Systematic Discrimination Against Fathers
Unbelievable Duplicity Story number 73,456,864: “International tug-of-war in custody fight”. In order to pursue her own career, this mother deliberately abducted the daughter to the USA against the wishes of the girl’s father and denied the girl a meaningful relationship with the father for some years. She arranged a fake contact visit with the father to distract him from her real plan to leave the country, then took off with the child while the father waited to see his daughter. She then failed to honour agreements concerning returning the child to NZ.
After several years during which she used US Courts to try to keep the child there, Hague Convention law eventually required her to return the child to NZ. The child still remains in the mother’s care and now the NZ Family Court will seriously consider allowing the mother to take the child away again. No doubt the fact that the child has been living in the US for so long now and is ‘settled’ there will be trotted out as it always is when mothers withhold children from fathers, against Court agreements or orders, for long enough (and the duration of Family Court processes always ensures it will be long enough). No doubt the mother’s welfare and her career development will be put forward as equating to the ‘best interests’ of the child.
Note that the newspaper article did not once use words such as ‘kidnapped’ or ‘abducted’ to describe the mother’s actions. Such words are always used when a father does anything like this. Note that no police appear to have searched for and rescued the abducted child, as would usually be the case when a father takes a child away. Note that the article’s quotations from comments by law expert Mark Henaghan suggest he is well indoctrinated into our Family Court’s favouritism towards mothers (and females generally). He makes it clear that our Family Court will think nothing bad of the mother’s actions, will not see depriving a child of a father as abusive or as having relevance to decisions about the child’s future care. He implies that the child might be ‘better off’ in the mother’s care overseas and the fact “the mother is trying to set up a life for herself” adds something to her case! In the next breath he claims the Family Court is governed by one principle: ‘what’s best for the child’. Yeah right, what a convenient smokescreen.
If a father had done exactly what this mother did the story’s headline would include words such as ‘abduction’ or ‘kidnapping’. He would have been portrayed by media and by the chosen Family Court commentator as a selfish man who was more concerned with his career and wealth than the needs and feelings of his child and the child’s mother, and his actions would have been portrayed as abusive to the child, the mother and the child’s extended family (who may well have been interviewed to emphasize how they suffered and what the child missed out on). The child would have been removed from his care either in the US or as soon as they returned to NZ. His only contact with his daughter, if any, would be supervised contact for 90 minutes per fortnight in a demeaning, abnormal situation. It would be made clear that the father’s contemptuous actions would be treated by the Family Court as strong evidence that he was not a fit and proper parent and that the child’s best interests were unlikely to be served by remaining with him. But when it’s a mother, it’s a whole different story. The story we see here.
The Family Court will carefully censor what is released to the media. Already, what the media was given appears designed to encourage public sympathy for the mother, and that will continue. Any bad stuff that comes up in the proceedings about the mother will be suppressed, but not so for the father. The father’s concerns about fairness towards him and the child’s welfare will not be allowed to reach the public, but the mother’s concerns may well get aired. If the Court’s favouritism towards the damsel becomes too obvious and difficult to hide, the judge will simply disallow any further media reporting.
Dear MoMa, you have touched on child development issues lightly.
Surely this is the very crux of the matter, good parenting is based on honest communication between parents, accountability between parents and the offering of the best that both parents can offer the child.
This mother has clearly shown that she refuses to be subject to accountability to protect the child’s interests.
Although there have been a few cases where custody has been given to the father, after such anti-child behaviours by the mother, these reversals have occurred far too late to actually protect the child’s interests (and in the vast majority of cases – didn’t occur at all).
The issues about protecting children’s interests do need to be considered much more often in familycaught$.
In my opinion, this is actually in women’s long term interests too – even if poor quality parents don’t see it this way!
The way legal worker’s pay is structured incentivises risking the children’s quality of development. The basis on which familycaught$ operates needs to be rethought, from the ground up. Judith Collin’s changes were window dressing and did not impact on the fundamental payment incentives, that presently hazard children so much.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 16th February 2015 @ 7:22 am
MoMA, I totally agree. The only thing I would like to add is that a request for the return of the child was made almost immediately after the father noticed the abduction (yes, let us call it what it was). From that point onwards it took YEARS until the mother was finally made to return to NZ.
This makes it clear that The Hague convention is not working.
Comment by Pete — Thu 26th February 2015 @ 11:18 am
We see the gender biased Family Court in action again. In reality its not gender biased, it can’t be so obviously so and with so much comment. In my view its actually a scam.
Get this, judge Ulrich makes findings which have detrimental outcomes for the children in 2006 (a third psychologist report confirms this) This is put in affidavits but in 2011 this judge asks the mother’s legally aided lawyer number 7 if there are any property relationship matters to bring before the court (we call this touting for business in the real world). The issue is that the application before the court was regarding extra cirricular activities and this was a judges conference for that.
Fortunately the hearing that followed went before a judge who appeared very unhappy at counsel for the child’s behaviour. After all counsel for the children (Peter Harrison) did nothing after one of the children found the dead body hanging in the mother’s garage.
It seems that he also engineered outcomes buy using his position to encourage letters from the mother and children’s GP, to be sent to himself from the GP. He then attached these letters to one of his submissions to the court.
One letter said that the children were stressed due to overnight access with the father and this was compromising their attachment to their primary caregiver who is their mother. Yes also the patient of Dr Ruth Brown.
The other letter was sent directly to the father and unsigned by the Dr but copied to Peter Harrison, oddly he got the signed copy. This letter said that the good Dr, Dr Ruth Brown would not see her patients (the children) when in the care of the father.
Both parents received copies of Counsel For The Children’s submission with the two attached letters. The mother attached them to an affidavit which requested that over night access be put on hold, the court agreed and that was the outcome. There had been two overnight visits with the father. Dr Ruth Brown had met the father once but had never seen him with the children.
A requirement for shared care was that there must be a common GP, this action alleged to be from Counsel For the Children appointed by the NZ Family Court has never been denied by Peter Harrison. It stopped overnight access for about another two years and would have made shared care virtually impossible.
At that time the signed copy (which confirmed a likely un ethical position taken by Dr Brown) came to the father via the NZ Family Court
Comment by flimflam — Tue 7th April 2015 @ 5:02 pm
To Paul
Nothing wrong with the psychologists, they do the best they can. However should their on going report favour equal rights to the children and shared parenting.Its challenged in court. So you are lock out almost straight away. You hear great news that visitation is granted and then you sit around for more months only to turn up to court to have it challenged.
34 mediation conferences that werent attended by the children or Mother 34. Even when the decision to challenge in court the mother was absent.However when I complained to the register of the court about the cost over $250,000 with a new Lawyer that was a fortune in the early 90s.
Things started to happen. One the Mother was finally ordered to court with her Lawyer been warned about obstructing the courts. She appeared. The judge gave full access.
Id won right……WRONG. Social Services despite a court order helped her relocate 300 miles away. Now this may of changed over the years and Im hearing Fathers have gained access but its not just the Mothers that abuse the Fathers with PAS, Its also the legal systerm.
Fact is you can understand that kind of negelect and abuse from the mother,but when you get it from the courts thats a different story altogether.
I am no longer angry its pointless.Im also grateful for everyones help, but shyet it came at a huge cost.I can deal with the Mother. But when the legal systerm spits you out where do you go.
Men are taught the Law is the Law yet woman continue to challenge the Law break it and do it without recourse simply because they are Mothers.
Nowhere esle in the Law is this behaviour tolerated…none.
Comment by joseph — Wed 10th June 2015 @ 8:27 am