I had a moment of pure joy recently, in my nightmare divorce. My youngest daughter ran back to me, threw her arms around me, and showed me all the love still left in her heart. There have been precious few ‘Kodak moments’ in my life, but this was definitely one of them: a fleeting, beautiful reminder of everything I am fighting for.
I should have known it was the calm before the storm.
This week, the family court delivered its final verdict on the disputed divorce conditions. It was worse than anything I could have imagined – and, in the immortal words of Arya Stark, “I can imagine quite a lot”.
For those unfamiliar with my case, this marks two years of unrelenting heartache. Since the summer of 2024, I have been systematically separated from my beloved daughters for no good reason other than that their mother does not like me, the family court appears to favour one side, and a chain of events that amount to either outright corruption or staggering negligence by the authorities.
As quite possibly the world’s most unreasonable man, I nevertheless bent over backwards to accommodate the other side. I offered to give up the entire family estate if I could have reasonable visitation and shared legal rights. This was refused. Instead, my children have been alienated against me. Phone calls blocked for over a year. Five-minute handovers for birthday and Christmas presents denied. All information about their lives withheld. Communication (almost non-existent) is conducted through my daughter’s telephone, accompanied by the diktat: “do not reply, because you will upset Emily”.
I have demanded, requested, begged and pleaded for the authorities to simply do their job and enforce the law (the job they insist they rather than I do). And when I pointed out their failure, they jailed me for my audacity. In the process, I have bankrupted myself; cycling through three lawyers of varying shades of incompetence, all to no avail. Now, I am at the end of the road.
The court’s decision is best described as tragicomedy. I bear primary responsibility for the breakdown of the marriage, because of my “violent language” and “unilateral refusal to eat dinner with the family”. The mother meanwhile, who stole family funds, placed all assets in her name, alienated the children, made repeated false allegations to the authorities, installed spy cameras years prior, repeatedly assaulted me, made it challenging to eat dinner with the children by hiding them in the bedroom whenever I came home, and slightly damaged the marriage by actually requesting the divorce, bears no responsibility. (I should note here, the mother also committed a range of crimes so egregious, I do not wish to include them.) For this obvious “mental distress”, I am required to pay her £10,000 in alimony.
The property division, with a spouse who never worked, was similarly adjusted to 55%–45% in her favour. After the court deemed the money I spent on lawyers as my share of the assets (her legal fees were paid pro bono, naturally), she now owes me just £28,000 after the sale of the family home (in reality, probably 10% of the ‘family estate’). Child support remains unchanged, as does visitation which is limited to the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month.
I feel I must congratulate the court on the creative piss-takes woven into the final decision. Visitation was “extended” from five to six hours twice a month (go me!), and while she pays 5% interest on monies owed, I get to cough up 12%. When both sides inevitably fail to pay, my debt will soon (conveniently) overtake hers. Best in show however, was the supreme gaslighting achieved with the following line: overnight and holiday stays are possible, “by mutual agreement”. In other words, overnight and holiday stays are not possible.
What the report fails to mention is the behaviour of the authorities – which, while woefully short of the mark, has at least been consistent. The social services, whose boldest proposal in cases of alienation was the terrifying threat of “sending a letter.”
The child abuse team, whose working definition of child abuse appeared to be “the parent objecting to it.”
The police, whose CCTV only seemed to function when it suited them, who broke into my house and terrified my children for hours without explanation, who “lost” evidence, wrote reports on the wrong piece of paper, and refused to answer the emergency line because they didn’t like the person at the other end of it.
The “police police,” who refused to investigate their colleagues in the same building (and presumably the same lunch queue), but were quick to suggest the best solution to the police not answering the phone was to simply stop calling them.
The courts, who asked me the same questions repeatedly during interviews to irritate me, then refused to interview me because I had become irritated.
And the British Embassy whose response, when they deigned to reply two weeks after my initial email, was limited to an apology that they could not do anything, accompanied by a list of lawyers – in case I hadn’t been bankrupted by the first three.
Unlike poker, in life you generally have to play the cards you’re dealt. So the question now is: how to play 7,2 off-suit while the world insists you’re holding a royal flush? As I see it, the choices are pretty thin on the ground:
- Accept the decision, and move on. This is generally the advice I get from people, on the grounds that you can’t fight the system, and you’re going to give yourself a heart attack.
- Further legal recourse. My layman’s understanding of this is that, while possible in theory, this is impossible in practice. The Supreme Court or some form of Human Rights violation are the only avenues open – the problem being they would take too long, cost funds I do not have, and are unlikely to overturn the emphatic decision I have already been given in triplicate.
- Take the law into my own hands. Unfortunately (perhaps), I am not a criminal. And, as so much of this trial has evidenced, I am seriously hamstrung by my wish to do as little damage to my children as possible.
- Refuse to play ball. Withhold child support until the abuse stops, no matter the consequences for me – which will be fines, restrictions, asset seizures (there are none) and therefore inevitably back to jail.
None of these are “good” options. All of them hurt my daughters in different ways: acquiescence, further legal wrangling, crime, or the withholding of funds. On this last point, I know full well that my children will not go without. My ex has a lot of rich friends (my former friends, who sadly believe her defamation of me), as well as the State which will be only too glad to step in and fill the role of Pater familias.
This dilemma is what keeps me awake at night. I try to extricate all my rage, bitterness and self-pity, and dispassionately identify what the best move for my girls truly is. Accepting defeat, continuing to pay, and watching them slip away from me forever is morally indefensible. And yet, while option 4 feels like the only honourable choice, having a father in jail is not exactly conducive to a healthy relationship with my daughters, no matter how much fun I will get out of the experience.
Above all, I am consumed by the feeling that nothing I do will matter; that nothing will change; that I cannot and will not be allowed to win. Not only that, but acutely aware how much option 4 would delight the other side: deadbeat father, failure to pay child support, repeated incarceration – an ideal case for reduced visitation, if not outright extradition.
All that would be required to take us off this inexorable path to destruction, would be for the authorities to simply, casually, vaguely condescend to do their job. Perhaps they could begin by asking why a loving father who has worked hard to provide for his children from day one, would suddenly refuse to pay something he considers an honour.
I shall end with this: shame on these people. Shame on those who have shown themselves to be nothing if not negligent, partisan, and conniving if not openly corrupt. Shame on them for putting me in this zugzwang; for stealing my children and my children’s childhood from me. Shame on them for removing my daughters’ protection and my love, and for ignoring the abuse which continues unabated.
I would willingly sell parts of my anatomy to feed my children. I will not, however, fund their abuse.
Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West and The Frank Report, which you are welcome to subscribe to.
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