No-one "wins" children anymore or has them "awarded" to them. Children are not objects. There is no such thing as "custody" or "access". The whole language of the Children Act (subsequently extended to unmarried fathers named on the birth certificate) is about continuing shared responsibility, whoever the children live with and whatever happens to the parents' relationship.
Perhaps the courts, the media and government are all to blame for the fact that ordinary parents don't seem to have noticed much difference and are still stuck in pre-Children Act thinking. No wonder outcomes are seen as unsatisfactory for the children. And we don't yet know how things would be if the Act was actually implemented as intended.
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