The Child Support Agency today signalled its new tougher line on deadbeat dads by publishing the names of 40 parents who have convicted of refusing to pay maintenance for their children.

The 40 - all apparently fathers - have each been taken to court and found guilty within the last three months of failing to provide information or providing false information to the Agency.

The CSA published the names on its website, listing also the details of their court hearings, the offences they committed and the sentences or fines received. No information is given about the identities of absent parents’ children or of the resident parent.

The agency said: "We are making an example of non-resident parents who commit these offences to encourage others to give us the information we need straightaway."

It promised to add new names to the list every month as it continues to act against parents who dodge maintenance payments.

The CSA has successfully prosecuted 485 parents in the last financial year. Not all the names are shown on its website, however, because the resident parent caring for the child has to give consent for the name of an ex-partner to be released.

The agency's new, 'get tough' campaign comes as a lawyer was jailed yesterday for 42 days for refusing to pay child support to his former wife.

Michael Cox, 43, had argued that as his three children spent half their lives living with him, he did not see why he should have to pay an extra £365 a month in maintenance to his former wife for the time that they spent living with her.

The case has prompted an angry reaction from the campaign group Fathers 4 Justice, which employed Mr Cox as its legal adviser.

Matt O’Connor, the group's founder, is planning a "Free Michael Cox" campaign and labelled him a "Guantanamo dad" and a "political prisoner".

He said: "Prisons are bursting at the seams and yet here is a man that has been vindictively pursued by the Child Support Agency.

"To jail him on a matter of principle is scandalous, especially when you have people jailed for more serious crimes released early."

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