The Absent Parent CIC exists to protect children from avoidable loss of parent–child time caused by untested allegations, process delay, weak enforcement, and status quo entrenchment, and to support reform that restores stable, child-centred outcomes where safe.

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We focus on two interlinked forms of post-separation abuse that commonly operate together:

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• The Silver Bullet tactic: strategic or exaggerated allegations and emergency processes that restrict contact and manufacture a new status quo.
• Child routine blackmail: money-for-contact leverage, where financial pressure (divorce assets, settlement demands, CMS/maintenance dynamics, or “extra” sums) is used to condition, reduce or remove a child’s routine with the targeted parent.

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These issues often form a joined pathway: allegations → emergency restriction → new status quo → financial leverage → routine destabilisation. Our work aims to identify and interrupt that cycle early—before time hardens a temporary interruption into a permanent outcome.

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1) Raise Awareness Through Publishing, Storytelling and Education

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• Publish books, articles, reports and digital content explaining how the Silver Bullet tactic and child routine blackmail operate in separation and family-court disputes, and how they harm children and families.
• Use anonymised lived experience alongside evidence and data to show how parent–child routines can be destabilised through allegations, delay, status quo shifts and weak enforcement.
• Educate parents, professionals and the public on post-separation abuse, coercive control, economic abuse and systems abuse—using clear examples, practical learning and evidence- led messaging.

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2) Protect Genuine Victims While Preventing Emergency Processes Creating a New Status Quo

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• Be clear that emergency protective tools (including non-molestation orders) are essential and life-saving in genuine risk cases.
• Also be clear that when emergency processes are misused—or when urgency plus delay creates momentum—they can manufacture a new status quo that later becomes difficult to reverse, even where safeguarding is not proven.
• Highlight the emotional, psychological and financial impact on children and parents when contact is interrupted without timely testing and a clear, child-centred determination.

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3) Help Professionals Recognise These Patterns as Post- Separation Abuse

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• Support CAFCASS, ICFA, social workers, mediators, schools and legal professionals to recognise when allegations, emergency applications or third-party narratives function as post-separation abuse, including coercive control by proxy.
• Promote a practical recognition framework based on pattern + chronology + contact impact + status quo risk, not isolated snapshots.
• Advocate for consistent standards of evidence, transparency and early testing—so professional recommendations do not unintentionally reward tactics through the entrenchment of a new status quo.

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4) Gather Evidence, Collect Data and Document Patterns — “CATCHING THE UNICORNS”

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Judicial Behaviour, Post-Separation Abuse, the Silver Bullet and Child Routine Blackmail

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• Conduct the CATCHING THE UNICORNS survey across England and Wales to gather anonymised experiences from parents and professionals.
• Collect qualitative and quantitative data on allegations, emergency decisions, delay, directions, enforcement outcomes, breaches, loss of face-to-face contact, and money-for- contact dynamics (including CMS-linked leverage).

• Publish anonymised findings to improve training, guidance and policy—supporting reform based on evidence, not anecdotes.

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5) Promote Better Outcomes for Children and Families

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• Demonstrate how tactical allegations, misuse of emergency tools, status quo shifts, weak enforcement and financial leverage can sever healthy child–parent relationships.
• Highlight how relatives, schools and professionals can be drawn into enabling coercive or alienating behaviours—sometimes unintentionally—through reliance on untested narratives.
• Equip parents and professionals with practical knowledge to keep children emotionally safe, supported and connected—protecting a child’s right to stable relationships with both parents where safe.

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6) Drive Law and Policy Reform — LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) (England and Wales)

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When the aeroplane was invented, the optimist built the reliable aircraft—and the pessimist built the parachute.
LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) is reliability first, rescue second.

LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) exists to prevent HLE (Harm through Legalised Exclusion)—where a child’s relationship is eroded through untested allegations, weak enforcement, and status quo entrenchment rather than proven safeguarding need.

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A) Early intervention at the emergency stage: Silver Bullet Prevention Protocol

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Where an emergency non-molestation order (or similar emergency safeguarding relief) is sought during separation/divorce and may affect parent–child contact (directly or indirectly), the court should apply mandatory reliability safeguards and record brief reasons.

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At the emergency hearing, the judge should complete a short recorded check addressing whether they are satisfied the application is not functioning as a Silver Bullet tactic, alongside:

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• Linked proceedings and chronology (mandatory check): confirm whether there is an open/ recent C100/CAO application or order and whether there is an open divorce petition/ financial remedy (where applicable), recording key dates relevant to timing and motive.
• Status quo impact assessment: record whether the emergency order may restrict, chill or derail face-to-face contact and create a new status quo.
• Evidence basis: record the evidence relied upon for urgency and proportionality.
• Status quo protection plan: if contact may be affected, record a plan and timetable to prevent a new status quo becoming entrenched and to restore safe contact where safe.

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This early intervention is designed to prevent limited emergency information and subsequent delay manufacturing a “new normal” for the child.

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D) The 150-day parachute (backstop against status quo entrenchment) — face-to-face only

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Where there has been no face-to-face parent–child contact for 150 days or more, the case must enter a defined safeguard route requiring:

• urgent review, written plan and timetable;
• a duty to reach a clear conclusion on necessity/proportionality and evidence;
• automatic restoration of the pre-interruption schedule where safeguarding risk is not proven (with stepping-stones only where necessary);
• early compliance checks so orders work in real life; and
• meaningful consequences where unjustified obstruction is proven.

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E) Automatic return to the pre-interruption schedule (no “new status quo” weaponisation)

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Where safeguarding risk is not proven (or can be safely managed), default to restoring the pre- interruption face-to-face schedule, preventing time alone being used to justify a reduced relationship.

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F) Make-up time as a standard clause (time lost must be offered back)

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Campaign for a standard clause on child arrangements orders: where court-ordered time is lost through non-compliance or disruption (not genuinely unavoidable), lost time must be offered back within 12 months unless unsafe or contrary to welfare.

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G) Post-order compliance checks across children cases

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Campaign for automatic early compliance checks so the court confirms orders are being followed and can intervene quickly where they are not, before non-compliance becomes the new status quo.

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H) Consequences where misuse is proven

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Where findings show malicious/vexatious misuse of emergency processes or deliberate unjustified obstruction causing HLE (Harm through Legalised Exclusion), LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) would campaign for:

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• time taken, time back (make-up face-to-face time);
• repayment of reasonable reconnection costs; and
• proportionate costs consequences.

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I) CMS reform: reduce incentives that reward breach and status quo creation

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Where a court has made a child arrangements order and unjustified breach is proven, the system should not allow loss of contact to be converted into financial leverage. The Absent Parent CIC supports reform so CMS has a safeguarded mechanism to recognise court-ordered arrangements
(with appropriate triggers and protections), reducing incentives that reward obstruction while protecting genuine safeguarding cases.

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J) LOTTIE Register (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) — court-held, findings-based, privacy-protected +
controlled disclosure aligned with Clare’s Law

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LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) would campaign for a court-held, privacy-protected, findings-based register (not public) recording:

• proven malicious/vexatious misuse of emergency safeguarding applications linked to contact outcomes;

• proven serious patterns of unjustified obstruction/repeat breaches causing loss of face-to-face time; and

• proven patterns of child routine blackmail (money-for-contact leverage) that materially
harmed a child’s routine.

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Clear identification and mandatory judicial attention: Where a chronology shows a money demand or financial pressure followed by restriction or cessation of contact shortly afterwards, the court should treat this as a mandatory red-flag indicator requiring explicit consideration on the record. It
must not be overlooked or minimised as “conflict”.

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Fact-finding must be available: Where the above indicator is present and disputed, the court should list proportionate fact-finding / early testing so the welfare decision is not built on an untested narrative or a manufactured status quo. The route to testing should not be blocked by vague assertions that fact-finding “isn’t beneficial” when the disputed issue is central to contact, safety, and coercive control.

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Controlled disclosure pathway (aligned with Clare’s Law): Where a court makes findings of coercive control/economic abuse linked to contact (including child routine blackmail), those findings should be capable—under strict safeguards—of informing controlled safeguarding disclosure decision-making aligned with the protective principle behind Clare’s Law, without identifying children and without publishing restricted material.

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K) Section 7 / ICFA safeguards — transparency, correction rights, itemised reasoning + recorded evidence

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LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence) would campaign for safeguards so Section 7 / ICFA material cannot steer outcomes through vagueness, untested opinion, or status quo entrenchment:

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• Right of reply for participating third parties: any participating person who is quoted or relied upon in a report should receive the relevant excerpt and have 14 days to submit a confidentiality-safe correction/response to the court if inaccurate or misleading.
• Itemised reasoning (“show the working”): every report must itemise what was considered, what was accepted, what was discarded, and what was uncertain—each with brief reasons— ending vague “overall impressions”.
• Author availability where reliance is high: where disputed points are material, the author should be available for questioning; otherwise the court should give reduced weight or avoid reliance on disputed untestable points.
• Recorded interviews and notes (standard): all substantive conversations/interviews conducted by CAFCASS / ICFA should be recorded as standard, stored securely, and made available for transcript into evidence where either party seeks it (subject to child safeguarding/redaction rules).

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7) Fix Structural Roadblocks and Protect Public-Interest Publishing (child-anonymised)

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• Advocate that essential directions (including fact-finding and testing disputed evidence) must be decided on welfare/justice grounds by the court and not depend on legal-team “consensus,” so litigants in person cannot be blocked by imbalance.

• Promote a clear legal and procedural pathway—similar in principle to whistleblower protections—for parents and professionals to publish anonymised public-interest accounts about systemic problems in family justice, provided children cannot be identified and restricted/private material is not disclosed.
• Promote consistent enforcement principles so repeated breaches do not become normalised, and so obstruction cannot create a new status quo that is later used to justify permanent reduction of a child’s relationship.

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8) Why This CIC Exists

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The Absent Parent CIC exists because too many children and families experience avoidable loss of parent–child time through untested allegations, weak enforcement and the entrenchment of a new status quo. In some cases, children go hundreds of days without face-to-face contact. By the time a final hearing takes place, the system may treat the “new routine” as the status quo, and argue that restoring the previous arrangement would now be too disruptive—effectively converting delay into a decision. In my own experience, face-to-face contact was lost for 321 days, and by the time the case reached a final hearing it was around 450 days. The practical message was that what existed before could not be restored because “it has been so long.”

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We draw on anonymised lived experience, professional insight and evidence gathered through research and survey work to:

• identify patterns,
• propose workable safeguards,
• educate decision-makers and the public, and

• campaign for reforms—including LOTTIE’s Law (Loss of Time Through Invented Evidence)—that protect children from HLE (Harm through Legalised Exclusion) and restore stable relationships with both parents where safe.