INDIA KNIGHT fails to interpret the crimes of fathers against their children as “a cry for help” and puts them down to men’s weakness (News Review, last week). She could suggest alternatives rather than apportion blame.

She says fathers “give up” on access because they are stressed, it’s too much hassle. The real reason is to protect their children from the atmosphere around “handovers”, when the courts aren’t present. There must be some way that a child can be brought from one parent’s care to the other’s without being exposed to the tension that can be generated.

If she took the time, as I have, to speak to children of parents who have split up, she would find many feel the constant arguments are just not worth it. Some of these children, now adults, also complain of being stuck in the car with their fathers. The place to build and maintain a relationship with your child is in a homely environment where you can share conversation and a meal. Instead, they are strapped in while the father concentrates on driving. If it is not raining they may go to the park, and the shared meal is likely to be junk food.

Knight suggests men need the balls to stick with the fight, I suggest it takes “real balls” to step back from the brink and consider the implications of enduring this conflict.

John Stewart
Dublin

MOTHERS EXCUSED: A killer father such as Gavin Hall may indeed see himself as a victim, but society, the media and the courts do not, and there is no compunction in locking him up for the vile crime he has committed. In Hall’s case that means life, and one might expect that the Greek courts will hand down something similar to John Hogan, who jumped off a balcony with his children in his arms, resulting in his son’s death.

When the killer is the mother, she elicits only sympathy from the same troika for the “tragic circumstances” that drove her to the deed and she usually gets off.

For example, Danielle Wails, who burnt her son to death apparently to win back his father, got off with a three-year community order because she was suffering post-natal depression. Sharon Grace drowned her two daughters and herself in Wexford. This too was not called a foul double-murder, but a “tragic drowning” with some people blaming social services.

Tony Allwright
Killiney, Co Dublin

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