The letter from members of the Scottish Gender Based Violence Network only serves to prove the problem they deny exists (November 24).

The signatories assumed without any basis in fact the men in the small study were all guilty of abusing their partners. The study was about such guilty until proven innocent assumptions about fathers. Maura Daly of Circle, the family support service which provided the cases for the study, makes it clear in her letter the assumption the men were guilty and had no place in their children's lives is completely wrong (November 22).

The protection of children is not served by the knee-jerk assumption that all men are potentially guilty of something. When this leads to fathers not being invited to meetings about their children, and generally being excluded from decisions, this is not child protection it is gender-based bias.

Dr Gary Clapton,

University of Edinburgh and board member of Fathers Network Scotland, School of Social & Political Science, 15A George Square, Edinburgh.