Rice

[DanaC]

It's a difficult thing to work out what's true in cases of family breakdown. But the implications for not taking accusations of abuse seriously are very clear.

The implications for taking accusations at face value without any evidence are also appalling - unnecessarily separating parent and child.

It isn't just violent dads of course. There are also cases of children abused or killed by the woman's new partner (and indeed with her assistance or collusion) where the father has had no chance of being able to protect his child from harm. And not all family abusers are men. Sometimes the violent abuse is at the hands of wives and mothers - though statistically it is more often men.