Father fighting for equal parenting rights takes his battle across the country

‘The best parenting is equal parenting,’ he says.

A simple statement which - for a lot of parents - seems like the obvious and more preferable choice for any child.

However for Simon Cobb, and many parents like him, this is not the reality they face when trying to obtain 50/50 custody of their children.

Entrepreneur and father-of-one, Simon, has always had a strong bond with his eight-year-old son Arlo.

Having encountered issues with seeing Arlo, after his previous relationship ended in 2016, Simon was forced to fight for access and while he now shares joint custody of his son, he knows he is one of the ‘lucky ones.’

Many others don’t have the same experience.

‘Within a year I got back to 50/50 contact with my son and since then I’ve just continued to help and support people in a similar situation,’ says Simon

The circumstances around Simon’s previous relationship soon became the drive behind setting up his organisation - PAPA (People Against Parental Alienation).

PAPA is a gender neutral forum which offers free coaching, advice and support.

‘I started PAPA, basically, to get some advice for myself and also to help others.’ says Simon.

Despite this positive outcome, Simon has made various sacrifices to ensure a stable relationship with son Arlo, including living 180 miles from his home town and where he grew up in Paulsgrove.

‘I’ve always always wanted to return home to Portsmouth, but I can’t leave my son and it’s not easy,’ he says.

‘A lot of people that come to me are seen as “not being part of their children's lives”, but actually they want to be, they just don't know what to do or how to get the resources,’ he adds.

Simon’s started PAPA in 2016 and has continued to lobby and spread awareness of the issue, lending support to parents in a similar situation.

‘For me, that's the purpose of the campaign, to change small legislative barriers, to make it an even playing field,’ he says.

‘If both parents want to be equally involved, there should be that opportunity.’

Since then, the campaign has gained more and more traction, gaining more than 21,000 members on Facebook and racking up more than 29,000 followers on Instagram, with Simon set to launch his own PAPA website on April 25.

‘I’m having conversations with MPs about the barriers that I’ve come across and I’ve known other people to come across and what can be done about it,’ he says.

Simon has been taking the PAPA Equal Parenting Campaign to major cities across the UK and had already visited 10 towns and cities to spread awareness, before Covid struck.

‘From my experience and what I've witnessed, the system is just designed to provide for one of two parents,’ says Simon.

The campaign advocates that child support is for absent parents, not failed relationships, something which often plays a part in the inequality.

‘At the moment, it’s automatically assumed that the mother should have full custody. The less a parent sees a child, the more child support they have to pay – making it likely that children are used as bargaining tools.’

Simon says that his campaign message is often misconstrued and his one simple aim is this: ‘To encourage legislative change which makes it far easier for loving parents to be allowed an equal say and equal rights when it comes to their children.’

PAPA is centred around what is important for the child and in Simon’s experience, in some of the most harsh custody scenarios, it is the children who suffer most.

‘What I've seen happen a lot, is that a mother will purposely leave the father off the birth certificate, because they don't want them to have anything to do with the child.’

‘The father then has to go to court to prove he’s the father, taking anything from a month to a year and thousands of pounds just to get that DNA test,’ he adds.

While he has found that system is often in favour of the mother, PAPA is an inclusive campaign as Simon is well aware that any parent can undergo the long and costly legal battles to be able to see their children.

‘By that point that child's been without that parent for a year, maybe longer,’ he says.

‘There's a lot of people that don’t have the money, what chance have they got to be part of their children's lives, if they can't afford to go to court?’

Simon, who never met his own biological father, knows all too well that ‘deadbeat dads’ do exist, but he hopes to change the system which he believes ‘perpetuates that stereotype.’

‘If that father was given equal rights straight away, maybe they would be more involved,’ says Simon.

A scenario Simon sees often is false accusations of domestic violence, in the case of low-income families who can’t afford legal aid, which is offered free-of-charge to victims of domestic violence.

‘Of course they can be true, but there's times when they're not and I’ve seen people go a year, two years proving they’re wrong and that’s two years that child's gone without a parent,’ he says.

While Simon admits freely he is not legally trained, he provides advice and mentoring to those going through a similar situation and often attends court with members of PAPA for moral support.

‘If someone has been accused of domestic violence, and they start to get angry that they can’t see their kid, even if it’s not true, that doesn't look good,’ he says.

‘I try to give basic advice on how to self-represent, you have to be able to control your emotions and just focus on the child’s best interest,’ he says.

With continuous contact and a ‘great’ relationship with his son Arlo, Simon is no longer fighting for himself.

‘I got what I wanted a long time ago, but I don’t want anyone else to go through what I went through,’ he says.

While it’s a tough battle to take on - one that many he’s come across have given up on - Simon is not willing to let it go.

‘I won’t leave it alone, the more good outcomes I can get for others, then it’s worth it,’ he says.

‘If enough people speak up, and have their stories heard, then there’s more chance for that change to happen.’