October 11, 2014

"A British performing artist has been forced to shelve a book based on his experiences of childhood sexual abuse..."

"... after his ex-wife obtained an injunction to prevent their young son from reading it."
After a copy of the manuscript was leaked to [the mother], she brought proceedings on behalf of her son, who has Asperger syndrome, attention deficit disorder and a number of other health problems. [the mother] says that on divorce, she and her ex-husband agreed to a court order that requires them to attempt to prevent their child from discovering information about their past lives “which would have a detrimental effect on the child’s wellbeing.”...

[The lawyer for the mother and the son] said: “This is a very specific case which turns on its specific and unusual facts. These relate to a vulnerable child and his father, who has in the past recognised the need to protect his son from his own past history.”

Jo Glanville, director of English PEN, which works to defend the rights of writers, said: “This sets a worrying precedent for injuncting memoirs or any non-fiction that may expose or investigate the past, whether personal or political. It would allow anyone to cite the distress of a relative or friend as grounds for censorship.”

9 comments:

Carol said...

Aw, too bad. I'm sure the author just wants to raise awareness about these issues.

Anonymous said...

Also, an injunction to prevent the child from realizing that his existence shows that his parents had sex.

Achilles said...

The many faces of fascism.

Just use a pen name rather than allow a woman who is probably sucking up a good chunk of his income to further ruin his life.

traditionalguy said...

A conspiracy of silence is often practiced in families. It becomes the last defense in a ring of defenses put into place at great effort ( a law suit and appeals) to protect a sad human being who cannot face knowledge of who they really are. I smell a narcissist.

MayBee said...

Good way for the mom to protect her child, by making sure his medical conditions are published for the world to see.

My suspicion: the ex wife doesn't want the ex husband to make any money she can't get a piece of.

William said...

The notoriety of the case should help book sales.....How long before the name of the performer is leaked?

MadisonMan said...

Wait a minute -- it seems to me that the mother is just having the divorce agreement enforced. How is that anything but self-censorship? Presumably the guy agreed to it a while back.

Joe said...

The question for me is why did the parties agree to the original court order in the first place?

One explanation is that both parties have closets full of skeletons and were trying to prevent the other from using that information in court and/or to embarrass the other.

I seriously doubt this has anything to do with the son.

cubanbob said...

Joe said...
The question for me is why did the parties agree to the original court order in the first place?

One explanation is that both parties have closets full of skeletons and were trying to prevent the other from using that information in court and/or to embarrass the other.

I seriously doubt this has anything to do with the son.

10/11/14, 11:47 AM"

But of course. As for the father, if he really is concerned about his son then why publish what you agreed with your ex-wife would be harmful to your son? So how much money was the advance? Lets get to the real issue at hand and how much of it the ex-wife isn't going to get if published.