The West Australian
12 May 2007
Two mothers lose custody of their sons
Two WA mothers have lost custody of their sons after illegally blocking their former husbands from seeing the children.
The WA Family Court ruled in both cases that the children were at risk of psychological harm if they continued to be exposed to their mother's aggressive behaviour and were prevented from having a significant relationship with their father.
Family Law Practitioners Association of WA president Peter Cole said some parents might not be taking notice of warnings from the court about the consequences of breaching court orders.
"The court takes clear steps to ensure that the information (about consequences) is passed on to parties during proceedings," Mr Cole said. Parties need to take notice of this information."
The families involved in the most recent cases cannot be named under rules governing the WA Family Court but the judgements on their cases,to be published on the court's website, reveal details of the mothers'conduct.
In one case, Justice Julienne Penny ordered an 11-year-old boy to be taken from his mother and placed with his father after the mother deliberately sabotaged the boy's relationship with his father.
Justice Penny accepted evidence that when the boy stayed overnight at his father's house, the mother would telephone the father's house up to 40 times each weekend and often called police to the house.
The mother also aggressively abused the father in front of the boy and sometimes refused to allow the father court-sanctioned visits with his son.
Justice Penny described the mother's conduct as 'absolutely appalling' and 'extraordinary'.
"The mother will do almost anything to either stop the father having conduct with the son or impact upon or restrict the contact he can have with him,' she said.
In the other recent case, Chief Justice Stephen Thackray ordered that two young boys should be removed from their mother's care and placed with their father, partly because he was concerned that the mother had failed to ensure that the boys had regular contact with their father, resulting in long separations between the boys and their father.
Justice Thackray also expresses cocern about the mother's anger-management problem was having in the boys.
Under WA Family Court laws, parents can be justified in breaking court orders only when they have a "reasonable" excuse.


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That's great I hate to see a child removed from a parent but if the mom was doing that kind of bullshit then it sounds like the judge made the right decision.