THE Government plans to revise the law governing contact between children and their estranged parents (January 18).

What is desperately needed is a law that actively forbids the resident parent - usually the mother - from ignoring arrangements for the other parent to have generous and unsupervised contact with the children, on pain of severe penalty or even prison.

Why are women allowed to get away with inflicting distress and disappointment on fathers and children when it has been proven conclusively that children need both parents? Theresa May is right to say the present wishy-washy laws "lack teeth".

Another way of helping fathers claim their rightful contact is to ensure the family home is no longer considered the automatic domain of the wife, thereby forcing her husband to live in poorer accommodation, and be unable to care properly for his children when he has contact with them. Children need plenty of contact with their fathers, who should not, as is so often the case, be used merely as maintenance providers and allowed contact only when it suits the mother's need for a social life.

The "family injustice system" should be reviewed again and the essential changes brought into force as soon as possible.

Heather Causnett,

Escrick Park Gardens,

Escrick, York.

Updated: 11:35 Wednesday, January 26, 2005