Last Thursday activists associated with the group New Fathers 4 Justice held a demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament lobbying for the rights of fathers to see their children after a divorce.

The protestors were dressed in Santa Claus costumes and were holding gifts representing presents they will not able to give to their children during Christmas. The activists stayed outside the Parliament until noon, at which point they marched up the Royal Mile.

According to Scottish law, a child’s mother gets priority as primary caregiver following a divorce, while the father frequently has to be assessed on their access to their children. One of the campaigners, David Hawksworth, told The Student, “What we are campaigning for is merely a right to have our children back.

"We have to be assessed if we are good enough to see our own flesh and blood.”

Having already raised two children, Mr Hawksworth was prohibited from seeing his third child after the mother moved to Dundee.

Earlier this year he was jailed for placing balloons outside his son’s school for his birthday, as his actions were described as “threatening” by Dundee police, as was reported in The Courier in June.

The New Fathers 4 Justice advocate an automatic presumption of equal contact with the children when the parents split up as a starting point, as is the case in other European countries such as Switzerland.

“In Scotland it is a financial issue” said Mr Hawksworth, “Imagine if such a law was implemented here: government would lose a huge amount of work places such as social workers, lawyers and so on.

“Our government still lives in the Victorian age, where a woman is seen as someone to look after children and manage the kitchen.”

The leaders of Grandparents Apart UK, the charitable organisation working closely with New Fathers 4 Justice, were also lobbying for their cause outside Parliament on that day. Jimmy Deuchar, leader of the campaign said, “At the moment, if one of the parents, or both of them, cannot support their child, social services interfere immediately and take over, without even consulting grandparents; strangers have more control over children’s lives than their family does.”

“We are campaigning for the Charter for Grandchildren to be legalised after it was proposed to the Parliament back in 2005. It would grant grandparents [the] right to take part in their grandchildren’s lives.”