Geldof Family Scapbook

Wednesday, October 28, 1998 Published at 14:22 GMT 


Entertainment

Yates loses custody battle 

Paula Yates with daughter at Michael Hutchence's funeral 

The television presenter Paula Yates has lost the custody battle with her former husband, Bob Geldof, for their three children.

The former Boomtown Rats singer and Live Aid hero won the right to have the children with him for most of the year after a three-day hearing at the Family Division of the High Court, in London.

Fifi Trixibelle, 15, Peaches Honeyblossom, nine, and Pixie, eight, will live with the 45-year-old during term time.

Bob Geldof: Recently had to apologise on Xfm for announcing death of Ian Dury

During school holidays the children's time will be "divided equally" between the two parents, who both live in London.

The Official Solicitor's office, in central London, said following an appeal by the News Group organisation the Court of Appeal partially lifted reporting restrictions on the result of the hearing in June this year.

However, the grounds for the former singer, currently a presenter with radio station Xfm, now being granted primary custody of the children are confidential and cannot be revealed.

In a statement the Official Solicitor said arrangements by Miss Yates and her ex-husband may be varied by private agreements between them.

"Since the making of the order on June 16, Bob Geldof and Paula Yates have, following amicable discussions made certain variations.

"They have asked that the press do not enquire further into the arrangements for the children," a spokesman said.

The loss of the custody of her first three children is the latest upset in the life of the former Big Breakfast presenter.

Michael Hutchence: Hanged himself in a Sydney hotel

Miss Yates, 38, is also facing a possible custody battle over the future of Tiger Lily, her two-year-old daughter by rock star Michael Hutchence.

The INXS singer left Miss Yates devastated after he committed suicide in a hotel room in Sydney last year.

The child's grandfather Kell Hutchence has launched proceedings in Australia seeking sole custody of the couple's child after concerns over a new relationship Miss Yates began while being treated at a clinic for a nervous breakdown earlier this year.

She met Kingsley O'Keke, 26, during her stay but the pair broke up after a six-week romance. O'Keke later sold his story to a tabloid newspaper.

Last year she had to come to terms with the discovery that her biological father was Hughie Green, the creator and presenter of the television talent show Opportunity Knocks.

Until then she had always believed her father was Jess Yates, the Stars on Sunday presenter.

Mr Geldof, who has said in the past "I love my three children more than anything in the world," launched a campaign for the rights of divorced fathers in 1996.

SIR BOB GELDOF has slammed critics of FATHERS FOR JUSTICE who try and discredit the British lobby group by pointing out the former drug habits of its most prominent members.

Geldof is a long-time supporter of Fathers For Justice, who are campaigning to establish the same rights for dads as mothers receive under British law.

The group have shot to notoriety recently by staging a series of daring protests, in which members dress as superheroes and then climb up famous buildings with banners, most notably the residence of monarch QUEEN ELIZABETH II, Buckingham Palace.

But Geldof is appalled that some news agencies aren't sympathetic to their cause.

He says, "I've heard people on telly saying, 'Of course, Spiderman was a drug addict and a burglar.'

"What the f**k has that got to do with whether he's a good dad or not? He could be a great dad.

"But all he can do, pathetically in our society, to flag to his kid he's still thinking of him, is to climb a f**king bridge dressed as Spiderman.

"Well I think that's heroic."

27/05/2005 09:07

A message to Families Need Fathers from Bob Geldof

 

The forced removal of fathers from their children is hateful and it is done under the auspices of a law that is profoundly unjust. It is of course an oxymoron to have unjust law. It is also a moral nonsense and this law having failed will fall. It is your job to hasten that day.

While family law remains flagrantly biased, prejudicial, and discriminatory, when its effects are in direct opposition to its intent, when inalienable rights go unrecognised, when the administrators of that law exist in an exclusive world of secrecy and overweening state power, when the cost of the implementation of this law to the state is onerous and the cost to society unbearable, when judgement is ordained by the sentiment of past ages and while our men and our children are forced through this disgusting and baleful construct, cruelly and surely ironically called 'Family' law, to exist in a world of emptiness, pain, loss, yearning and grief then all efforts must be made to focus through debate, lobbying and campaigning to strike it down forever.

Every person who is part of this organisation should act politically. Organise groups in your areas to contact others affected. Write letters, keep the subject in your newspapers, agitate and lobby your MPs. Be visible in your pain but rational in your argument, be angered by your loss but use reason against the unreasonable and above everything be motivated by the love of your children.

This law can and will be changed. Use your agony and dismay. Channel it to action. Let every humiliation and tear move you forward so that no child nor man may suffer again what you have.

Good luck,

Bob Geldof

December 2003