As the UK begins to open its eyes to domestic abuse and the aftermath, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that it’s just taking too fucking long.

Sorry… did you think this was going to be written nicely? FUCK patriarchy. 

Let’s talk about that all important life changing moment where your abuser has applied to the family courts for access to your children. Now, said children, are 8 and 6. He has never had parental responsibility before, nor has he had any sort of normal relationship with the children before. Mum tirelessly tells the family courts and Cafcass that he is not fit to be around children.

I mean, he controlled my sleep for 8 years. He raped me. He sexually assaulted me nightly. He crushed the bones in my foot because I didn’t want to have sex with him. He dragged me back from the phone box by my hair when I tried to escape. He stalked and threatened my life. He even hunted me down whilst I lived in a women’s refuge with said children.

Someone who is capable of doing these things to another human being is not, in any way shape or form, capable of being a parent. I know that. You know that. So why the fuck do the family courts not know that?!

Mum knows best right? And mum is saying this ‘man’ is not fit to be around her children. But mum had her voice taken away from her and he was given access as well as parental responsibility.

Fast forward to just two years after the court order was made for contact which, I might add was also as lock-down hit the UK and they barely had contact anyway, and he has used the grooming tactics he used to control me, to take my children away.

Fast forward another two years to today, Thursday 25th April 2024. Parental alienation awareness day. 17 years after the abuse started.

Well how’s this for awareness?

I’m heading back to court to fight for my son who my abuser still has control over, despite their being a court order in place that’s meant to protect us both. My daughter came back and refuses to be near her dad after she, sadly, learned her own lessons about him. We’ve made countless statements with the police, the case was even passed to the child abuse team, and still they left my son there.

I’ve been calling social services for two years and their process of ‘call mum, call dad, call school’ is too far outdated to even begin to protect children against domestic abuse.

Our first court hearing had me in tears as I realized that it didn’t matter that this man had broken the court order, it didn’t matter that there is parental alienation at play, it still doesn’t matter that my child is witnessing domestic abuse. 

I call his school and my details have been taken off of his records. I've seen my now nearly-12-year-old son a handful of times since he was 9. My boy. My precious boy who didn't even know his 'dad' until 2020. If he does have any contact with me, he is bullied and made to feel bad about it. His dad says he is 'betraying him' by seeing me. 

My son hasn't been to my home, his childhood home, in 15 months. 

He has seen his younger sister three times in two years. 

He has seen his older sister twice in 6 months. Someone who he hasn't been away from throughout his entire 12 years of existence. 

I know that my children will read these blogs one day and I hope that they know how hard I fought. How hard I fight every single day. How much I love them with all of my being and want to give them so much more than they have.

I'm not just fighting the man who abused me, I'm fighting the family courts. I'm fighting the criminal courts. I'm fighting CAFCASS. I'm fighting child services. I'm fighting the school. I'm fighting the government. I'm fighting patriarchy.

FUCK PATRIARCHY. FUCK PARENTAL ALIENATION.