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"UK Family law comes at fathers with a sledgehammer. I, post divorce, can manage just a mere pinprick. But it will be aimed, as precisely as a marksman's bullet, directly into the heart." David, January 2024
In 2020 the doctors more or less were in agreement that I would die in the next few months. I myself prepared, but did not repeat this to others. I put a brave face on. "Hope for the best. Prepare for the Worst." It has been my strategy for decades now.
In 2022 the doctors said, "Well, David has been tougher and survived longer than expected." But they still did not think I would be here forever. I said, "Between you and me, others have underestimated me before. And been wrong. So we shall see."
And in 2024? Well, Today, I had my first follow-up appointment in 2024. And it is expected I will live. Against the odds. And my reply? Well, I said, "Just as well. I have a few scores to settle..." More of this later. And I have learnt to celebrate now. The right way... But, priority comes before preference...
How UK family law fails fathers. More will appear here in 2024. And that's a promise... A real man does not make empty threats.
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Stop the War on Fathers:
>Like concentration camp guards concerned only with "doing their job" - Quote my words I once spoke to a CMS 'advisor'. "Do you want to explain to my elderly mother why she is arranging my funeral, and explain to my daughters why they have been given a day off school to pay their last respects? I am on the bridge (below) now...
>Would we permit someone to get behind the wheel when drunk, and legally drive while being over 14 times more likely to kill someone due to alcohol? No? Then explain the following...
>Parental mortality data from the Child Maintenance Service (CMS), the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), and the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that parents who are in arrears with the CMS have a mortality rate 14.28 times higher than the national mortality rate. The harsh treatment of these parents by the CMS in the form of methods used to enforce payment can reasonably be considered a contributing factor to the inordinately higher mortality rate of this subgroup.
Authors: Brian Hudson, Tara Hudson-Ballard and Alan Meekings - 30th June 2021
How wonderfully convenient! It would not have anything to do with keeping the matter out of the limelight, I wonder?
>DWP Response "We confirm that hold some of the information you have requested.
In reference to 1, 2, 3 and 5 for fathers and mothers we can confirm that we hold information
falling within the description specified in your request. However, we have estimated that the
cost of meeting your request would exceed the cost limit of £600 specified in the Freedom of
Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3½ working days (equivalent to 24
staff-hours) in determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting it.
Under Section 12 of the FoI Act the Department is not therefore obliged to comply with your
request and we will not be processing it further."
The following are MP4 video - if your client does not support video (most do not) download them.
Besides being made homeless, and my sense of justice, was an event which happened months before I went to jump. But it was one I try never to mention. And it might wrongly be supposed that I forgot about it. Wrong. Very wrong. Those who know me know I will never forget such things. Even if I choose not to remind others. Appearances (especially mine) can be deceptive. The fact that something is unmentioned does not mean it is forgotten, unimportant, or not of significance. Indeed, such assumptions about me are a dangerous miscalculation. And for some – a costly one too. I am not forgetful. Just patient. Unlike my enemies...
This was partly why - after the CMS threatened me - that I decided to kill myself. Gloria was why I did not. But for me, tears gave way to anger. The whole thing has been a ticking timebomb ever since.
>It was found that across all 12 paying parent profiles constructed, in order for the parent to have any residual income after deduction of average basic living costs, taxes and CMS child maintenance payments, they had to be earning upwards of approximately £40,000 per year. At every salary band lower than this, paying parents were in an increasingly severe deficit each month. The extent of the deficit is shown to be directly proportional to the number of children the parent has, and inversely proportional to the number of nights contact per week. This is the same relationship of proportionality as between the child maintenance payment amount, the number of children the parent has and the number of nights contact per week.
The Bridge I almost threw myself off of...
Note all the signs for the Samaritans? Since then extra security fencing and CCTV have been installed to make suicides more difficult. But why is this nescessary in the first place???
Few things frighten me, but poverty and destitution are amoung those few. And remember, a few months previously I had been robbed at knifepoint a few months previously and nearly lost an eye. I was subsequently diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.
And the ordeal was FAR from over. I developed a drink problem during the marriage, which escalated out of control after the above robbery. And I almost died from liver failure in August of 2020. This was the condition I was in at this time.
The condition visible here is ascites - fluid buildup in the body cavity. I had 8 litres of this drained from my abdoman. And I had odema - fluid buildup in the legs, normally seen in elderly people. This amounted to approximately 11 litres.
THE CURRENT SITUATION IN 2024:
Since then, I have remained dry - and am medically stable - but my liver is so badly damaged that one more drink could kill me. So: I cannot drink socially or in celebration either, and I need to eat a low-salt diet and take care with medication also (for example, I must not use certain painkillers). And I did not cease drinking immediately just for myself. But for those waiting to meet me in another continent! And I would prefer, after I establish my business (see link below) I would, in years to come, prefer to retire somewhere warm. I 'feel the cold' more than I used to, and UK housing is typically so badly insulated that you spend most of your pension on 'heating the sky'. Besides - if I make my escape the scourge of the CMS will be, finally, and Irrevocably be OUT OF MY LIFE! And I wish to offer my existing daughters a role in the business too! As stated above, my policy is to treat all my children equally - they did not chose their mother; I made the wrong choice (regrettably), but in 2006 circumstances conspired to make me vulnerable. With the training and 'life experience' I now have, a gold digger would stand out like a sore thumb (English phrasal verb).
As a man of principle, there is no way the family's finances ever would, could or should - end up in the hands of a brutal gold digger like my former wife nor this sordid bunch of overprivileged social misfits who call themselves a government! Indeed the conservative party actively promote, and preside over, inequality which would befit a banana republic. And the CMS are nothing more than a product of conservative party ideology, just like the notorious and well reviled poll-tax was in 1990. So I made a mistake and chose the wrong wife - and I have to live with it FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE???
"If young British people knew what was good for them, they’d be on the next plane out of the country." SAM ASHWORTH-HAYES
In am a brutal realist; even without the family law situation to contend with, there are some very good arguments to leave the failing UK. You bet!
Let us fact it, even those not in this position should consider the following.....
• Brexit is harming business. It has turned the United Kingdom into an "economic backwater". Idiots rejoice.
• The economic outlook is not good! And this is understatement of the year.
• The housing crisis - you will struggle to find anywhere to live (let alone find anywhere affordable to live!!)
• Many British homes are in appallingly bad condition. Damp, mouldy, uninsulated, in poor state of repair, and often far too small – yet still cost so much you have to claim housing benefit despite being in work!!!
• Energy costs are astronomic
• We are told constantly that work is the best route out of poverty by the 'government' (Read: group of out of touch, overprivileged social misfits) preaching about 'making work pay'. Then how come we have exponential growth of food bank usage - and many people forced to turn to them are, in fact, in work!!! Would it be because they are more interested in our tax money then in us escaping poverty, I wonder, I wonder?
• 20 years ago, none of us had heard of food banks. 10 years ago, they were hardly mentioned. Now, they are on the news every week! And yet, the UK has 'one of the world's richest economies'. What gives? See 'inequality'.
• Housing costs are rising at an increasing rate
• The typical British home is appallingly badly insulated – why spend your wages (and later your pension) on ‘heating the sky’?
• When is a job not a job? When it is a zero hour contract!
• The Tax burden is the highest it has been since world war two - oh and it is projected to keep increasing;
• Inequality not only persists; it is getting worse
• Student debt is worse year on year
• The cost of living means that your work/life balance is diabolical
• Did you know? That, if you save all your life, invest in your children - their inheritance will be seized if you subsequently have a stroke, get dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s... and end up in the care of a local authority
• The pensions crisis means that you will have to work even longer and pay more tax before you retire
• Even if you will be due an inheritance... And you do not fall into the social care trap... You will almost certainly get it too late to help your housing situation - at an age when you actually NEED a family home!!!
• Although a Labour government seems a near certainty after the next election, an Incoming Labour government will nonetheless be faced with a mountain to climb financially to improve the above.
• And one last thing, folks.... It's official; the recession's here. Chances are, your employer will go bust before you get paid anyway.
Sorry to be a harbinger of doom... but if I had a penny for every time I have tried to explain that problems are not solved by avoiding them or pretending they do not exist, I would have left already. The logic of the situation is clear. Leave as soon as you are in a financial position to do so. And one last benefit – you are free of the “war on fathers”. Enough said.
Please let me know how the video clips perform! Experimental page - for now... When I leave the UK I will publish my book, and in addition, I have a video planned for release worldwide (please note, it contains very distressing scenes, and so is age rated 18), entitled "The UK's Child maintainance service exposed". The best weapon in any campaigner's arsenal is bad publicity. Those in my close circles - and who know my background and story, have certainly changed their perception of the United Kingdom as a well run and prosperous country. Sad to say, I refuse to be loyal to it any more than a turkey can be to Christmas.
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-- Page fetched on Mon May 13 09:23:30 2024
