Child Abduction
My 15 year old daughter was taken to Canada by her mother a few months ago. The Courts allowed this because they allow mothers to do most things don’t they, but I don’t know where she is now.
The mother had told the Family Court the name of the school she was going to attend and also her home phone number and address. Most of this info appears to be bogus. The phone number appears to belong to some relative who never answers the phone and I suspect the address is false.
The only hope I had left was that the school may at least give me information about my daughter’s school reports etc. I have just learned that she is not enrolled at the school so this is further false info by the look of it and I know the school was on the level because the enrollment officer was very cooperative. I am planning on phoning the Edmonton Police and taking this up with them as a suspected child abduction case because I believe that this is technically child abduction as she used false presences when relocating my daughter.
Does anyone out there know what govt agencies I could approach in Canada to help me? The mother and both my children have both Canadian and NZ passports so they can stay in Canada indefinitely.
Parts of Canada are very feminist. You could Google Canadian Men’s Groups, which I am sure would bring up some interesting results. Even if they can’t help they will have plenty of helpful information.
Comment by Downunder — Sat 23rd August 2014 @ 6:37 pm
That sound terrible.
Sorry to hear of your angst.
I suggest getting in touch with A Voice For Men and explaining your predicament as several of their staffers are from Canada and have further contactsin that country.
Please let us know how you progress.
Comment by Stephen Gee — Sat 23rd August 2014 @ 6:39 pm
I’ve wondered how things were going with your case and I’m sorry to hear things went this way. I hope/pray things change for you and your daughter.
Comment by julie — Sat 23rd August 2014 @ 7:33 pm
Thank for the feedback and support guys. Stephen I’ll definitely try A Voice for Men. Thanks mate.
Comment by Had_Enough — Sat 23rd August 2014 @ 8:33 pm
Can I ask if there is any reason you know or guess why this woman and your daughter might not want to be found or contacted or why they have not contacted you? If the answer is yes or sort of, you will have to deal with that first.
If you are separated, you will have the contact details of her solicitor. You will also have the contact details of your ex partners family members. Be careful here as if the situation hostile. Maybe use your solicitor to contact these people.
Whatever the differences you have had with your ex there should always be an avenue for communication and reconciliation.
The method to take is that of ‘cap in hand’ appealing, communication, reconciliation, understanding and agreement.
If this fails I would have thought the NZ Police should get involved to help track down your child. If you get no satisfaction, escalate the problem up higher until you do. No one at the police wants to be the subject of a complaint or investigation where they have been found to do the wrong thing. Your solicitor may be able to help.
I acknowledge you are tormented and distressed. You must have a cool head and work through the issues as they come.
Comment by Lukenz — Sun 24th August 2014 @ 11:17 am
Hi,
Call Interpol in Wellington: http://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/structure/teams-units/interpol
I dealt with them in getting a Border Alert on my children and they are very helpful. Do it right and do not mess around. These are the professionals. Good luck.
Comment by Scott — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 8:59 am
I am sorry to hear, I hope you find your daughter and everything is okay I agree as well with previous keep a cool head this would have been myself as well if I had not smelled a rat and got a non removal order just days before they left the country with Interpol. Thoughts with you.
Comment by Dominic da Silva — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 10:25 am
Dad admits abducting son
Comment by Downunder — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 11:56 am
Hi Lukenz. The only reason the mother would go into hiding is because she had already crapped in her own nest in NZ and CYF, the Dept of Health and the Dept of Education were keeping close tabs on her. Her lawyer has always been immensely uncooperative and has probably swallowed her woman as victim dogma. I doubt if the NZ Police would be interested because the mother and my kids are outside their jurisdiction. The FC has allowed her to go to Canada with the kids despite a massive paper trail outlining her failings as a parent but she’s a woman so of course is perfect. There is no insinuation that I am anything other than a good dad as far as the FC is concerned and the mother has never disputed this.
Comment by Had_Enough — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 12:18 pm
Thanks Scott, I will follow that up. Interpol may be the way to go because I’m pretty sure that this qualifies as child abduction as I am a legal guardian and she’s actively blocking any attempts I make to have a role on the upbringing and protection of my daughter. To make matters worse I believe my daughter and son are staying with some very dodgy and abusive people at the moment, although I have no idea where..
Comment by Had_Enough — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 12:22 pm
If the NZ Court granted her the right to take the children under certain conditions then you may be able to enforce those conditions. No matter how unhelpful her solicitor was they have a duty to the Court to assist in ensuring conditions of an order are abided by.
You may be able to apply for a warrant to enforce the NZ Court’s order regarding relocation and clearly you can serve that on mum’s former solicitor or maybe on the Commissioner of Inland Revenue if you are paying Child Support.
The Salvation Army have a very effective Family Tracing Service that you could approach. Take great care in approaching the Canadian Police and certainly use different language than abduction. You don’t want them writing you off at step one.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 3:23 pm
I take it that Judge here is meaning “Begging Mother” is the correct channel. Unfortunately for this bloke being a member of the Order of Protection he needs to spend mega bucks and mega time going via his lawyer, to her lawyer, who asks mum, who cranks back a no or another expensive negotiation that will take significant time to occur.
I am however interested that driving at 170km/hr with a child in the vehicle, evading police, presumably ignoring police requests via cellphone, breaching several Court orders etc will not produce a custodial sentence for this chap. That all does sound very positive judge, we await your final decision regarding sentencing.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 3:32 pm
This particular judge is featuring in all the Christchurch domestic incidents that appear in the criminal court – the ones that have caught my attention recently.
Comment by Downunder — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 4:07 pm
Hi Allan, thanks for the advice. Unfortunately the only comment that the judge included on the variation of parenting order was that my daughter will now reside in Canada. I (and my lawyer) couldn’t get her to put any stipulations on the variation whatsoever. Having said that I do have emails from her lawyer stating the name of the school she would be attending as well as her address and phone number. Do you think I would have a case if I could prove that she has lied about any of these details? One of my main concerns here is that the mother will continue to keep my daughter out of school like she had done in NZ for 18 months until CYF and the DoE threatened her with fines for keeping her out of school.
Comment by Had_Enough — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 4:09 pm
Unfortunately Had_enough you can only but try. If the evidence presented to the Court has now been changed then that does give cause for concern. However I do think you need to plan a strategy for handling this that seeks to open communication and not close it down. As you know you are extremely vulnerable, mum on the other hand is pretty bullet proof. You need to build slowly and surely an evidence base that could be useful to bring to Court either here or there.
If you come in guns blazing to the equivalent agencies as CYFS and MoE it is a very high risk strategy.
Has the NZ order been registered in Canada? It seems very very unusual that there would be no conditions at all on a relocation decision. I have a negative one I am dealing with at the moment and there is nearly 2 pages of conditions attached.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 6:23 pm
Hi Allan,
The main problem I had with getting conditions added to the Parenting Order was that my daughter had told the child counsel that she doesn’t want any contact with me. I don’t believe this is a reflection on my fathering abilities or my love for my daughter but is more a reflection of the mothers habitual character defamation about me in front of my children. I have evidence of this from my eldest son, who has often told me about what is said in her home, but I wasn’t going to drag him into it. I know the assumption is that I must be a bad father otherwise my daughter would want to see me but that’s not the case. Children can be manipulated and the mother has always been desperate to stop my daughter from changing her mind about her living arrangement and there have definitely been times when she has indicated that she’d prefer to live with me. The mothers counsel was going to go for costs if I forced a protracted hearing and both the judge and my lawyer seemed adamant that I would lose so I chose to take no further action. I agree about a softly softly approach and will certainly heed your advice on that Allan.
Comment by Had_Enough — Mon 25th August 2014 @ 6:53 pm
@Had_Enough Given what you have said above, you should prepare for the worst case scenario. Your daughter alienated by age 15 is a good candidate for teenage pregnancy.
The court by allowing her to leave has condoned the use of the child as an emotional crutch for the mother. The mother’s behaviour in another country could not reasonably be expected to change.
Your daughter is learning to live life by a different set of rules. If you do see her again, she will be a different person, accustomed to your absence and comfortable living life without learning responsibility.
Your case seems different, because you are dealing with distance, but in reality had they stayed in New Zealand the outcome would have likely been the same except that you would have still be having a court case.
Most fathers having come here have a variation of the same theme.
You know your daughter, we don’t, but is there the possibility that she will come to some realisation of her position once she has been in Canada for a while?
As Allan said the Canadian Police may not respond too well to an abduction complaint, but if you can get her name into their computer system, missing person even, and she does come to their attention, they at least know you exist and have a ticket home for her, should she require it.
Comment by Downunder — Tue 26th August 2014 @ 7:59 am
Dear Had_enough, Although this is a tough time there reads to me as real hope in your last post. You have an older son you are in contact with and he is in contact with your daughter. Support his contact with her. Never jeopardise that, support it financially if you can. That will provide you some limited information about her welfare. That leaves a door for her to come through if it is her wish at some time in the future. Our prior parenting can and does return to us with time. Children become curious to know about themselves, their parents and wider family. Stay strong, slowly slowly things may change.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Tue 26th August 2014 @ 9:42 am
Hi Allan, yes you are right about my son being a link between my daughter and I. He has always been in my custody until he left home and started living independently about 18 months ago. He is the only child that has regular contact with me and his mother and although he gets on well with her he isn’t conned by her bullshit either. He hasn’t heard from his mother for some time though which has me worried. I think softly softly is the best approach and if I don’t hear anything within the next few days I will contact Interpol and run the situation past them. If that doesn’t work I may take a look at the Canadian equivalent to CYF and talk to one of their team members about what I can do to look out for the welfare of my daughter.
Comment by Had_Enough — Tue 26th August 2014 @ 12:25 pm
@Had_Enough
It would be good to see this thread continue, what does and doesn’t work out for you.
It might be considerable help to others having a similar issue.
I wonder if the post heading might be better as say ‘Child abducted to Canada’.
These heading turn up in search engines.
Comment by Downunder — Tue 26th August 2014 @ 1:39 pm
Hi Downunder, yes I agree because I’m sure I aren’t alone in this type of situation. When this thread dies a natural death I may re post after a few more events have transpired. The really daunting thing about a child being taken to a large country like Canada is the sheer impossibility of keeping tabs on her and looking out for her welfare when there is a mother who has habitually gone out of her way to block my access to my children. It was difficult enough when they lived in NZ but at least I had a legal framework to work with. Now I seem to have nothing to work with and only the hope that my daughter will eventually wise up to her mothers behavior and choose to make contact with me.
Comment by Had_Enough — Tue 26th August 2014 @ 3:21 pm
I hate to say this, but the most daunting thing for you is not that your child is in another country, but something that will hit you out of blue one day.
The fact that your child has died.
Yes, there is a young woman out there in the world somewhere still alive, and by biological relationship is still your daughter.
Just be prepared for the realisation of what has been taken away from you.
Comment by Downunder — Tue 26th August 2014 @ 4:10 pm
Yes, “Child abducted to Canada” would have been a better heading, but it shouldn’t be changed now that it is published.
All authors should try to include keywords effectively in Post headings.
Comment by JohnPotter — Tue 26th August 2014 @ 4:21 pm