her to carry it out, so held the direct action “to support her”.
“My daughter still wants answers and she has written to a number of different organisations, and the judge in our case, but nobody wants to know,” he told The Herald.
He accused the Crown Prosecution Service of “clutching at straws” in its attempt to prosecute him for last year’s protest.
“It was a peaceful protest and the last thing on our minds was to cause damage,” he added.
Mr Ssan, aged 54 and from South London, was also found not guilty on two charges of criminal damage.
The pair, both members of campaign group New Fathers 4 Justice (NF4J), unveiled a banner over the west door entrance reading “Family courts are evil” while a church legal service attended by judges went on in the cathedral.
It was reported that they planned to stay there “for days”, but both vacated their high perch a few hours after their occupation.
Mr Ssan, dressed as the Hulk, abseiled down the front of the cathedral, unveiling a second banner which read Pray for Children.
A spokesman for NF4J defended the direct action
“We are campaigning for a change in the law so fathers are afforded the same rights as mothers and transparent family courts are more open to scrutiny,” he said.
“David Cameron and the judiciary must listen.
“We’d like nothing more than to be simply with our families, and happy in the knowledge our children would grow up with equal rights, but until anything is done, this [protesting] is the only way anyone takes any notice of our message.”
Read more: http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Ivybridge-veteran-campaigner-walks-free-Exeter/story-26597101-detail/story.html#ixzz3cIw1MFwG
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Police called as Surry Heath MP Michael Gove confronted by New Fathers 4 Justice BAtman in Taunton
At approximately 3pm this afternoon Police were called to Taunton High Street after Michael Gove and Rebecca Pow were confronted by New Fathers 4 Justice campaigner Nicki ‘Batman’ Lee.
After being interrupted Rebbaca Pow and the former Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove objected to being filmed and called the police.
A visibly shocked Rebecca Pow was unable to answer our questions about the present secret family court system in the UK
Nicki Said ‘The smile was soon wiped off Rebecca’s Pow face and she didn’t know what to say about the secret family courts.Michael Gove did not answer why the Tories has broken their promise to us on shared parenting in 2010. For some reason they did not like being filmed so called the police’
Nicki was forced to make a quick exit but we understand police are on the way to his Taunton home
In the lead up to the election all politicians could be targeted and we are not going to let them ignore what’s happening in the secret family courts
Batman, Cookie Monster and Elmo – New F4J election protests hit Taunton Deane
NEW Fathers 4 Justice have been making their presence felt in the run-up to the General Election in Taunton Deane.
Members have dressed up as all sorts of characters with the stated aim of forcing the candidates to speak with them regarding “shared parenting and the rights of fathers after family breakdown”.
NEW Fathers 4 Justice have been making their presence felt in the run-up to the General Election in Taunton Deane.
Members have dressed up as all sorts of characters with the stated aim of forcing the candidates to speak with them regarding “shared parenting and the rights of fathers after family breakdown”.
Batman Returns – Belfast City Hall and various other locations
‘It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.’
10 Years on …Spiderman, Superman, Batman and Robin, Fathers 4 Justice Cliton Suspension Bridge protesters
They are an unlikely bunch of superheroes, but the four men who scaled the Clifton Suspension Bristol on February 2, 2004, had big ideas about the way fathers should be treated.
Drivers crossing the bridge during the morning rush hour were confronted by the sight of Superman, Spiderman, Batman and Robin looking down on them from on top of the tower on the Leigh Woods side.
It was an unexpected stunt, and one that later caused traffic mayhem when the bridge was closed to vehicles, but it captured the attention of the public and the worldwide media.
The bridge protest was Fathers 4 Justice’s first big announcement to the world of their aims. Similar stunts took place over the next few months, but it was the Clifton event that really highlighted the plight of the men campaigning for the right to see their children.
There had been demonstrations and marches in the 14 months leading up to the suspension bridge stunt, but it was this action that catapulted the movement into the forefront of the public’s imagination.
None of the men realised just how big the protest would become. They expected that maybe a handful of people would see them, that their picture might appear in the Evening Post and there might be a piece on one of the regional television stations.They never expected the response they got and the non-stop round of interviews that followed.
The four men who climbed on to the bridge that day can be summed up as reasonably quiet, normal men. They were united in their fight, which spurred them to act in a way they might once never have imagined.
In recalling the events of February 2004 there is an apparent fondness for the camaraderie that they displayed.The operation of February 2, 2004, was dreamed up in a Downend pub.
Despite claims by the police that it was a military-style operation, the campaigners deny this.
They drove up in Jason Hatch’s works van with a ladder on the roof and, after attempting to climb up the tower while the others were holding the ladder secure, they found that a hatch was open. The people who got caught up in the rush-hour chaos that ensued may not have seen the funny side as the bridge was closed for much of the 27-hour protest.One man who did not get the chance to stand on the tower that day, but played an integral role in the protest, was Jeff Skinner, now 40, of Downend.
He was the man who introduced the idea of the suspension bridge as a location and stood in the cold speaking to the country’s media while the others were perched precariously on the tower.
At the time the group had only been going for a few months in Bristol.
Jeff said: “The suspension bridge was the first direct action in Bristol. There were other Fathers 4 Justice protests across the country that day and we thought we would play a small part in a bigger picture. It didn’t quite work out that way.”
Four members of pressure group Fathers-4-Justice have staged a protest on the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol.
The four men climbed on to a support at the Leigh Woods end of the bridge on Monday morning dressed as Batman, Robin, Superman and Spiderman.
At 0530 GMT, they unveiled a banner reading: “Fathers-4-Justice, Fighting for the right to see your kids.”
Spokesman Jeff Skinner said the men apologised for any inconvenience to commuters who were denied access to the bridge.
“We and thousands of other fathers in this country are denied access to our children every day by this country’s archaic family laws,” he said.
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 We apologise or any inconvenience but we haven’t seen our children for years  “Jason”
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The protesters said they would be staying for the “foreseeable future”, despite the poor weather.
The bridge has been closed to traffic, although not pedestrians.
On Monday afternoon, one of the four men – dressed as Superman – came down from the bridge and left the protest.
Last week another Fathers-4-justice member carried out a similar protest on Plymouth’s Tamar bridge which lasted seven days.
It is thought that as many as 15 members of Fathers-4-Justice met in Bristol on Monday from the west Country, coming from Cheltenham, Swindon, Lyme Regis, Worcester, Gloucester and Bristol.
‘Civil disruption’
One of the protesters, who gave his names as Jason, said: “We apologise or any inconvenience but we haven’t seen our children for years.
“We’ve been fighting the law courts but getting absolutely nowhere.”
A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said: “All efforts are being made to peacefully resolve the situation as quickly as possible, though there is no indication of when the protest will end.”
On Monday, Fathers-4-Justice issued a statement saying that today’s protests were the start of a “full-scale national campaign of civil disruption”.
Campaigner confronts Nigel Mills Member of Parliament for Amber Valley
The International Men’s Day – 19th November
Do we really need an International Men’s Day?
Not everyone will take it seriously, but the ideas behind International Men’s Day are very serious indeed, says Glen Poole
You probably don’t know it, but today – November 19th – is International Men’s Day.
For most men in the UK, the day will probably pass without much fanfare – nobody will buy you a card, or give you the day off work, or greet you with a cheery, “Hey, you’re a man, Happy International Men’s Day, mate!”
If you do hear anyone mention the day at all, then it’s likely that the words will be uttered with either weary bemusement; fake ”LMAO” hilarity or the utter contempt of “Isn’t every day International Men’s Day?”
So do we really need an international day for men? In a world where us chaps are still running politics, business, religion, media and sport, it seems only fair that the ladies have had their own international day for over a century, but for the men to muscle in with a day of their own day, well, it’s not very gentlemanly, is it?
And yet all is not well in the state of “Man Land”.
We know that men in the UK are still dying four years sooner than women, on average; that 12 men each day take their own lives; that 90% of rough sleepers are men; that 95% of the prison population is male; that seven out of ten murder victims are male; that girls are outperforming boys at every stage of education; that women are a third more likely to go to university than men; that young men account for 70% of long-term youth unemployment; that male graduates are 50% more likely to be unemployed; that men in their twenties are earning less than their female peers; that 96% of people who die at work are male and that men accounted for 84% of suicides linked to the recession.
If women and girls were experiencing any one of those problems at the rate that men and boys are, it would be grounds for an international day in its own right – so why are we so indifferent to the various problems that are more likely to impact the male half of the population?
It seems that both women and men are more comfortable aligning themselves with campaigns to help the “sisterhood”, whereas nobody wants to be seen taking the “brotherhood” too seriously.
Over the years, there have been some interesting tactics employed to highlight men’s issues. When fathers’ rights campaigners tried to emulate the Suffragettes and chain themselves to the railings at Buck House (for example), nobody paid much attention, but stick a dad in an ill-fitting Batman costume and plonk him and the Palace balcony and the whole world starts talking about separated dads. It seems that to get people talking about men’s issues, you have to be prepared to look silly.
Take the recent hair-raising success of Movember for instance. All over the country – and around the world – men are raising millions of pounds for prostate cancer research by doing little more than resisting the temptation to shave their top lip for a month. It’s an unavoidably public way of saying “look at me, I’m making a difference for my fellow man, feel free to poke fun at my magnificent Mo, just as long as you stick a tenner in the charity pot while you’re at it.”
So why hasn’t this self-deprecating approach worked for other important men’s issues? Maybe it’s because they don’t lend themselves so well to mass, jolly fundraisers. Maybe it’s the simple fact that men and women are uncomfortable talking about the many different issues that affect men and boys disproportionately – that alone is reason enough to have an International Men’s Day.
This year the day has inspired people around the country to hold events which include a special meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fatherhood in Westminster; a public debate about men and violence in Preston and the Guardian journalist Ally Fogg raising money for male victims of sexual abuse by staying silent for the day – a move that has delighted both his fans and critics in equal measure.
If you don’t normally talk about “men’s issues”, then today is the perfect opportunity to stick this article under the nose of every man you know and ask him what he thinks. Do it now, before your one-track mind wanders elsewhere, because despite what the cynics might tell you, not every day is International Men’s Day.
New Fathers 4 Justice - Superhero Dads 