All applications for contact and residence orders now have to be checked for possible risks to the children. Nearly all of these are from natural fathers who are seeking to overcome their exclusion from the lives of their children. It is sometimes the other way around. Fathers who have achieved control of their children can also be possessive and hostile to the children's mother.

In all but a few cases what is best for the children is the full involvement of both parents. The issue is not which parent should have them, but the best blend of both

These checks probably necessary in our risk-averse society. The main - but not sole, emphasis is on risks supposedly presented, to the mother and the children of 'contact' viz, the children being allowed to spend time with their 'other parent'.

A principal 'driver' of this concern was figures produced by Womens' Aid some years ago that over a ten year period 29 children had been killed by their father during 'contact visits'.

Appalling tragedies. Prevention and precautions called for.

But proportionate ones, please.

Figures produced by the NSPCC are that 80-100 children per year are killed by their parents and/or carers.

 So it could be that taking deaths (which may or may not reflect other forms of abuse, but these are the ones used in the debates) 3% are at the hands of contact parents during their parenting time and 97% at the hands of 'residential' parents and/or carers while the children were with them.

Now of course there are massive issues of non-comparability of the figures, but there is no assumption one can build into the data that avoids the conclusion that 'contact' is safer than 'residence'.

The legal and policy emphasis needs to be reversed. The dangers to children of exclusive parenting are the ones needing addressing.

Other considerations are also relevant. For all the media emphasis on the wickedness of child abusers, this does not correspond to the reality. The majority are potentially good parents who lose their self-control as a result of greater stress than they can cope with. Such as 24/7 parenting, sometimes in situations that are adverse in other respects too.

Not only is contact safer than residence, it is a tremendous potential asset to promote the safety of children when they are with the parent they spend most time with. It can take pressure of her or him. Where their is 'wicked' abuse, which seems, where dangerous or deadly abuse is concerned, to come mainly from step-fathers*a relationship with their real father can give the child another person in whom to confide. A common technique is for the abuser to seek to isolate their victim from sources of help, sometimes in the form of contact denial.  

 *This applies to serious crime and murder. The NSPCC evidence is that nearly all step-parents are good ones.

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