Names have been changed***Father “Mike”He has a son. When he divorced the father was extremely devastated by being torn away from his son. The mother did not want any responsibility, thus, detached herself, was non-caring of her son and led a selfish lifestyle. This created problems for the young child, and he was emotionally devastated by the mother’s rejection, by the father not being allowed to be in his life, and by the courts and social services.The child was shuffled around from different homes. The father was tremendously hurt that his son was torn away and was not able to help him by this system that didn’t see the importance the father would make on his child. The son became further separated and unreachable by the father, with the courts and social services as gate keepers. In later years, the son became hard to handle; hence, there came a point when the schools could not cope with the child’s behaviour.Therefore, they expelled him.As a result, the parents were hauled into court, but the mother still didn’t want anything to do with the child. Demands were made on the father by the court to change his son’s life and have home visits with his son. The father and his new family were resented by the disturbed son, as he was in a new marriage with two other children. On a court-ordered weekend visitation, the emotionally disturbed son was about to endanger the father’s family members. The father became alarmed, told the court and the social services, that “he loved his son” but, suggested that they now deal with the situation that they created.“When I wanted to be in his life the system did not let me. I cannot jeopardise my other family members now,” he said.Consequently, the courts and social services institutionalised the boy in a mental institution overseas, with the taxpayers paying thousands of dollars per year for this child’s treatment and care. The son returned to Bermuda and will either go back overseas or spend the rest of his life in Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute. Now, that the son is a young adult, Child and Family Services and the Family Court have hauled the father back to court, demanding the father to continue paying child support. The father stated to the Family Court and Child and Family Services that he is an adult and to “check back on the records as to who created this situation and caused his son’s mental illness, and he may need to be in a mental institution for the rest of his life”.***Father “John”He is a young 24-year-old father who has a two-year-old son. The mother wanted a social night life with her friends, and did not really care for the young child. The father was caring for his son 98 percent of the time for a number of years. When the father petitioned the court for custody, he gave all his receipts, school reports and documentation to the court, on how well his son was doing. Once the application was made, the mother suddenly took interest on the child, to receive child support, in order to help maintain her extravagant lifestyle.Therefore, the child’s care was transferred to the mother by the court. As a result, the young child was not cared for properly and started to misbehave and become out of control, displaying anger and the child’s life started to deteriorate. Years later, the father managed to regain custody as the mother could not deal with the child’s out-of-control behaviour. Today, the father has custody and the son is doing considerably well, after all the trauma.***Father “Peter”The court ordered him to pay child support to the ex-wife’s law office. Hence, the child support was going to legal fees, in agreement with the ex-wife. Therefore, the child was looking at the father in a negative way, that he did not care for her and wanted nothing to do with her. The father did some investigation and brought the matter before the courts and won the case in the lower court. The lawyer made an appeal to the Supreme Court, and the decision was overturned that it was legally acceptable to have child support payments used for legal fees. The father wondered how it could be right when ex-partners can haul good parents to court and abuse the court system just to get back at their ex-partners.***Father “Jason”This father was caring for the child for a few years. Later, the mother falsely accused the father of abuse and the father was thrown out of the home. The mother moved back into the home and later applied for custody of the child, just to get child support, thus, leaving the father homeless. Also, the mother made no contribution to the child while in the father’s care, even though the mother was making more money than the father. The father was going without food for days, in order to maintain and care for his child. The child wants to be with the father and resents the mother for what she is putting him and the father through. The judge told the father that “mothers are the preferred parent, in the eyes of the courts”.***Father “Henry”He was sent overseas as he had Lupus, and was in a coma for four months receiving treatment. When he returned he was sent to prison in a wheel chair, because he was not able to pay child support while he was receiving medical attention overseas.***Father “Tom”He has a daughter who is so alienated that when she sees her father walking, she would cross over to the opposite side of the road so that she would not speak to her father. The mother tried to have the father arrested when the father was exercising his rightful court-scheduled time with his daughter, even though the father showed the Police the Court Order.***Father “Charles”He had sons who were having behavioural issues for some time, but were in the custody of the mother. Years later the father was summoned to court to discover that his 17-year-old son was in prison, and later the father found out that his 14-year-old was heading the same way. The father said to the judge: “If the mother could not deal with the boys, give them to me.”The social report came back and said that “the boys were ok, as a result”.The judge said: “The boys were ok and are to remain with the mother.”Now both boys have been placed in prison.***Father “Tony”The mother moved to the United States with the two daughters to further separate and alienate the father. Today, the father still has not been able to make contact with his daughters. To alienate the father further, the ex-wife legally changed the children’s surnames with consent and so that the father could not easily locate them. Yet, the courts are forcing the father to support them financially.***Father “Richard”He has the child nearly all of the time rearing the child and still paying the mother child-support. The mother has threatened the father if he challenges the mother for custody or financial support, she would take the child from the father. The father is fearful of losing his child due to the present judicial system. He struggles to maintain himself and the child, and continues to pay child support to the mother even though the child is not in the mother’s care very often.***Father “Chris”He is raising three children and has received no support from the ex-wife for years, struggling to cope with all the challenges with the children and to maintain himself. He has lost a lot as a result, yet he is happy to have his children with him, and they are doing very well.***Father “Dennis”When the mother had custody, the children were not performing well in school, missing school and many times were not properly maintained often going to school without food. Eventually the father was granted care and control and both parents agreed on shared parenting which is in place at present. Since then, the children are doing very well academically especially the son who is now an “A” student. Child and Family Services now want to remove the children from the father’s care, back to the mother alone. The father is against this and fighting to keep the arrangement that they had made, which is “shared parenting with the father having ‘care and control of the children’. The father is terrified that if the children go back to the mother’s care, the children’s performance will deteriorate even though they are doing very well under the father’s care.***Some years ago, a number of fathers discovered through DNA testing that the child/ren were not theirs, even up to 17 years later. The emotional trauma caused to the father and child is devastating, and no recompense for wrongfully-assigned payments made by the father. Prior to the Children’s Amendments Act 2002, for which ChildWatch lobbied, fathers were not allowed to obtain DNA testing by the courts, even if there were doubts of paternity. Only mothers were permitted to bring issues or concerns before the courts.Over the years numerous fathers, through pre-arranged court orders, have tried to exercise their rights and have gone overseas to visit their children and come back without seeing them after spending considerable money on airfares, hotel expenses, loss of earnings, and huge legal fees, etc. Even locally, with court orders, fathers are many times denied access to their children and nothing is done about this. It’s a major problem.Most fathers say the system will never change and are afraid to speak up. However when they do, they are suppressed and demeaned. That is why they walk away and remove themselves from their children as it is too emotionally and financially draining.We have double standards in Bermuda, when mothers are found unfit, they are able to go to rehab, come out and reconnect with their children. When accusations are made about the father, even if they are false, he is no longer permitted to be involved to any meaningful extent in his child’s life, or he must wage a lengthy court battle in order maintain a relationship with his child/ren.Fathers locally get treated unfairly and get demeaned. Over the last 20 years or more, alienated fathers have noticed that the system (courts and Child and Family Services) along with mothers of separation and divorce only want fathers for their financial contributions.ChildWatch notes that not all fathers are blameless. In some cases, however, children who were raised by single mothers have turned out all right.However, 85 percent of single parent families in Bermuda are maintained by mothers, and of those fathers are not all to blame for the breakdown of the family. Often the mother is equally or is responsible for the breakdown of the family, yet the father is the outcast.