A FATHER has been jailed for four months after being filmed waving to
his children.
Mark Harris had been denied access to his three young daughters after a
dispute with his ex-wife.
But when he stood at the end of her road to wave and blow kisses to the
girls as they were driven to school, he was videoed by a private
detective acting for Mrs Harris.
Last week a judge jailed the divorced driving instructor for four
months for breaking the court order banning him from seeing his
children, Lisa, Laura, and Lindsey. Speaking from Exeter Prison last
night, 36-year-old Mr Harris, from Plympton, near Plymouth, said: 'I
was stunned when he said I was going to prison.
'I am the only man in here for a non-criminal offence.
'It means my business is destroyed and my daughters now know they have
a jailbird for a father.
'It is madness to send me here. I have no idea what the judge was
thinking.'
Mr Harris was divorced from wife Tania in 1993. Since then the couple
have been to court several times during an increasingly bitter dispute
over access to their daughters aged ten, eight and six. Finally, after
a dispute with his ex-wife's new partner, Mr Harris's twice weekly
access was withdrawn by a court. He said: 'I was desperate to see the
girls, to let them know that I still cared about them and had not
forgotten them.
'All I did was to stand on the roadside and blow a kiss and wave as
they drove by. How can that be worth sending a man to jail when real
criminals are getting let off every day?'
Mr Harris was unable to obtain another telephone card to call out again
last night and the prisoner governor refused permission for the Daily
Mail to telephone him.
But a spokesman for the Families Need Fathers organisation, which
fights for men's rights in family court disputes, said: 'We view this
decision as bordering on the insane. To take law abiding businessman
and lock him in lail for four months with criminals cannot be sane or
right.
'The problem is, as ever, that where there is a difficulty with access
it is always the father who suffers. There is an all pervasive
assumption that the mother is always right.
'All this has done is jail a perfectly decent man who wanted to see his
children. And who wouldn't?'
Mrs Harris's legal team argued that his appearences in Moorland Road,
Plympton, did not stop at waving and blowing kisses, but included
flashing his car's headlamps and following her and her children -
something Mr Harris denies.
Mark Harper, of the Solicitors' Family Law Association, said yesterday:
'If someone is in persistant breach of court order then the court has
power to jail someone for up to two years. In the light of this four
months is not too severe.'
But in a letter to a close friend, Mr Harris wrote: 'I only wanted my
children to know I still existed. ....'
Mark Harris Case No 93 D 1274
On friday 7-Nov-97 a father Mark Harris was jailed for 4 months for
harassment by Mr Justice Wilson, in Plymouth County Court. He
apparently harassed his wife by *waving to his children*, as his wife
drove by with his children in her car.
Mark was jailed for breaking an injunction laid down by Judge Wigmore
earlier. Mark committed 31 offences of 'harassment' between april and
july this year.
Unconfirmed reports are that the mother is legally aided and the
'incident' was videoed by a private detective. The question is why
are men sponsoring via our taxes this state abuse of ourselves.
What was the private detective doing there?
The mother's partner has been investigated for assaulting Mark's
children, the partner has made threats in court against Mark.
On Thursday 20-Nov-97 Mark's request to purge his contempt of court was refused by
Stephen Brown at the Royal courts of Justice, London, UK. Case number 93HCT1274
