How does one acquire parental responsibility?
Under s4 of the Children Act 1989 as amended by the Adoption & Children Act 2002 if the couples are not married the father can acquire PR either by: being registered as the father on the birth certificate; executing a Parental Responsibility Agreement (PRA) with the mother; by obtaining a Parental Responsibility Order (PRO) from the court; or by obtaining a residence order, in which case a separate PRO must be made. Particularly, s111 of The Adoption & Children Act 2002 demonstrated a major turning point in Family Law in permitting unmarried fathers to obtain automatic parental responsibility if their name is registered on the birth certificate. Where a childs father and mother are married to each other at the time of his birth, they shall each have automatic PR for the child. However it is worth noting that this provision although a welcome advance is not retrospective. Therefore, unmarried fathers who registered the birth before this date still needed to reregister in order to obtain
