Collateral Damage
The True Cost of a Family at War. You have picked up this book because you are in pain. You feel wronged, betrayed, and furious. You believe that you are right and the person you once loved is wrong. And you believe that the family court is the place to prove it. You see a judge as a referee who will watch the fight, declare you the winner, and award you the prize: your children, your house, your vindication.
This book is your reality check. It is not a guide to legal strategy. It will not teach you how to "win" in court, because in the war you are about to wage, the only possible outcome is that your child loses. This book is the conversation you need to have before you press the big red button. It is the dose of cold, hard truth you need before you do irreparable damage to the very people you claim to be protecting.
Availability
Read the Introduction
Introduction:
The Referee is Not Your Friend
The first letter arrived on a Tuesday. It was tucked between a takeaway menu and a bill, an unremarkable brown envelope that gave no hint of the detonation it contained. Inside, the formal, headed paper felt cold to the touch. It spoke of applications and hearings, of Form C100 and the Children Act 1989. For Mark, it was the starting gun. His overriding emotion wasn’t fear or even sadness; it was a hot, surging sense of vindication. Finally, he thought. Now everyone will see.
Across town, Sarah stared at her copy of the same letter, the paper trembling in her hand. Her feeling was a mirror image of Mark’s: a cold dread mixed with a furious, defensive anger. How dare he? she thought. After everything? He will not take them from me.
Their children, seven-year-old Chloe and ten-year-old Liam, knew nothing of the letters. They knew only that the house felt different. The air was thick with things unsaid, heavy with a tension that settled in their chests and made it hard to breathe...
[...] You have picked up this book because you are in pain. You feel wronged, betrayed, and furious. You believe that you are right and the person you once loved is wrong. And you believe that the family court is the place to prove it. You see a judge as a referee who will watch the fight, declare you the winner, and award you the prize: your children, your house, your vindication.
Let me be clear.
You are wrong.
You are standing at the edge of a machine that you do not understand, and you are about to feed your family into it. You think you are fighting for your child, but you are not. You are fighting for yourself. You are fighting for your ego, for your anger, for your hurt. And every single move you make in that fight is a move against your child.
[...] This book is your reality check. It is not a guide to legal strategy. It will not teach you how to "win" in court, because in the war you are about to wage, the only possible outcome is that your child loses... It’s time to choose.
Endorsements
"A vital, urgent warning for any parent considering court." - Family Law Professional