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Five Per Cent Was Real Enough. Is a Father's Despair?

Writer: Charley Bickers
Charley Bickers
3 days ago
5 min read

The Supreme Court said a suicide risk of about 5% was "real" enough to put the right to life in play. So what does the state owe a father whose despair it already knows about?

Five per cent.

That's not a big number. Most of us would call it unlikely. A long shot. Nothing to worry about.

The UK Supreme Court didn't see it that way.

In 2012, in Rabone v Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, it held that a risk the trust's own expert put at about 5% was a REAL risk to life. Real enough that the state had a duty to act on it.

So here's my question. If 5% is real when the patient is in a hospital, what is it when the man is standing in a family court?

What happened in Rabone

A young woman was being treated in hospital for severe depression as a voluntary patient. She wasn't detained under the Mental Health Act. She had been assessed as a high risk of suicide. The hospital let her go home on two days' leave, and she died during that leave.

The trust admitted negligence. The question for the Supreme Court was bigger: did the trust also owe her a duty under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to life?

The Supreme Court said YES. Five Justices, unanimous.

Lord Dyson gave the main judgment. The trust had "assumed responsibility for her". She was "extremely vulnerable". And the risk to her life was "real and immediate" (paras 34, 38 and 41). The trust "failed to do all that could reasonably have been expected to prevent the real and immediate risk" (para 43). Her parents won their appeal.

The 5%: paragraph 35, in the court's own words

This is the bit that matters. At paragraph 35, the Supreme Court set out what the trial judge, Simon J, had accepted:

"Simon J accepted the evidence of Dr Caplan (the trust's expert psychiatrist) that the risk of suicide was approximately 5% on 19 April … increasing to 10% on 20 April and 20% on 21 April. The judge said that the risk was "low to moderate (but nevertheless, significant)"."

Read that again. The TRUST'S OWN EXPERT. About 5% on the day she left hospital.

And what did the Supreme Court make of it? Paragraph 38:

"On the evidence of Dr Caplan, it was a substantial or significant risk and not a remote or fanciful one."

The courts below, Lord Dyson said, "were clearly right" to call the risk "real".

The trust argued there had to be a "likelihood or fairly high degree of risk". Lord Dyson rejected that outright: "I have seen no support for this test in the Strasbourg jurisprudence" (para 38).

So a real risk doesn't have to be likely. It doesn't have to be 50/50. It doesn't even have to be 1 in 10.

It has to be "not a remote or fanciful one". That's the test.

Now look at the family court

A separated father tells Cafcass he can't go on without his kids. He tells the police. He says it in his statement. He says it to the judge.

Is that "remote"? Is that "fanciful"?

Or is it exactly the kind of warning the right to life is meant to catch?

Here's what we know. In 15 years, suicide killed 7.4 million men, more than every COVID death ever reported to WHO (7.1 million). And that's only what was counted. Just 80 of 194 countries record suicide properly, and in India official figures missed at least 1 in 4 male suicides. The real toll is far higher.

Closer to home, nearly 15 men a day take their own lives across the UK. Dads, sons, brothers, uncles and friends.

And separated fathers? In a 2025 survey of fathers who came to Both Parents Matter for help, 37.3% (85 of 228) had had suicidal thoughts. That's self-selected dads who were already asking for help, not every father. So how many of them had already said it out loud to Cafcass, the police or a court? NOBODY COUNTS.

Be straight about what the law says

No court has yet applied Rabone to a family court contact decision. Not one. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Rabone turned on particular things. The state had taken responsibility for a vulnerable person. It had control over her: if she had insisted on leaving, the hospital could have used its powers to stop her (para 34). And it knew the risk.

A family court doesn't admit a father to a ward. Cafcass doesn't detain him. The police don't hold the keys to his front door.

But the Supreme Court also said something that matters here. Responsibility and control are not the only route. The Strasbourg court has found a breach "even where there has been no assumption of control by the state", where a body knew someone vulnerable was at risk and had the power to protect them (para 23, citing Z v United Kingdom, a case about a local authority and children it knew were being abused).

So the honest question isn't "has a court said this?" It hasn't.

The honest question is: SHOULD ONE?

The questions nobody is asking

When a father's despair is written down in a Cafcass report, is it ever treated as a risk to HIS life? Or only as a reason to keep him away?

When the police log a dad saying he's at breaking point, does anyone assess it the way a hospital would have to?

When a family court makes an order it knows will cut a father off from his children, does anyone in the room ask whether a 5% risk is "remote or fanciful"?

And if a hospital can't wave away 5%, why can a system that decides whether a man ever sees his kids again?

Article 2 says "Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law." EVERYONE. Not every patient. Not every mother. Everyone.

What we're asking for

  • Every public body that handles separated parents (family courts, Cafcass and the police) treats evidence of a risk to any parent's life as a risk to life, whatever that parent's sex.

  • Despair is recorded as a warning, not as a mark against the parent.

  • National data on what happens to parents after family proceedings end. Right now, nobody counts it.

  • A dedicated UN body for men and boys, so the world finally has one body whose job is to ask these questions for half the population.

In 2010 the United Nations created UN Women. Sixteen years later, there is still no United Nations body for men.

Join the Alliance

Run an organisation for men and boys? Get in touch and join the Alliance.

This series is general information, not legal advice.

Sources

Charley Bickers, Founder of UN For Men - The United Global Alliance For Men & Boys

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The United Global Alliance For Men & Boys is not part of, affiliated with, or endorsed by the United Nations. UN for Men is our campaign for a dedicated UN body for men and boys.

 
 
 

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