Letters to Ministers etc.

11 September 2000

To : Dr LJF Smith, Head of Research Secretariat

Lord Chancellor’s Dept

Selborne House

54-60 Victoria Street

London

SW1E 6QW

Copy : Doug Henderson MP, House of Commons

Dear Dr. Smith,

Re : research policy of LCD

Thank you for your letter of 1 August 2000. I am re-assured to know that you have accepted some points that we have made regarding the LCD’s research policies.

You tell me that "The Court Service undertake local customer satisfaction surveys on a rolling 2 year cycle … ". You also tell me that " … the research undertaken for LCD by academics is usually focused on areas of Departmental policy interest", and that this "covers many diverse topics". You further tell me that "(our) views do not reflect the general feedback we receive on these reports". Yet we see no evidence that the real experiences of court users are in any way collected or noted by LCD or anyone else.

I provide you with a synopsis of one case – my own matrimonial case, which I enclose with this letter. This case clearly demonstrates a catalogue of comprehensive corruption and degeneracy in the matrimonial and family law system, for which I had no remedies, and which wrecked three-quarters of my life.

This group has studied the experience of many men, who have provided their real-life case histories, and from whom we have also derived statistics. I refer you to our major survey of court users undertaken in 1995. The results are available on our website www.c-g.org.uk, in our report The Emperor’s New Clothes. This report describes the operation and effect of matrimonial and family law from the experiences of a sample of 347 men. (On our website www.c-g.org.uk, click on ‘Publications’ then ‘The Bookshelf’ then ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes - read report online now’).

These studies of ours show that matrimonial and family law in this country is :

corrupt, as the courts do not operate the written law and Parliament’s principles laid down in that written law, compounded with malpractices which are endemic in the system;
degenerate, as the principles, particularly the ‘no-fault’ divorce principle has never had the support of Parliament or the public; in fact both Parliament and the public are largely ignorant of the practices, except for those men who have used the courts; and the effects, of rewarding women for unacceptable matrimonial behaviour, would never have the support of the public;
out of control, as submissions made to the responsible authorities have led to no remedies.

When you say that "(our i.e. The Cheltenham Group’s) views do not reflect the general feedback we receive on these reports", I can only assume that you have never collected any of the information we have collected and analysed. I believe our studies show that wider issues exist, which neither the LCD, nor The Court Service, address in any way at all.

Would you be able to respond to these three questions :

Could you inform me how the adverse experiences of the men who responded to our survey in 1995, and myself, would be recognised within your current research strategy;
In my original letter of 27 February 2000, I asked about the LCD’s research strategy, but you have not informed me what this strategy consists of. In particular, to refer to my previous points, it does not appear to include the real experiences of real court users. Perhaps you will now be able to inform me what this strategy is, and how the real experiences of real court users are obtained, and with respect to the utter corruption and degeneracy which exists in the court system;
Does the LCD’s research strategy cover any analysis of judicial decisions ?

Yours faithfully,

Barry Worrall

Director, The Cheltenham Group