A sea-change appears to have taken place at long last in the family courts. One of the country's most senior family judges, Mr Justice Munby, has handed down an excoriating judgment lambasting the gross unfairness family courts routinely display towards fathers and their innate prejudice in favour of the mother in disputes over the children after divorce. His remarks on the behaviour of the mother in this particular case illustrate the way in which women often take advantage of this bias:

'In the particular case of the father and his daughter, Mr Justice Munby focused on the system's failure to prevent the mother from ignoring contact arrangements. Among the many excuses put forward by the mother was that the child, known only as D, was frightened by the father's chastisement of her, that D was forcibly fed by him and that he threatened not to return her after contact."All those allegations, I emphasise, were groundless. Conspicuously absent, also, are any judicial findings supporting the mother's allegations of domestic violence."

'The parents separated when their daughter was two, with the father allowed to see her every Saturday. But the mother attempted to "sabotage" contact and was in contempt of court. On one occasion she was jailed for two weeks for a "flagrant breach of court orders". Matters came to a head in December 2001, the last time the father saw his daughter, when he lost his temper with the child's mother. "The father behaved most foolishly. But the mother needs to ask herself why," said Mr Justice Munby. "The plain answer is that it was her constant sabotage of contact that goaded him beyond endurance. What is this father supposed to do? Just walk away from his daughter in the faint hope that perhaps if he does not press for contact something will happen? Surely not. Is he to be criticised for continuing to invoke what thus far has proved to be the wholly inadequate assistance of the court? Certainly not. He would, in my judgment, be fully justified if he believed as a responsible and loving father that the time for appeasing the mother had come to an end." '

Munby suggests the courts should be much tougher with mothers:

'Mr Justice Munby said that where a mother thwarted contact on a Saturday, she should be ordered to attend court on the Monday and, if she did not, she should be arrested. She could be told that if she thwarted contact again, she would be jailed for up to three days. While committal was "the remedy of last resort", it might "achieve the necessary coercive effect without significantly impairing a mother's ability to look after her children".'

In this case, however, the mother already spent two weeks in jail. In the interests of justice, shouldn't she now be deprived of care of her child altogether? Of course, the paramount factor in such decisions must always be the best interests of the child. But how can it be in a child's best interests to be cared for by such a vindictive mother?

These are, of course, judgments of Solomon. The deeper issue is the ease of divorce when young children are around. Divorce tears children apart. It is divorce law that needs the tougher approach.