You're listening to MEN radio station, where men really talk. It's a heck of a show today, I gotta be honest with you. It really is. I'm not patting myself on the back. It's nothing to do with me. It's the quality of the guests. I'm just. I'm just a conduit. Is that the right word? You are the star of the show. No, it would not be a good show. I don't go with that. If you know anything about me, you know, I don't think like that. Oli Lester, who managed to go to Nepal and sit there for 10 hours a day. It's very, very interesting stuff. We're going to come back to you in a second, Ollie, and thank you for joining us. And Michael Lefkowitz, director of communications for Families Need Dads. We were saying just before the break and paying the rent, obviously, that some of these. The way to get. Let's see if I've got this right, the way to get legal aid is to say I've been threatened, I've been this. Or I've been abused, or I've been assaulted. Right. And as long as you sign it, you get the legal aid and then you can go to court. And then you're saying, and that whole foundation for which you managed to get doesn't even come up in the case. It's not even discussed. So scams is a harsh word, but we're not a million miles away from it. And you were saying when we were listening to the ads that there's no kind of status quo, whereby if you found out that that wasn't so, you're not fined or, you know, your legal aid's not stopping. No, no. I mean, the family court doesn't see it as its job to try to punish and penalize people if you've done something wrong. All they're trying to establish is are you safe for the children to be with? And once they've established that actually the allegation was malicious and therefore you are safe for the children to visit you, then that's all the court is concerned with. But what the trouble is that when nobody actually takes any action in relation to. And there's no repercussions for statements for perjury, in making such statements, then it creates culture. Why isn't it. Because you are committing perjury, you're destroying someone's reputation. It could presumably have a huge effect on. And I don't like to generalize, I assume majority of cases, it's the mother or the wife or the ex partner making the allegation about the man. I'm guessing it is usually fair enough. So it's very unfair. It is very unfair. And, you know, the balance hasn't been struck correctly. So there is a, you know, you have to have a balance between protecting genuine victims and their children and also making sure that you protect the real victims of false allegations, of malicious allegations. And there needs to be an equality of arms in these situations that you can't have a situation, justifiably unjust situation, where the accuser gets the legal support and help, whereas the accused, who may be innocent and actually the real victim is having to fend for themselves, having never been in a courtroom in their life, suddenly they're in front of a judge trying to demonstrate their innocence and prove their innocence as opposed to somebody having to demonstrate their guilt. So it's a frightful, frightful situation for people to be in without putting. And very stressful, obviously. Huge, hugely stressful, which could lead to appalling and dramatic effects. Now, without putting words into your mouth, let me just put this, let me kind of go around the edges of it. When they introduced no win, no fee, all of this nonsense, the amount of cases, especially with traffic, and I was a victim of this, I used the word victim because it was three years to get rid of this idiot and a full day in court with barristers and everything. The whole thing was completely spurious and it was thrown out after three years and a full day in court. We saw all this. People just think, well, I've got nothing to lose and I'm going to get some money at the end of this. And the lawyers who were completely culpable of bringing in this sort of thing, which I've always found disgraceful, no win, no fee, especially when it's used to that degree, is that sneaking into the very, very mucky and very emotional area of divorce and child custody cases. I wouldn't want to say that all lawyers are doing this kind of thing. No, we're not saying all, but there is certainly evidence to suggest that there are law firms that are exploiting the current system to try to ensure that they can get themselves fees and their clients legal support when there's spurious or no real evidence base for that happening. And the evidence we have for that is that one of our volunteers did a massive analysis of freedom of access information requests about the number of non molestation orders, these injunctive orders that are a route to legal aid, and how often those were being applied for in different parts of the country. And what happened since the change in the legislation and what we found that, for example, in. In the West Midlands has been more than a doubling in the number of those applications. Now, our very clever volunteer then saw even further freedom of access information requests, where he got information about individual law firms that were making these applications and found that the huge rise, in the Midlands in particular, but there are other parts of the country too, was being driven by just a very small number of legal practices. So we know it's happening and we know that the system is being gamed, a term that actually the former President of the Family Division, Sir James Mundy, had actually said on the record that we know that the system is being gamed. And that is. So there is knowledge of this, but there is not sufficient action about it. So it is a major, major problem. Imagine yourself in a scenario where. Where suddenly you've got a piece of paper come through your door saying that somebody's made an allegation against you. You're not allowed to see your children, you're not allowed to go near their home, and if you're completely innocent of that, and then you've got a hearing, you don't know what's happening, you don't have a lawyer, and they have a lawyer who will be able to articulate that on their behalf. And they are funded and supported because they're not interested in the truth. What they're interested in is. Is the revenue and the bottom line and making their bonuses. Putting it crudely, one of the things I like to do here and we try and bring in, is three top tips. And the reason we do that is because all our guests come from such different walks of life and have different areas of expertise, and we find that, you know, the top tips can be very, very helpful. So, Ollie, I'm going to give you, Michael, some time to think. Ollie, and it might be a bit easier for you, especially because of what you do and everything. What would be your top tips? One, for me that I practice is getting outside early in the morning, regardless of the weather, and be exposed to morning sunlight. Because what that does is set up your circadian rhythm. It wakes you up and it puts you in tune with the sun. And then in that case, you're then, in theory, going to be more tired in the. Even, you know, your. Your sleep is paramount. And what I've learned, you have to prioritize your sleep. And one of the ways of waking you up in the morning and making you tired in the evening is Morning sunlight. But, but I'm not being facetious, I mean this genuinely, you know, live in London, don't always see the sunlight. Yeah. Often cloudy. So I should go outside under the clouds. Yeah. Really? It's more. Yeah. Even that is rainy wakes you up. Yeah, definitely. Just being outdoors. You don't do this. No, but he's not. He's right. How do you know? How do you. What you suddenly know? Because. Well, the circadian rhythm is your sleep cycle which is governed by the light dark. And that's what your brain responds to, being awake and being asleep. So being up in the morning, going outside and getting a bit of sunlight to say, okay, I am awake now. Then later on in the day when it's dark, your brain will go, now, I'm asleep now. So it does make sense. He's not like, he's. What if you've got to watch and binge watch like all the episodes of Line of Duty. Well then that's three in the morning. That's an exception to the rule. And you're thinking, that's me. I suddenly think, oh, I gotta watch that. What I do want to ask is, what about if you have to work at funny hours? Say for example, you have to get up at like 10. So in the morning to do BBC, for example. For example. Yeah. So if you've got to get up at 2 in the morning to the BBC, kind of. What's your trick then? To get in that little bit of sunlight to kind of help your circadian rhythm. Yeah, that's tricky. It does depend on the individual's lifestyle. But prioritizing sleep, regardless of your work shift is essential. Sleep is the most important. It's like a performance enhancing drug. And when you're feeling so much in my life suddenly. Yeah. It's one thing that's drastically overlooked because it doesn't. Doesn't sound very exciting. And it's free as well. And you can't train somebody. We can't sell anything to really enhance your sleep. Well, you can get these blue blocking glasses now, which I haven't got. But if you're watching screens in the evening, the glasses sort of shield your eyes from this fake light and. Because the fake light tells your brain it's daylight. Yes. And that will inhibit your ability to fall asleep. And it's one of the worst things to do, isn't it, before you go to sleep is to be on your phone or be on your laptop half an hour before get away. Yeah. Nothing like being a writer. Then when you're writing to schedule. Exactly. And you're cramming in the. Yeah, I'm sitting there. I mean, I would never do that, obviously. Right, that's top tip number one. So how many hours sleep should we be getting? Seven to nine hours, depending on what your. Your schedules are. And three to four? Well, you know, that's kind of it. Yeah, that's it for me. I'm done. Top tip number two. Number two. I love these, James. It's good. You know, we feel like geniuses in the morning. I would encourage people to leave their phone on airplane mode or turn it off for as long as possible. I try and do the first hour of my day for an hour without switching my phone on, giving myself the time and space to sort of curate. Ollie, Ollie. Do you know how frustrating it is when you have something urgent to say to the producer and, oh, my phone was off. Right. You're going to get a circadian rhythm shoved somewhere, mate, if I don't get hold of you. I'm not so bad. Howard. Howard. When you. Howard, he can't get hold of you. The feathers on his hat vibrate. There's no Howard not getting a hold of you. He will get a hold of you somehow. I totally agree. Like, you want to throw yourself into your work and get stuff done and then all this nonsense comes up on your phone, but people do need to get hold of you. I don't have many spurious calls. It's. Normally that's a. That's a really, really good tip, but it's a really, really hard tip to execute. Yeah. You know, and getting up in the morning, getting some sunlight, anyone can kind of do that. But it's like you said, switching the phone off is like. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's. It's, you know, start small. If you can do the first 15 minutes, say whatever works for you, and then you can exercise, get outside, read a bit of uplifting content, read a book or meditate or breathe or whatever. It's just curating your body and mind into the. Into a positive start rather than into reactive start, which is what you would do if you're certainly looking at your phone immediately when you're. You haven't even got out of bed and your world is sort of shouting at you. Here's one we do. I'm so sorry. It's so interesting. Sorry, James. But it's so interesting what you say that the world is shouting at you because we don't have the time to live our lives so often. And I really do feel that. And yet when I think I've just, I'll screw this. And I switch the phone off and then you get people, I'm trying to get hold of you. I said, I switched my phone off. What do you mean you switch your phone off? I said, well, I think I didn't go out and shoot someone in the head. All I did was switch my phone off. It's not a capital crime. I just wanted some peace for a minute. What about if you kind of switch the TV on in the morning? It's kind of what I do. I wake up when I put the TV on and I kind of watch like GMTV or something. Oh, poor you. Yeah, I mean, I mighty. My relationship to the news has changed since I've had this experience in Asia because I just don't like watching negative news stories. I won't watch it, I don't watch the news, but it's just, I won't watch the news, listen to the news. I just put it on in the morning and I'll be like brushing my teeth and I just have the light news on and I'm kind of not really paying attention to it, but it's just sort of there. But obviously that kind of conflicts with the idea of the work because that is like the world just starts shouting at you, doesn't it? I mean, all these things have happened. It never has anything good to say. No, exactly. So my preferred sort of content in the morning is listening to podcasts and I can again curate the content and curate who I listen to. And they're always positive, uplifting stuff consumption today. Nothing to do with. You smoke like a chimney. Not at all. Nothing to do with that. Thank God they're not linked because only an idiot like myself would think there might be a link between you coughing for three hours and smoking like a chimney. Right. I like that idea and oddly enough, I totally agree. Michael, when you wake up, what's your. I'm telling you to shut up. That's the rule. If you don't like the question, don't bother to answer it. It's not Radio 4 for goodness. So, you know, I've asked you, so I want you to answer and all that crap. So do you have a routine when you wake up? Yes, I get up a cup of tea straight away. Lovely. And I do watch the news and I do also plug. I know I shouldn't, I probably, but I plug into my computer and see what's been going on in the world overnight. But you know, I'm director of communications. How am I supposed to do my job if I don't know what the press are publishing on relevant subjects. So. No, you have, you totally have to do that. The twittersphere wakes up. It does wake up. It's very difficult. It's a good tip. But it's a hard tip, isn't it? Start small, just give yourself, whether it's five minutes, start with that and you can do some press ups or stretching or whatever you want to do. Ollie, Ollie, look at me, look at me. Look at James. Do you think the word press ups features heavily in our conversation? You know, you can start small though. It's just, just getting out of bed, mate. It's like if I, I wake up, oh, I'm still alive. Okay, we can work, we can build from that tip. What's your tip number? Three? Yeah, some kind of movement, whatever that means to you. I'm not saying go to the gym, I'm not saying run for 10Ks, but a simple walk around the block, stretching the dog. Yeah, I mean we love walking the dog. Exactly. Whatever that means to you. And if you can do it outside, the better because you're killing two birds. Once you're Mr. Keep Fit, Apart from keeping mentally fit, you are keep fit. I've got a big question for you because I have twin boys, as I often mention, and one of them is a total gym bunny. Has to be in everyday, really, really serious. And he is built like a WWE wrestler. Unbelievable. Six foot three. And he says to me, dad, you're wasting. I said, I'm walking this like I'm a Fitbit. I'm not giving that plug, but you know, I can see how far I'm walking. He says, you're wasting your time. I said, what are you wasting my time? He says, why are you wasting your time? Because unless you're sweating and your heart's pumping, I said, are you telling me that all my walking that I like doing is nonsense? Yeah, it's rubbish. Forget it. Boy, the kids, they don't have them. Really. Don't even bother. If you're thinking about don't even bother them, just don't save yourself a fortune, Buy a Ferrari, whatever makes you feel good. And walking the dog is brilliant. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm not wasting my time. Yeah, exactly. Is that helping me with my health? Yes, thank you. Giving your time. You know, it's prioritizing a bit of me time, isn't it? And that, that's amazing because the dog needs a walk. But I, I enjoy it very much. I love it. I Like going outside. I like the view. I like wandering around. Yeah, but it's not going to make. I get where you. I get where your son is coming from. Oh, that's right side with him. You kids, the millennials. We have to work together. You millennials all stick together. Why don't you go on now? What? But it's because I'm fascinated to hear your view. Isn't there something about. I mean, I'm not the fittest person in the world, that's for sure. Definitely not. But is there something to do with, like, you got, you know, got to get the heart pumping if you really want to, like, get fit, you know what I mean? That makes a difference. And yeah, whether that's. You have to sweat. Hey, James, do you want to get the heart pumping? Read my post every day. Just open the envelopes. My heart comes in my mouth, it's a brown envelope. Right, but still read our post. Well, yes. Right, Michael, you've had time to think, Mr. Director of Communications. So your top three tips. Can I start with a plug? I'd like you. And also I always, always encourage all our guests, plug away. Thank you. No problem with it. Well, first of all, if you are finding yourself with difficulties in your relationship, whether you've already left the family home or whether you're still in the family home, come to a Families Need Fathers branch meeting. We have 30 local meetings all over the country. The details are on our website, www.fnf.nf fnf.org.uk which stands for Families Need Fathers under Help and Support. There's a section about local meetings and go and get some help. You'll get some help in terms of just getting yourself into a better place mentally. And you'll get a steer about some really important do's and don'ts because of much of what goes wrong in the very early part of family disputes. And if you can get that onto a better footing, you've got a far better chance as the whole, as your separation unfolds. So that would be sort of number one. Don't try to do it alone. Don't make assumptions about how it's going to work in your favour or not work in your favour. Just because you feel you've got justice on your side doesn't mean you're going to get a quick resolution and you can make a lot of mistakes on the way. So get some help. That's interesting. And if you can't get www. Let's see if I got this right. Fnf.org.org.org fnf.org.uk so that would be, I think, number one, get that help. Secondly, a couple of sort of real do's and don'ts. Some of the big mistakes that people make. If you receive a message from your ex partner, you're no longer living together and it says, don't contact me, don't email me, don't phone me, don't text me. The answer is don't. However much you think you might be in the right, you want to see your kids, well, of course you do and you should be in the right to be able to do that. But if you've been told not to get in touch and you don't already, don't still live with the children and the children's mother, then it only takes two texts saying I want to see the kids at the weekend and you can have an injunction, a very tough injunction put up against you for harassment and then you'll be back in court trying to defend yourself for a harassment allegation with having done relatively little other than try to see your kids. So don't do it. That's ridiculous. Oh my. I'm shocked. It is terrifying. It is shocking, isn't it? It is terrifying. I literally had. Thank God for once I could say I had no idea. Yeah, well, that's exactly the point. Nobody does know that. How little it is takes for somebody to be able to get you into someone. So that's harassing. Can I see the kids on Saturday? Send it twice. And if you've been told I don't want to hear from you and you have then contacted, you will be done for harassment. So be very, very careful. If you're in a situation where you've been told that you must, that somebody doesn't want to be contacted, then your options are go to a mediator, the mediator can contact them, a lawyer can contact them or you make an application to a family court and then the family court will see in the human dimension of this, Michael. I don't know where you stand on this, Ollie, but the human dimension of this, the ex wife or partner these days can say, don't contact me under any circumstances and then could could turn around to the children. So daddy doesn't want to see you anymore. And Daddy meanwhile is eating the wallpaper with frustration and banging his head against the wall because he wants to see his kids. And this happens a great deal. About two thirds of the people who come to us complain about what we call alienating behavior. And this is an example of alienating behavior when you involve the children directly, either by actively bad mouthing parents to them so that they start to get a negative impression, saying things which are not true to them, or sometimes it can be quite subtle. You know, the children, it might be that they, they're coming to see dad at the weekend. They come, they have a fantastic time and then they go back to mums and mum says, well, how did you, how was your visit? And they'll say, oh, it was great. We went to the fun fair, we did all these great things. We watched a film, ate chocolate, had ice cream. Yeah, we had chocolate. We went to, you know, whichever favorite restaurant of theirs and, and if Mum responds, it could be dad too, but it's usually Mum by bursting into tears, crying, being upset. The next thing you know, next time that the child goes to see their dad and they come home and the child doesn't want to see their mum upset and crying. So when they're asked next time, so how was it when you went to dad? And I said, oh, it was boring. Oh, it was fine. Good, yeah, we didn't do anything. In fact, a friend of his phoned him and he spent all day, he spent three hours on the phone, actually. He might have taken a call for two minutes or five seconds, even said, I'm busy with my kids, call me back. But actually the child now takes that little memory and takes it back home and says, oh, we did nothing. He spent all the time on the phone. So the next thing is that a false belief starts to take over where the parent with care, usually Mum, starts to think, oh, that's terrible, my child isn't even having a nice time. But actually what's happening is that the child is trying to protect their mother from the upset, from the visible upset. So they're actually taking, they're shouldering the burden of protecting their main carer because they've already lost a parent, they don't want to lose a second one. This is so awful and I'm not going to do it. Don't panic, James. But Philip Larkin so summed it up, didn't he, with the opening line of his poem. He was spot on. Right, so now that we're all thoroughly depressed, I'm shocked. I had. No, I'm absolutely shocked, rigid by what you've been saying today, Michael. I really am. I'm encouraged by you, I know I take the mic, but I've been very encouraged by you and I would try, try to incorporate some stuff, Ollie. But Michael, you've You've, you've actually shocked us. I always ask, if you haven't had a horrible time, would you consider coming back? Would you like to come back and there's more to talk about. You've got lots more to talk about. You've got loads to talk about. Right, right. You could give some tips to baby people who are kind of at the point of feeling suicidal. But Michael, I've played your game many times before, having been director of communications elsewhere. Don't try and think you're going to get away with it. I want your three top tips. Well, I've given a couple. I think the other one would be don't leave it for too long. In other words, try to make progress out of court. That would be a tip. Try to come to some agreement. If you've still got sufficient communication going on, then write a nice letter, do something, keep a copy, but write a nice letter and try to see what a world. Try to write letter, but keep a copy. I know, you're absolutely right, but I'm afraid in the business that we're in, we have learned that actually you've got to keep military grade records. I'm afraid you've really got to keep records of everything. If your kids are with you, you're having a great time, make a note of what you've done with them, what you've done. Seriously. Absolutely. If you're. What sort of. If your ex is particularly horrible, unpleasant, really doesn't like you or your new partner or whatever it is, and they're going to try and fight you tooth and nail. And by the way, in these separation cases, a very large proportion of them happen when either your ex gets a new boyfriend or when you get a new boyfriend or, you know, that's when a lot of the problems tend to start. But when they do, you really do need to keep good records. Not necessarily what you're going to. I'm serious. I want to drill down just for a sec because time is running away. When you say good records, what are you keeping a diary? Are you keeping a journal? What should people do? A diary, Perfect. Keep a diary of when, what's said to whom, how the tone of it, the words that are being said. Have you been when your children are with you, Make a note of where you've gone, what you've done. I can't tell you how you've done. And I know that sounds really terrible. No, it doesn't sound terrible. I just hate the whole thing. I mean, you know, and it shouldn't be Necessary and it shouldn't be necessary, but we have an adversarial family justice system which means that it pits people up against each other and you've got perhaps lawyers on one or both sides who are going to try and put the worst, paint the worst picture of each other. Family separation is just from the get go is a messy thing. You know, as a child of divorce, I can just tell you that it was never like easy, you know what I mean? There was never an easy interaction between mum and dad. So it's like, and then when you've got these people in their ears saying, oh, you can get more time with the kids if you say this or you do, you know, it just makes it even harder. So it's just been rough for you? Jay Joking I know I josh with you all the time. That's our relationship. Has it been hard for you listening to this? It's been very interesting because, you know, I always thought I had coming from divorce was quite bad but I have a feeling that there's way worse out there because there was no need for diaries, there was no need for military gate evidence. There might have been the odd spat here or there about, oh, you dropped him off a bit late, whatever, but there was no like, none of this, you know what I mean? So it's kind of actually made it a bit easier, I guess. I didn't think and I suddenly, I was sitting here thinking, oh, wait a minute, I don't want to, I don't want to tread on James's emotions here. You think I think like that. But actually it's made it easier. But don't get me wrong, I mean about, you know, about 50, 60% of people manage to come to solutions without going to family courts, but you've got the 40 to 50% who do end up in the family justice system. And then if you haven't got good information, if you've got good records, then when you're asked to give a statement it will be credible, authoritative, truthful and it will have credibility by the detail that's there and the fact that you've got something that you can demonstrate. On the other hand, if you're a bit slapdash about it, the work is going to be, you're going to have your work cut out for you because the other side is possibly going to have a lawyer and they're going to track as many things as they can at you. So definitely keep good records and, and, and yes, and in the corporate world we used to do CYI memos Cover your ass memos, which was way before, even before email, we used to do that. Send them. Oh, yes. Stop that. Sorry. What's that matter with you? Sorry. Jeez. I'm having word with your mother afterwards. So we do that. So I really. I get that. I was horrified because you're talking about children. It's so emotional, but I get it. Right. Oli Lester, Mr. Keep fit. If people want to get hold of you, how do they do that? Yeah, my website is just ollilester.co.uk and I offer a free O double L Y everybody. That's right. And I offer free sort of 45 minutes or an hour discovery session, really, to find out how their health is now, why they can't get healthier. Because a lot of chronic diseases today are just lifestyle choices. And what I try and do slowly and surely is try and. Yeah, up level and upgrade these little. I'm based in Bournemouth but my coaching can be done over the phone or Skype and I've just plug the UK Health Coaches association as well, which I am a member and. Yeah, hiring a health coach. What do they do? Yeah, like you. It's. Yeah. Bigger. A lot of health coaches there and it's essentially you're hiring somebody to. Yeah. Like make you an expert in your own health and it's a shortcut to good health. And rather than suppressing these unhealthy symptoms with taking a lot of pills for a long time, it's steering the ship in a healthier direction. I've got cameras in my house or something. What's going on? I don't like the way, you know everything that I'm doing. What a day we have had today. My thanks to Oli Lester. Ollie, you're too good looking and getting on my nerves, quite frankly. Please, you're going. Michael Lefkowitz. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you. That's my singular pleasure. Director of Communications for Families Need Fathers. It's been eye opening listening to you and Dan Reinstein, who was just amazing for his eyes, and Justin Stoneman as well. Do I have time to give our helpline number? Oh, go on. Very quickly, very quickly. 0300-3003-6303-0030-0363. Thank you as ever to James rocking the desk and to James, Mum for just being James's mum and providing comedy and falling over with great comic timing. I'm Russ Kane. Until we're together again. Have fun.