The Law On Paternity
THE LAW ON PATERNITY
The law on paternity can be complex. It is governed by the Family Law Act (1986), The Child Support Act (1991), The Children’s Act (1989), and other acts which relate to parental interests.
If your ex-partner refuses to recognise you as the dad (either by agreeing to a declaration or by allowing your name to appear on the birth certificate) then your options are unfortunately limited. You will need to go through the process of establishing that you are indeed the father by means of DNA test.
The problem with this is the time and money it takes. To the ordinary man in the street, the legal and medical fees can be crippling. Dads that have been through this say that the process can take up to £20,000 and two years to complete. Of course, all the time this is happening you will probably not have any access to your child (and, to top it all, your ex-partner may be receiving on legal aid).
In these cases, the law errs on the side of caution, and will assume that you are not the real father. The principle of innocent until proven guilty does not translate to fathers. Yet again the law gives divorced dads second-rate treatment.
But you can do it, even though your ex has refused to acknowledge that you are the father. Even though it is a long battle, if you are indeed the father, then nothing can stop the inevitability of the legal decision going in your favour.
When the mother’s husband is not the child’s father
There is a legal presumption that a child born to a married mother is a child of the marriage, and the husband (who may not be the father) has parental responsibility. A man who, for example, split up with his partner because he thought she was sleeping around, and is not the father of the children of the marriage, faces an uphill task in disproving it. Not only does he have to pay child maintenance (normally via the CSA) during the period that he is disproving it but also, following a recent court ruling on blood tests, the mum can refuse to comply with an order to obtain a blood test, and delay the matter for many years.
