A warning from the Legal Aid Practitioner’s Group in this piece in the Gazette, that desperate parents without access to justice as a result of cuts to legal aid may take matters into their own hands and abduct children. No doubt there is some truth in that. The Government would do well to remember that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
What is the difference between a ‘QLR’ and a QLR?
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The legal aid practitioners may be over-reacting in order to protect their own funding but, as you say, there is some truth in what they say.
I was attending a family law clinic today and we had a couple of fathers who had been denied legal aid. In one case the both the mother and child were represented and had legal aid, and the LSC apparently took the view that enough public money was already being spent on the case. The father could only watch from the side lines.
I doubt many fathers will abduct their children, but many will take an equally desperate and damaging option, which is simply to walk away.
Absolutely so.
The President of our local Law Society, Sarah Clubley, gave an interview on BBC Radio Humberside regarding this very topic this morning. It was the lead story at 7am and her interview is around 7.35am. The BBC link is here : –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00dcrdb/Andy_Comforts_Breakfast_Show_08_02_2011/