Wednesday 13 July 2011

Meppershall fathers' rights activist targets David Cameron's office

A DAD has scaled the roof of Prime Minister David Cameron’s constituency office to protest about fathers’ rights.




Roger Crawford, of Shefford Road in Meppershall, was one of three members of campaign group New Fathers 4 Justice who took part in the rooftop demonstration in Witney, Oxfordshire, last Thursday.

The 62-year-old said: “I haven’t seen my own daughter, Heather, for 17 years now and she’s my only child.

“I just wanted visiting rights but I had a torrid time in the family courts. I found them adversarial rather than helpful and that’s why I joined Fathers 4 Justice and then New Fathers 4 Justice.”

Dressed as a court jester, Mr Crawford protested on the roof of the PM’s constituency office for more than four hours. He was accompanied by Jeremy Pogue, 50, from Wales, and Archit Ssan, 46, and from London. They held up banners, with one reading ‘two parents are better than one’.

“Obviously there are some exceptions, but time and time again it has been proved that children are best brought up knowing both parents,” Mr Crawford said.

He said that, due to “parental alienation, with her mother having a great deal of influence”, his daughter, who is now 19, has said she does not want to see him.

“It’s been very hard,” he said. “When she was 18 I wrote to her and said it was really up to her now but that I still care.”

He continued: “I can’t understand how someone like David Cameron, who has lost a child himself and said it affected him so badly he almost gave up politics, can ignore us.

“Parents – mother or father – have no right in law to see their child.

“He promised before the election that he would grant a legal status to parents and grandparents. He’s renaged on that.

“There is a review of family law, but it won’t include this.”

Asked if Mr Cameron’s office had responded to the demonstration, Mr Crawford said that the protest had been met with “a defeaning silence”.

He added: “We are going to step up our campaign now. I will be up to more mischief before long.”

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said that officers were on the scene to observe the demonstration, but that no action was taken.