Your book wasn't what I thought it was going to be about at all, so apologies for guessing it might be. I only read a few pages of the introduction and other clips from your book available online, and quickly came to that conclusion.
By the way your father's insistence that as a small boy you should stand up to a school girl harrassing you, or beating you up, reminds me of a John Wayne film where he always stood up to bullies didn't he, males ones at least (can't remember the name of the film, but they were all the same weren't they).
Ghandi of course, taught that if the whole world followed the principle of "an eye for an eye" then everyone would end up blind. Perhaps that kind of ethics doesn't apply in the tough neighbourhood your father was referring to, or maybe its just not been tried yet.
I won't spoil the book for anyone who hasn't read any of it by giving details here, and I hope justice was served in some way in the end, for someone.
Going back to Mark Harris's story, "Family Court Hell", although the courts were prepared to back his ex-wife in the obstruction of Mark's contact with his kids to an incredible degree, those doing so could still claim they thought they were doing it in the children's interests. Thus the court officials ignoring the children saying they wanted to see their father could be justified because to force the mother to comply with these wishes might have pushed her over the edge. All survived the experience, albeit no doubt blighted by the ten year battle, between parents who could not resolve their own differences, leading to unbelievable intrusion into private lives that goes on even more often now in family law cases.
That won't interest you though I suspect, as you carry on with your campaign to highlight the injustices you faced.
Graham