Grieving Chesterfield couple launch petition to change ‘unfair’ bereavement leave law for fathers

Miss Hicklin, aged 31 told the Star: “We were both distraught, it was awful.

“We were told when we were scanning that Toby wouldn’t make it out alive.

“He was fighting for three weeks before he sadly lost his life.”

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Under UK law if a child is stillborn after 24 weeks of pregnancy the mother can receive up to 52 weeks of statutory maternity leave and pay whereas the father receives up to two weeks.

Miss Hicklin, from Chesterfield, believes this discrepancy is not fair and started a petition on April 3, which has received over 130 signatures so far.

“I think is absolutely disgusting really. It’s such a big loss to a parent losing a child that we want to make a difference and make it known.”

“It’s time we acknowledge that fathers grieve too,” she said.

“It undermines the importance of both parents in a child’s life and their shared grief when that child is lost.”

Mr Barker was granted two weeks bereavement leave by his employer which standard in the UK.

“The day after the funeral they rang again asking when he would be returning the work,” she said.

“The whole time Dale’s employer was calling him at Toby’s bedside asking him for updates on when he was going back to work.”

“Dale was terminated from his job for being AWOL, they said they contacted me through letters, but we had had no correspondence.”

According to Sands UK, a stillbirth and neonatal death charity, more than 5,000 babies are stillborn or die shortly after birth each year in the UK.

Miss Hicklin and Mr Barker met on Tinder in September 2020, nearly four years ago, and have two children, aged nine and six, from previous relationships.

She continued: “I think the law should either be equal to women, up to a year, but even six months would be better.”

“If we could push it to a month, it’s better than two weeks which is no time for anyone to process or even grieve the loss.”

“Grief is something that stays with you forever, it will never ever go away, being able to have that time to be able to bury a child and to be able to process everything that’s gone on before being pushed back into work.”

The Chesterfield-based couple believe this is a national issue and have planned to meet their local MP.

A UK petition needs 10,000 signatures to get a response from the government and 100,000 for a debate in parliament.

Sign the petition here.