19 April 2010

At my knitting club the other day, I was pearling one with a spry old dame who told me that her divorce had been 'mediated' by one of their daughters, D. The three of them had sat round in the old, ie former, family room and once D had satisfied herself that both saggies wanted the marriage over, she wrote out a list of assets and incomes. After a three-way discussion she announced that the agreed division was fair. It was carried out. Since then, ten years ago, there's not been a whisper of dissatisfaction from either party. "FAMADR"?  Don't tell the politicians for goodness sake.

Child abuse ain't funny and neither is AA Gill's claim that he 'had a quite a bad stammer until I went to boarding school then the bigger boys cured me' (Sunday Times, Feb 21 2010).  What next? Curing dyslexics by beating them round the head with a book?  Deafness by shouting at them?  Eh, Eh, Gill?

Let's not trigger it ourselves but any time now some disaffected issue of any age is going to snap 'Prove it' at one or both of those who have always claimed to be his parents.  Pass the deoxyribonucleic acid to the left, chaps.

Professor Chris Barton is a retired Family Law Teacher, Vice-President of the Family Mediators Association and a regular contributor to Family Law. Click here to follow Chris Barton on Twitter

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