Posted Sunday, September 19, 2004; 15.27 BST
The balcony of Buckingham Palace is normally reserved for photo ops of Queen Elizabeth and the royal family. But last week, it was a man dressed in a Batman suit who was waving regally to the crowds. Perched on a ledge next to Britain's most famous balcony, Jason Hatch, a 32-year-old painter and decorator from Cheltenham, unfurled a banner — superdads of Fathers 4 Justice fighting for your right to see your kids — and settled in for a six-hour-long photo op of his own. His protest was designed to draw attention to the plight of fathers who are shut out of their children's lives by their former or estranged wives — and by a legal system they say discriminates against men in custody and visitation cases. "It is abuse to deny a child the love of a father," Hatch told TIME after his caped crusade had ended. "That's what we're fighting to stop, and we're going to keep on doing stunts like this and embarrassing [the government] until things change."
Hatch is an imperfect messenger for a very real problem. He has been married and divorced twice. He and his first ex-wife lost contact (their son lives with her), and he has fought a bitter, protracted battle for the right to see the children from his second marriage. That crusade drove him to the ledge outside Buckingham Palace — and led his current girlfriend, with whom he has a seven-month-old daughter, to leave him because, she says, his activism took too much time away from her and the baby.
Hatch and his second wife were divorced in 2001. She declines to speak to the press, citing ongoing court proceedings. He says she prevented him from seeing the children for at least a year and did not
We're going to keep on doing stunts like this and embarrassing [the government] until things change.
— JASON HATCH, a.k.a. Batman, Fathers 4 Justice
respond to his calls. After being taken to court for threatening his wife — he admits to harassing her — another 18 months passed before he was allowed supervised visits with his kids. He says his ex found excuses to cancel the meetings. Even though she now lives nearby, he says he has only seen his kids a few times in the past three years.
In desperation, he turned to Families Need Fathers, an organization that offers support and counseling, but soon became frustrated with what he saw as the group's inaction. He joined the more radical Fathers 4 Justice (F4J) about a year ago, signing up as a grade 5 member: someone willing to engage in direct action and risk arrest for the cause. That's how he ended up on the Buckingham Palace ledge, a stunt that led to a security shakeup and got F4J global press coverage, though many media outlets ignored Batman's message and focused on the potential threat to the Queen. "If you want to go to a pub and watch a load of grown men cry, then go to [Families Need Fathers]," Hatch says. "If you want to get off your arse and get this law changed, go to F4J."
Dads across Europe are taking Hatch's advice, banding together in activist groups and lobbying for legal and social change. They're keeping the fight for dad's rights in the public eye with a mix of humor and guerrilla tactics. In Britain, daredevil dads have donned superhero costumes to occupy the roof of the Royal Courts of Justice and the top of the London Eye ferris wheel. Their most brazen stunt came in May, when two F4J members hurled purple flour bombs at Prime Minister Tony Blair from the visitors' gallery in the House of Commons. In October 2002 in Madrid, two members of SOS Papa, a divorced-dads protest group, doused themselves with gasoline and set themselves alight outside the Cortes, the Spanish parliament building. (The men were wearing fireproof suits, so they weren't injured.) At the Colosseum in Rome last Saturday, a group called Papà Separati (Separated Fathers) held a small demonstration; some members turned up in Batman costumes in salute to Hatch. The French chapter of SOS Papa is more restrained, avoiding direct action but organizing marches every Father's Day.
"We Know You Hurt Your Kids" [Sept. 15, 2003]
Parents across the U.K. say that false child-abuse claims have destroyed their lives
Fathers of Contention [April 22, 2002]
German biotech firms are offering cheap and easy DNA paternity tests to suspicious would-be dads
Until Death Do Us Part [Aug. 11, 2003]
The tragedy of Marie Trintignant shows that domestic violence respects no social boundaries.
All in the Family . . . Or Not [Oct. 01, 2001]
Tradition is in retreat across Europe, where new and varied family structures are changing the way we live
Joint Custody Blues [Aug. 30, 2004]
After a bitter divorce, how can couples collaborate as parents?
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