Who has parental responsibility?
If the parents of a child are married to each other or if they have jointly adopted a child, then they both have parental responsibility. This is not automatically the case for unmarried parents.
According to current law, a mother always has parental responsibility for her child. A father, however, has this responsiblity only if he is married to the mother or has acquired legal responsibility for his child through one of these three routes:
(after December 1 2003) by jointly registering the birth of the child with the mother ***Which I suspect you have did this***
by a parental responsiblity agreement with the mother
by a parental responsiblity order, made by a court
Living with the mother, even for a long time, does not give a father parental responsiblity and if the parents are not married, parental responsiblity does not always pass to the natural father if the mother dies.
All parents (including adoptive parents) have a legal duty to financially support their child, whether they have parental responsibility or not.
Visit
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/...hts/DG_4002954 for more info.