By Thom Kennedy

Last updated at 16:33, Friday, 29 January 2010

A Brampton man has enlisted the help of Sir Bob Geldof in his campaign to change the law on separated parents emigrating with their children.

Mike Robinson

Mike Robinson has previously campaigned to improve grandparent’s access to children from a broken home, and has now embarked on a new crusade.

Mr Robinson, who gives legal advice on matters of family law through his website www.thecustodyminefield.com, hopes to change the law to stop parents who have split from their partners from moving to other countries with their children, removing them from their other parent.

And Live Aid campaigner Geldof has been in contact with Mr Robinson to lend his support to the campaign, and has written a foreword to his new report.

Mr Robinson said: “When Bob Geldof saw the campaign report he liked it so much he asked to write the foreword.

“He is a formidable political ally. We have had a number of conversations, and he has been a massive help. He has lobbed a missile into the campaign, which is a great assistance, but what he says is quite correct.

“There are current aspects of family law that are plainly wrong and the net result is children suffer harm.

“The research exists that directly challenges what the courts have been doing for 40 years, but it’s a matter of getting the courts to recognise that research.

“The courts judge the impact of moving on the primary carer, as to refuse their wish to emigrate will so upset them that their children would suffer, but the court doesn’t consider that there’s no research to support that, and the parent doesn’t have to provide any evidence they will suffer.

“But the Children’s Society have found children are 40 per cent more likely to suffer significant mental health problems when separated from one parent.”

In his foreword to Mr Robinsons’ report Geldof says: “The court is entirely informed by outdated social engineering models and contemporary attitudes rather than fact, precedent rather than common sense and modish unproven nostrums rather than present day realities.

“It is a disgraceful mess. A farrago of cod professionalism and faux concern largely predicated on nonsensical social guff, mumbo-jumbo and psycho-babble.

“Dangling at the other end of this are the lives of thousands of British children and their families.”

The current campaign comes at a time when Mr Robinson has recently seen victory in his grandparents campaign.

He said: “Things are so heavily stacked against parents trying to prevent a relocation.

“The system is inherently biased and unfair.

“Through running the website I get so many people approaching me asking for help and support.

“I was getting sick and tired of coming across cases where the parent trying to stop a relocation doesn’t stand a chance, when the courts weren’t considering the needs of the children.”

Alongside his celebrity allies, Mr Robinson’s local MP David Maclean has leant his support by tabling an early day motion in the House of Commons.

To see more about the campaign, visit www.relocationcampaign.co.uk.

First published at 14:11, Friday, 29 January 2010
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk