For too long now my children have cruelly been unduly influenced by significant others in their lives to withdraw from me, and in turn my family, to the point where my son and daughter now live without any contact or involvement with their Dad and one entire half of their family. That, put simply, is not in any child's best interest. Like any child, my kids need me and they need the missing other half of their family back in their lives. Previous to their withdrawal my children enjoyed 10 years of unconditionally and mutually loving relationships with me and all my/their family. My son has not been in our lives for over 4 years now and my daughter for over 3 years. The children's withdrawal is totally unjustified and needs to be reversed asap so as to limit the significant emotional and psychological harm the kids have already had to endure, as identified by the family court appointed expert professionals involved in our situation.

Your gift here will go directly to the ongoing legal costs required to try to reunite our family. We are currently having to go through the family court system which can be an extremely difficult and lengthy process to navigate. The reason our fundraising target is so high here is because of the incredibly high court costs and legal fees involved, with one future expense being the significant fees required to use the services of a family therapist, without whose input there will be very little chance of reuniting the kids with us due to their severely alienated state. The story of our legal fight for the kids is too lengthy and complicated to describe here, but one of the key reasons our case has incredibly (but not, tragically, uncommonly) been in the family courts for over 4 years now is that those who have been unduly influencing the children to withdraw from me/us have tried at every turn to block and cast doubt on any and all progress that we attempt to make to try to restore the relationships between the children and their Dad and his/one half of their family.

10% of all monies raised will be given directly to a local organisation we know of well who raise awareness of the type of situation we are involved in, often referred to as 'Parental Alienation'. This organisation also support individuals directly who are affected by Parental Alienation. If we hit our target, we will give 10% of any extra monies to this same organisation. As well as trying to raise funds to try to help my children, the reason we have fought as hard as we have has always been about trying to help others in their similar fight for their children. Any successes and progress we make as a family here, legally or otherwise, can make a difference to others; we have already set two legal precedents in Scotland through our legal fight which we know have benefited others directly in their similar legal actions. By giving here you can help the efforts that are ongoing to try to stop other innocent children from being unduly influenced to withdraw from a parent and members of their family and, in turn, from experiencing the short or long term emotional and psychological damage this can cause.  

If you feel it is the right thing to help my children then myself and the family thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Martin

*For more information about the kind of thing that is happening to my family, please search for 'Karen Woodall' and her blog online ,and/or the work of her 'Family Separation Clinic'. Here you will find information on the modern day and largely hidden epidemic of Parental Alienation and get a flavour of how much work needs still to be done to raise awareness of this largely hidden phenomenon in today's society. Alienation is what we and expert professionals believe my children are suffering at the hands of and the process of Parental Alienation itself is literally ripping many, many loving and wholesome families apart.