This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Rejected petition Make it illegal for a parent to withhold a child from the other parent.
To make it illegal for one parent to withhold a child from the other parent when there are no safeguarding concerns, and when a parent does this, they should be prosecuted for child abuse/neglect, and domestic abuse.
More details
If a parent withholds a child from the other parent with responsibilities, for longer than 24 hours with no contact, that parent breaches the child safety act and is prosecuted for child neglect or abuse and domestic abuse against the other parent. This access is vital to child development and continual bonding of child and parent and too often women deny access to fathers more so than fathers to mothers and will save over 47 million a year in court costs.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
We have published the following petitions, which you might like to sign:
Make unreasonable parent alienation a criminal offence: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/314856
Automatically grant equal access rights following separation: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/618584
We could accept a petition calling for changes to child arrangements different to the above petitions, but it would need to be clear if you wanted this to apply irrespective of any court orders or other agreements about child contact.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.