Maurice Barnett in the Blackpool Gazette
June 24, 2008
Maurice Barnett of the Dead Beat Dads association managed to get some coverage for his plight, and his fight against the CSA in the Blackpool Gazette.
Thirty-Seven year old Maurice is a dad of three kids from Thornton and wishes to help like minded fathers who are battling with the CSA. Maurice believes that the tactics used by the Child Support Agency are too harsh, leaving many fathers unable to cope with the pressure and financial burdens.
In a similar story with many fathers battling the CSA, Maurice was left feeling depressed and facing repossession on his home.
Maurice says:
We want a fairer system set-up.
Any man’s rights have been completely eroded away. You could pay your ex-wife cash-in-hand for six years, fall out and she can contact the CSA who demand you pay it all again.
When they get involved, fathers are losing contact with their children.
Fathers are moving out of the home, paying for their children and then being told their bedsit isn’t appropriate or they can’t afford to pick up their children.
It’s true that the CSA cause fathers to lose contact with their children, because they reward the mothers financially for cutting the fathers out entirely. The mothers get more money if the father doesn’t have access to his children. A father who sees his children regularly and has overnight contact with them has to pay less, so obviously mothers are refusing access.
The system has completely missed the point of keeping family’s in touch.
Maurice has founded the organisation together with his partner, Sherri. She says about the Dead Beat Dads:
MPs up and down the country are being bombarded with calls for help from fathers.
We hear the CSA are asking non-resident fathers what is the limit on your credit card? Can you remortgage your house? Just to get people to settle their arrears.
They are telling people they shouldn’t have had a second family.
The CSA gave the same standard response they always give, completely missing the point again:
Every parent has a financial responsibility for their child.
We look at each case individually to ensure the correct maintenance assessment is made.
This isn’t about securing money for the CSA but about recovering money for those children who are owed it.
The Child Support Agency need to realise the damage they are doing to families, and in particular to children.
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Thanks for that Mike, would just like to say we have been inundated now with calls and emails from NRPs and NRPPs who thought they were up against the CSA on their own. IWehave this week sorted three cases out, prevented one guy from taking his own life, this was done by Sherris counselling skills and made his life a whole lot easier by setting up a payment plan to help him pay his bills and also stopped creditors from harrasing him.
The Association now has an in house counsellor built in to it, so as well as being an Association, we are a support group who can help sort other avenues of the NRP/NRPPs probles out due to the draconian actions of the CSA.
Please feel free to let other people know about us, I am now in the process of adding more stuff to the Associations web site and I now have some good loop holes for NRP who are self employed and who are summonsed to court for failing to furnish the CSA with their details.
Any other questions please feel free to join us and come and have a look at the forum too
Mobey
I have just had a massive increase in payment demand for the CSA. They have raised my payments from £350 per month to just under £600. I am afraid now that I will lose my home as I can’t afford to mortgage payments anymore. They actually took just short of £1,000 this month in ‘error’ and won’t refund me. I have copied in my MP but don’t seem to be getting anywhere. They say that I owe over £7,000 in arrears that I am disputing and I have requested my file which initially they said they didn’t provide. They only agreed to send it to me when I said that I knew someone else who had received his. I had to request it in writing and this will take up to 40 days to arrive. I will miss next month’s mortgage payment, so only two more to miss before repossession of my home takes place.
I have told the CSA this and they don’t care at all. I’m in a very dire situation and don’t know what to do anymore. I have paid for years to the sum of over £21,000, always worked and paid my taxes, work in a professional capacity and yet I am being treated like scum.
The whole system is wrong and I don’t know how many suicides there has to be before something is done about it. Maybe the low stats (if they are so) of suicide due to the CSA demands and behaviour are ‘worth’ it in the Government’s eyes as they get what they want……………………………….Money in any way they can because they are skint!!!!
I have been having a terrible time with the csa firstly I didnt fill in the forms I know this was stupid but a lot of factors led up to this. Firstly the mother of the child deliberatly got pregnant to try to trap me she knew I did not want children at any cost. After getting pregnant (accidents do happen) she refused to have an abortion. Then she tried to blackmail me.
When I did eventualy fill in the forms csa assessed me at between £0-£5 per week which I deemed fair but pwc apealed. The appeal was a farce the judge said I would not need representation or an accountant as it was straight forward issue and adjourned. At the 2nd hearing I turned up alone to face a judge a csa appointed accounts expert and a legal eagle who instead of being neutral took the defence/accuser of pwc. Needless to I didnt fare well. The judge placed a punitive assesment order of £137.00 per week on me. I have not been able to pay this for several reasons 1 being I have not earned a great deal of money which shows in my tax returns. csa refuse to take notice of these even though they were prepared by a qualified accountant based on my books for my business. My business has now collapsed. I was sent to prison by csa for non payment and now have no job. csa refuse to re asess me and now are going to force sale of my house. I am at a dead end as there is no solicitor in my area that will take on the case.
Ive been living with family and friends for the last 2 years after my partner decided to go and live with her new boyfriend,now married to him. she now lives comfortably in a detached house with three cars and holidays as much as three times a year, Im self employed and havent worked since october 08 due to shortage of work with the reccession, Ifeel because she left me and now living comfortably and myself struggling to even afford my own roof above my head, is that fair?
can the csa take a tax refund rebate off you?do they inform you if so?if you self employed.thanks.