Please recommend a Child Psychologist experienced with writing reports for the Court
Hi guys,
Could you please recommend a Child Psychologist experienced with writing reports for the Court?
After being caught abusing my 5 year old daughter in the secluded corner of a car park in his new car, my wife’s Japanese boy friend threw my little girl across his car and then jumped out and assaulted me three times. My daughter witnessed his repeated assaults on me and was then forced to remain in his car as he drove off after my Japanese wife appeared on the scene and ordered him to depart.
This was vidoed and witnessed by a group of passerbys. A formal police complaint was laid, medical report of my injuries obtained, a doctors medical report of the likely damage inflicted on my daughter provided by the hospital and the Police have brought him in and obtained a suspect statement.
I was strongly advised to obtain a psychologist’s report on the traumatizing effects of his abuse and assault on my daughter in order to further strengthen the case for restraining orders so that he can never again abuse my daughter.
Is anyone able to recommend a Child Psychologist experienced in writing Court reports please?
Kind Regards,
Paul
Are the police actually going to charge him? Do not let the police tell you this is a family court matter. It is an assault and needs to be treated as such. Once they have charged him, you can then seek a protection order via the family court. If you don’t do it in this order then you may find your ex wife make false allegations against you and instead of looking after your daughters interests you’ll be defending yourself and going backwards.
What part of the country do you live in?
Comment by A dad — Thu 26th March 2015 @ 3:24 pm
Dear Paul,
I suggest to use your own judgement about whether you believe that your daughter was traumatised by watching you being assaulted? Often a significant factor is what both of her parents make of the incident. She can be more traumatised if you make a big deal. The biggest factor is how much fear (for herself, for you, for her mother) that she was in.
If the police are involved, it is usually safer to let them work through their process, to the extent that they decide to do this.
Fathers are not often given protection orders in familycaught$. There is a small risk of having costs awarded against you, just for asking for one. Do you really need or want this piece of paper? They are double edged swords and can be a serious disadvantage, to man, woman or beast (but especially to men).
If you ask the familycaught$ to appoint a psychologist, they will get to choose who. You may ask for one, but they may choose not to be influenced by your request.
If you privately approach a psychologist, you would want to make sure that they are on the familycaught$ approved list, before engaging them.
Having said all of the above, I suggest that who the psychologist is is the smaller end of the problem.
Many fathers (and mothers too) disadvantage themselves by how they respond to the psychologist. Don’t be your own worst enemy. Try to be a safe pair of hands, an obvious stable and sensible parent, who solves problems, rather than blows them up out of proportion or creates problems. You are probably better off to wind the dispute down, rather than wind it up. For sure, your wallet will be safer.
Perhaps your time might be better spent having a quiet chat with her schoolteacher and maybe principal, to let them know that your daughter might be affected, so they can knowledgeably help to unwind the situation.
Cheers,
MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 26th March 2015 @ 7:30 pm
Hi Dad and Murry,
Thank you both for your replies. Your points are taken to heart.
Am in a particular strange situation.
I’m a kiwi father living and working in Vanuatu.
My children are both New Zealand citizens and Japanese citizens.
My wife has a relationship with a very wealthy Japanese man who funds her lawyer and repeated attempts to remove my children overseas in secret. 23 months of Court battles have ensured. I desire shared custody so our children never lose either parent. My wife desires full custody so she can take the children to Japan.
Her rich boyfriend is funding her lawyer.
For his abuse of my daughter and assault on me on 28th February 2015 a criminal case is in progress against the Japanese boy friend of my wife. As I understand it was about to be sent to the Public Prosecutor but Cyclone Pam struck. Things are so under resourced here that it could be 6 months to a year before anything happens in the criminal court – especially with the damage of the Cyclone and the police focus on that . . .
So the psychologist report is for the Civil Case. An urgent application was filed in the Civil Court. This was to be heard in May. However given the cyclone and the disruption to the institutions here that is likely to be pushed back to June or July.
Vanuatu is a wonderful country but doesn’t have the resources or specialists that New Zealand does. The Court thus often defers to the reports of overseas specialists. A Family Court does not exist here. The Court does not order specialists to provide reports. Instead each party has to organize their own specialist. It is unfortunately a very adversarial situation.
The incident was witnessed and filmed and those reports and video are available for review. A New Zealand psychologist is thus needed to review the evidence and make a short report for the Court.
Who would you guys recommend please?
Comment by sharingiscaring — Thu 26th March 2015 @ 9:33 pm
Hi Paul (I hope that is a pseudonym),
I am based in Wellington. If a critique is required of a psychologists work for Court purposes here I would approach Dr Sarah Calvert (Auckland) or Kathy Orr (Hamilton). Given you are talking an international matter the title Dr in front of a name may be important.
Both of these psychologists have done hundreds of Court cases and reports.
If it was a case here in Wellington and I was wanting a psychologists with plenty of Court experience and a doctorate then Rachel Irwin would be a suggestion.
Have your lawyer ring them and discuss. It is largely their CV and number of Court cases that you will be selecting them on. Interpreting the evidence should be pretty simple.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Thu 26th March 2015 @ 10:19 pm
Hi Allan,
Excellent advice thank you.
Will contact those you suggest.
Agree that interpreting the evidence is straight forward as it is all on video.
Witness statements confirm that at no time did I resist or fight back. I simply called out I love you to my daughter as the old Japanese man was assaulting me and then drove off with her to my wife. There is a real ruthlessness to Japanese that is hard to explain to those who haven’t experienced it. Its a ruthlessness from which my New Zealand children need protection.
Either his hurling my daughter across his car after playing with her on his lap is child abuse or it isn’t.
Either his assaulting the father of my daughter in front of her is child abuse or it isn’t.
Either his driving off with the very child he had just abused and hurled across his car is child abuse or it isn’t.
The psychologists experience will allow them to decide if it is and then present it to the Court.
Thank you again for taking the time to point me in the right direction.
Paul is my real name and I believe that “sharing is caring and taking is braking.”
Kind Regards,
Paul
Comment by sharingiscaring — Thu 26th March 2015 @ 11:23 pm
Protecting evidence – even in times of calm, evidence may be carelessly lost, corrupted, deliberately destroyed.
I suggest that you ask an independent party, perhaps a JP, notary, or lawyer that you engage for that task only, to get a copy of all videos and other relevant evidence and document how it was obtained. Then if the originals are corrupted or lost, you still have access to a certified copy.
On a day you are feeling really strong, read Taken In Contempt By Robin Bowles.
First 20% available on smashwords. I strongly recommend to read the whole book, which is easily available as an eBook.
She illustrates that about 85% of international abductors are mothers. Also, that many “civilised” countries allow the Government to take active part in enabling abductions before they occur and supporting abductors after the abduction has occurred. Very sobering reading.
Allan draws attention to privacy issues. If you would like to speak privately with me, please use the telephone….
Best wishes,
MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 27th March 2015 @ 8:18 am
Hi Murray,
Thank you for the advice.
Will read the book Taken in Contempt as you suggest.
In this saga have come across 11 elven other parents whose Japanese parent has secretly and suddenly abducted their international children without consent from the Kiwi or Aussie parent. 10 of the eleven were Japanese mothers, one was a Japanese father.
Of that group I am the only one who happened to stop the abduction. By chance I was using the family iPad when an email suddenly came from my Japanese wife’s partner advising her to “hide the children’s passports from Paul . . . I will heal you so well on Friday when you reach New Caledonia.”
This lead to a discovery of 56 emails exchanged between the two in the previous three months where they discuss how to abduct the children, fabricate evidence and use my fear of my wife’s anger to accomplish their goal.
Fast forwarding some 23 months to the day after the Police complaint about the Japanese man’s abuse and assault was laid, the officer in charge suddenly went on holiday . . . delaying everything by weeks. I was finally told it would all be completed and passed to the prosecutor on the day before the cyclone struck. Understandably it wasn’t as the Police turned their attention to Cyclone Pam preparations and now are occupied with its aftermath.
The timing of the lead Police Officer suddenly going on holiday and being out of contact was, was how shall we say, certainly not in the interests of a speedy processing of the criminal case . . .
Thanks again for your advice and offer of support,
Paul
Comment by sharingiscaring — Fri 27th March 2015 @ 8:38 am
Japan officially joined the Hague convention 24/1/2014.
I think your wife can’t take your children to Japan without your permission.
Is that right?
Comment by meg — Tue 31st March 2015 @ 10:09 am
Hague needs two sides to be parties to the agreement. If this happened to a New Zealand resident then both sides are parties and the convention offers some protection. However if one person (and the children) are resident in a non-party state then it does not provide protection.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Tue 31st March 2015 @ 10:41 am
Dear meg, the book Taken In Contempt (see comment #6 above) shows 20 real life stories, that illustrate the practical operation of laws of several countries.
Reading legislation, or listening to what lawyers say, does this tell you what happens in the real world?
Do your children live in the real world, or in the fairy tail world of legislation?
Legislation is just marketing drivel, to lead in vulnerable people, who are too lazy to learn about what goes on in the real world. Look before you leap!
What you think now, might change, were you to receive an EMAIL “just to let you know, the children and I are now in country xx”. The whole world changes in half a second. The caught$ only hurt people who take them seriously!
I suggest that real world knowledge protects children and that good parents have a duty to know about the real world, in which their children live (even if the parents don’t?).
In the same way, misinformed parents leave their children wide open to many dangers. This is why truth moves the world forward and secrecy degrades, corrupts and destroys.
Cheers,
MurrayBacon – axe murderer.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Tue 31st March 2015 @ 11:56 am
Hi all,
Thank you for all your comments. It is kind of you to all respond.
Meg – “I think your wife can’t take your children to Japan without your permission.”
I would love to think the same. Unfortunately if one parent has the children, their passports, and there is no Court Order preventing the children’s overseas travel, then children can and are often moved overseas without the consent of the other parent. Mr. Yasuda knowing this thus instructed my wife as above to hide the children’s passports.
(To any parent in a similar situation I would urge them to hold the children’s passports or give them to their lawyer for safe keeping.)
Allan – “if one person (and the children) are resident in a non-party state then it does not provide protection.”
Exactly.
After massive overseas pressure Japan joined the Hague Convention.
Three problems remain :
1. The Hague convention only applies between ratified countries which Vanuatu is not.
2. Japan has not altered its domestic laws to match the requirements of the Hague Convention, so critics are right in their analysis that Japan’s signing of the Convention is window dressing.
3. Their is a complete lack of the mindset of ‘sharing’ and ‘children’s rights’ in Japan.
Murry – “The whole world changes in half a second”, “real world knowledge protects children”,
“good parents have a duty to know about the real world”, “In the same way, misinformed parents leave their children wide open to many dangers. This is why truth moves the world forward and secrecy degrades, corrupts and destroys.”
So much truth is contained in Murry’s comments.
Evil requires secrecy. Good requires sacrifice.
Part of the sacrifice requires in learning more about rights than the jude, learning more about the law than your lawyer, puting in month after month working to save your children, spending all your money and more, standing outside your wife’s lawyers office with signs, sending in 39 offers of peace, and never ever giving up. Another part of the sacrifice is giving up the previous protected image that you may have had of the world for unfortunately there are those like yasuda out there in the world who will stop at nothing less than total victory.
The trick is not to lose your humanity as you are faced with inhumanity.
Be a better person. Be braver. Be more determined. Be more forgiving.
Be more loving.
So when you finally win full custody,
share your children equally with your ex-spouse,
for you are in the struggle not for yourself,
but for the Rights of your Children.
Children need their parents to be their heroes.
“Sharing is Caring, Taking is Braking”
Comment by sharingiscaring — Sat 4th April 2015 @ 8:00 pm