Frequently Asked Questions

A public record of testimony. Fathers give an account of what happened to them in family courts and with police and child protection services. Each account is recorded privately, edited to protect people mentioned in each testimony, and published as an individual recording. Alongside them sits written analysis of what public data shows.

No. It cannot summon anyone, compel a document, or require anyone to answer a question. It makes no finding about whether an account is true. Nothing it publishes is evidence in any proceeding, and nothing it publishes is legal advice.

Fathers. That is the honest answer and it explains the purpose and the limits on this site.

No. It asks a question and publishes what it finds, including figures that weaken the argument a reader might expect it to be making. It has no position on what the law should say.

No. There is nothing on this site that asks for or accepts money.

Fathers, in the United States or Canada. That is a limit of what can be checked responsibly rather than a judgement about anywhere else.

Testimony is given by the father whose case it is. Someone else cannot give it on his behalf, even with the best intentions, because the account is about his private life and his children's, the documents that corroborate it are in his file, and only he has seen the orders that say what he may and may not say publicly.

No. Applying is not selection, and most applications do not become a recording. The number of recordings possible in a year is limited. Every applicant gets a reply from a person, including those who are declined, but the reply time depends on the availability of our resources.

It is deleted. This is said here, before you apply, so that you know it now rather than afterwards.

The full question set is published in the Rules of Procedure, in the order it is asked. You can read every question before deciding whether to apply.

You may also be asked other questions, because no two cases are the same and a list written in advance cannot anticipate what yours turns on. Any additional question follows the same rules as the published ones: it will not ask you to name anyone, and it will not ask for details about your children.

You can decline any question, and you do not have to say why. That applies to the published questions as much as to anything extra. Declining is not treated as evasion, it is not mentioned on the recording, and it makes no difference to whether your testimony is published. You can also stop the recording at any point.

No. Every witness is anonymous. This is not something you choose and there is no option to be named.

That is the one choice you make. Concealment is done at the time of recording – filmed as a silhouette, backlit, from behind, or audio over still images.

Be clear about what showing your face means. It defeats a search for your name and nothing else. Anyone who knows you will know you. If you are thinking about it, read How We Protect People first.

Because naming them is what makes an account unpublishable, and because they have not agreed to be described and cannot answer.

Accounts are generalised instead. "A court left a contact order unenforced for fourteen months" can be published. The same sentence naming the court, the judge and the county cannot, and removing the names afterwards does not fix it – what remains still points at one case.

This has a cost and it is worth being plain about it. Fathers' Inquiry can show that a pattern exists. It cannot hold any individual to account, and it does not try to.

Because detail is what identifies people. Dates, places, the sequence of hearings, the unusual feature of a case that makes it memorable – each is a thread someone could pull. Removing them is what makes publication possible at all, and it is why some accounts cannot be published even after editing.

No, and we will not try.

We do not know your case, we are not your lawyer, and a wrong answer from us would be paid for by you and your children, not by us. What we can do is tell you what we do and what we cannot do, and decline an account where we can see a risk. What we cannot do is assess your position for you.

Take advice from a lawyer in your own jurisdiction before you apply. Fathers' Inquiry does not pay for that advice and does not offer to.

If a publication ban, non-disclosure order, gag order, or a confidentiality or non-disparagement clause applies to you, the answer is no.

"I don't think there's an order" is not an answer we can accept. Most people do not know exactly what their own order says. We need the document, or written confirmation from your own lawyer.

No. Ongoing proceedings are out of scope. Speaking publicly during them can affect them, and the consequence falls on you.

No. What is already public cannot be made anonymous afterwards.

No. Documented expenses are a separate matter and are not a payment.

Yes. You see the exact recording that would be published and approve it before anything goes out, and nothing is published that you have not approved.

Before publication you have seven days from approving the exact recording. Withdraw for any reason or none, and nothing is published.

After publication you have fourteen days in which we will take it off this site on request, ask every platform holding a copy to remove it, and leave a notice rather than a dead link. After that we still consider requests and act where there is a safeguarding reason.

What we cannot do is retrieve copies people already downloaded or quoted. That is why the moment to act, if you think you might want to, is before publication rather than after.

At least 30 days from recording, and usually longer. A recording is published when every check is complete, and not before.

No release date is announced in advance. An announced date becomes pressure on a check, and a check that gets shortened is how a mistake reaches the public.

Then it is not published, and you are told why. This is a normal outcome, not a rare one.

It gets corrected, and the correction is visible rather than silent. The Publication & Correction Policy sets out how to raise one.

Fathers' Inquiry can remove a recording from this site and ask other platforms hosting copies to remove theirs.

It cannot retrieve what people have already downloaded, what others have quoted, or copies uploaded by people it has no relationship with. This is said before you record, not afterwards, because it is the part that cannot be undone.

No. Protection can always be increased. It cannot be reduced, including at your own later request, because removing it would expose your child and the other parent, who never agreed to any of this.

Every figure names its source, the year of the data, and what it counts, next to the figure itself. You can open the source without leaving the page.

Because every figure has one. A number without the complication that goes with it is a number waiting to be taken apart by the first person who checks it, and this record is meant to survive being checked.

Because leaving it out would mean a reader finds it somewhere else and discards everything else on the page. A record that only carries convenient numbers is an argument wearing a record's clothes.

A very small number of people, and the narrative you write is stored in a form the server cannot read. It is not browsable by anyone administering the website.

Only if it is safe to. The form asks whether it is safe to email you, and one of the answers is send me nothing at all. Choosing that is a supported outcome, not a failure.

If a shared inbox, a shared device or a lock-screen preview could expose you, say so on the form.

If you are struggling, talk to someone now rather than filling in a form.

United States and Canada: call or text 988. Canada: 1-833-456-4566.

These are not run by Fathers' Inquiry. They are staffed by people trained for this, and they are available whether or not you ever apply.