For several years now I have been writing about the impending threat to fatherhood. I gather there is a view that I write only out of anger relating to the circumstances surrounding my relationship with my own daughter.

In fact, I write as a human being inhabiting the world I write about, but also as a writer and journalist charged with drawing public attention to things that are wrong with that world. What fatherhood has given me is a high degree of empathy with those men who have lost, or are losing, their children.

Although there is a concerted attempt to present my writing on this subject as over the top, the truth is that I have been over-cautious. I have been timid, with the result that some people have been wondering what on Earth I was going on about.

The following stories, based on interviews with the subjects, reveal in stark detail what the problems are. In keeping with the in camera rule that restricts reporting of family law cases, I have changed names, locations and minor details, so as to protect the innocent, the guilty and myself.