TVScope Breaking up with the Joneses, Channel 4, Thursday, 9pm
When psychological warfare accompanies marriage breakdown, children inevitably become collateral damage. This was sadly evidenced in this 90-minute documentary that began five months after the breakdown of the nine-year marriage of Stephen and Lynne Jones.
Separate camera crews charted the deterioration of their relationship over a nine-month period and the impact of this on their sons, Harvey (6) and Oliver (4). The combination of an unobtrusive fly-on-the-wall format with clips from family videos allowed exceptional insight into the devastating consequences for all when love turns to hate.
Initially, both Lynne and Stephen had been optimistic that there was "enough love to go round" to ensure that the children did not suffer as a consequence of their separation. Lynne moved back to Edinburgh with the boys while Stephen stayed in Kent agreeing that he would care for them during the school holidays.
However, Stephen's reporting on Lynne to Social Services following allegations from her mother that she had hit her during a drunken row was the first shot fired in the ensuing battle which shattered the initial optimism.
The concept of an "amicable break-up" becomes an oxymoron when a couple as immature as Stephen and Lynne are also at the mercy of destructively partisan family and friends. Stephen, egged on by his family who had never liked Lynne, decided that the boys should live with him. He refused to pay maintenance provoking Lynne to cut off his access to the children.
When she eventually relented it was painful to witness the sad and bewildered faces of Harvey and Oliver caught between their desire to please Mummy who made it clear to them that she did not want them to go and their excitement at seeing Daddy.
It became clear that Stephen's increasingly vengeful behaviour was more about settling old scores with Lynne than what was good for the children.
The old photographs and video clips showed a happy "inseparable" couple. The party ground to a halt when the bubbly Lynne, the chief breadwinner, suffered from post-natal depression after Oliver's birth. Stephen, the "handsome student dancing on the table when they had met", was unable to support his family either emotionally or financially. Lynne lost all faith in him and Stephen felt humiliated and inadequate.
"It feels good to get something back on her," he enthused as he won his game of strategy by refusing to return the children to Lynne. His delight in his victory contrasted with the reality of his subdued little boys. "I always cry when I miss Mummy" and the plaintive: "I wanted Daddy to stay with Mummy forever but he couldn't because Daddy broke up her heart."
The documentary ended with some cautious optimism. After the court decided that Lynne should have the children we were told that Stephen gave up his fight.
Both parents' acknowledgement of personal responsibility for the turmoil of the previous eight months boded well that it would not be repeated. The unanswered question was whether being emotionally ricocheted between warring parents for eight months had been too high a price for Harvey and Oliver to have to pay.