Mother wins custody battle after terrifying children about father

[asehg001]

This is the worst case scenario for any father. I have a friend who is going through the beginning stages of this type of possible outcome, however he is fighting as hard as ever to remain in his children's lives.

Mother wins custody battle after terrifying children about father

Kim Arlington

January 4, 2011 HER ''delinquent attitude'' to parenthood was denounced in the Family Court after she waged a campaign to alienate her children from their father.
But the woman has still won sole custody of the two children, who are now so distressed by the prospect of a reunion with their father, a judge has ruled they should not have to see him.
The enmity between the parents, who cannot be named, has made their children's lives unbearably miserable, Justice Stewart Austin said. He concluded the only way to end the conflict was, ''regrettably'', to terminate the children's interaction with their father.
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The court heard the man used to have loving relationships with his son, 13, and daughter, 10, but has barely had contact with them since the mother launched court proceedings last year to stop them spending time together.
Justice Austin was satisfied the mother ''embarked upon a campaign to align the children with her and reject the father'' - behaviour described by a psychiatrist as emotionally abusive to the children.
Police and child welfare agencies investigated and dismissed the mother's allegations that the father abused the children.
The girl, when interviewed by officers, said she and her brother had been promised rewards if they ''told the police about Daddy''.
Justice Austin said the mother made further ''outlandish, unsubstantiated allegations'', including that the father had installed a tracking device in her car, a surveillance camera outside her house and had broken into her home.
Her paranoia ''invaded the children's day-to-day lives''.
The children grew to fear their father might kidnap them after their mother kept them at home to prevent their abduction from school.
The court in Brisbane heard the little girl wet her bed, while her brother had threatened self-harm if forced to see his father and was vulnerable to developing a mental disorder.
Justice Austin found the ''primary cause of the children's desperate emotional turmoil lies with the mother''. Her conduct, he said, was lamentable.
However, he did not agree with the father that the children should live with him. While there was no risk he would expose them to harm, it would be ''highly problematic and dangerous'' to force them to live with him when they did not want to see him.
Justice Austin was aware the man would be disappointed but said the court's priority was not achieving a just result for the parents, but serving the children's best interests.
He ordered that the father be allowed to have his children's school photographs and reports. He can also occasionally send them gifts and write to show ''he still loves them and has not willingly abandoned them''.
Asked in court about how much responsibility she accepted for the children's emotional despair, the mother replied: "I've done the best thing I can for my kids.''

Mother waged campaign to alienate her children from their father.

[Nynrah Ghost]

Such woman does not deserve to have custody over children. To not take the children away from someone that abusive is abuse to the children. To call such rule to be 'in the best interrests of the children is beyond outlandish.

[Marx]

I posted about this on Y!A only days back. I wanted to know why women are allowed to get away with mentally abusing children. I agree that IF them being with the father is going to cause them distress then they should not see him... yet.

Whereas the Judge decided the kids should stay with the abusive mother, I would have taken a much more logical option. As it has been recognised she is abusing them - she obviously cannot be trust to continue caring for them. So my option would be to put the kids into temporary foster care, with regular counselling sessions where they can learn to undo / deal with the issues their abusive mother has imposed upon them. After a while, they should be able to slowly reintegrate into a relationship with their father. After a while longer, they could then begin sleeping over at his, increasing visits as time goes by. Give it between a few months and a couple of years, they should be ready to go live with him again on full time terms.

Everyone wins.

[Douglas]

Marx, I think you hit it right on the head. I think this is the solution most caring parents would come up with. The children have to be kept away from an abusive parent, for the best interest of the child. Children should receive help to recover from abuse, in safe surroundings.

This father and his children need support and help to get the judge's damaging decision overturned. The problem is, knowing who he is.

[senach]

Apart from the obvious harm too the children and father due to this Judge's decision,is the message sent to women,if you behave badly and try destory your children's mind's,never mind,the court's will still will reward you with custody and the father's money,so why should women change their way's?
I agree the the children should be given some help in the parental alienation caused the mother,but the mother should also face jail time,for what she has done, is child abuse.

[Percy]

I can think of no valid or reasonable objection to obliging the children to live with their father.

The article makes the children out to be terrified of their father, but they are 13 and 10 and should be re-introduced to him without delay. They are not little flowers in a desert.

One day in his presence will show them that he is not the figure of fear they have been told. To keep them from him will simply re-inforce in their minds that he should be avoided.

They NEED to face their ill-founded and deliberately, dishonestly induced fear and be helped to get over it.

The mother should be charged with child abuse and jailed. Immediately.

[rohara]

However, he did not agree with the father that the children should live with him. While there was no risk he would expose them to harm, it would be ''highly problematic and dangerous'' to force them to live with him when they did not want to see him.
Justice Austin was aware the man would be disappointed but said the court's priority was not achieving a just result for the parents, but serving the children's best interests.

Viola!!!!!! Explicitly exclaim that the children are with an abusive parent and then turn right around in the very same breath and say that it is withing the "children's best interests" to keep them with that parent and prevent them from seeing the functional one.
This mother will continue her campaign of vindiction towards the father and the judge is enabling her to do so. I would like to know what the TRUE motivations are for judges who do this. It is very difficult for me to believe that they are not aware of just what kind of damage they are doing.

[Kargan3033]

Bloody hell!
I can't beileve this shit.
If I was the father I'd be suing the goverment and the judge in question.
I have this sinking feeling that these kids are going to be retired to chalk outline, no doubts in my mind that if these poor kids stay with their female parent she's going to abuse them even worse if not kill them out right just to be a spiteful bitch.

[miguel_gomez]

Such woman does not deserve to have custody over children. To not take the children away from someone that abusive is abuse to the children. To call such rule to be 'in the best interrests of the children is beyond outlandish.

The judge really had no choice. The children were already brainwashed.

[Douglas]

The judge in this case would appear to be Stewart Austin of New South Wales. The local Family Court Bulletin of July 2009 (rtf) says this of him:

Mr Austin brings to the Court almost 25 years experience as both a solicitor and barrister as well as time spent as an arbitrator for Local Court of NSW. In that time as a litigation lawyer, he has practised in both family and commercial law as well as a number of other relevant areas.

Among his other cases are one where the mother (pdf) "breached parenting orders by secretly relocating her children to another area" and "Mother’s general practitioner asserts the mother suffers depression and has suicidal thoughts" and yet the decision was that "All children shall continue to have regular interaction with each other and the interested adults in their lives." This father in this case seems to have the backing of the paternal grandmother, which may have helped him to get at least contact in this case, even though many might have thought it reasonable to home the children with father and let the mother visit them there.


The judgement on the case cited in the OP is dated 7 December 2010. I won't expose the children's names but the court summary is available online (pdf). The Reasons For Judgement are:

1. The enmity between the parties to these proceedings has caused their children’s lives to be unbearably miserable.
2. The children’s traumatic reaction to the pervasive parental conflict has been to unconditionally reject the idea of any interaction between them and the father. So acute is their emotional disturbance that the thought of re-introduction to the father has caused the eldest child, now aged 13 years, to seriously contemplate suicide, and the youngest child, now aged 10 years, to perhaps suffer from enuresis.
3. In all probability, as the father and Independent Children’s Lawyer contend, the mother’s allegations of the father’s sexual and physical abuse of the children are either elaborate fabrications or delusions. It does not now really matter which it is. The children are seriously stressed at the prospect of any interaction with the father and it is immaterial whether their alienation from him arises from deliberate or inadvertent conduct on the part of the mother. Either explanation is an indictment of the mother.
4. The real question confronting the Court is whether the relationships between the children and the father are now capable of restoration. The sad reality is they are not – at least until the children have each attained sufficient maturity to decide for themselves whether the severance of their relationship with the father was a voluntary decision born of their own adverse experiences with him or a coerced response due to pressure exerted by the mother.
5. The best interests of the children are presently served by the termination of their exposure to the parental conflict, and regrettably, that outcome can only presently be achieved by terminating the interaction between the children and the father.

Is foster care not available in Australia for abused children? Or children's homes? How can it be wise to leave children in the hands of such a vicious and manipulative parent?

[johnkimble1]

This is unbelievable. Carrying out such awful parental alienation should carry a significant prison sentence.

If she's lied to the court by inventing abuse allegations then that needs an even longer sentence on top.

[rohara]

The judge really had no choice. The children were already brainwashed.

I have to respectfully disagree.

Dr. Paula Parmentier wrote and excelent piece about parental alienation here.

It is a great read and having know several people who as children were victims of this kind of behavior I can tell you that they would have done anything to maintain a normal relationship with the non-custodial parent-almost always the father.

I am reading Stephen Baskerville's book "Taken Into Custody", a great read. And he points out that local bar associations are often dominated by feminists who have no problem at all viciously lobying for the woman in such cases even though she is a psychopath. You even hear of careers being whiped out by mobs of feminists. I have seen this in higher education first hand and I can tell you it's hard to belive but absolutely true. It happens in legislatures too.
I realy think that the MRM should get agressive about this kind of thing and start naming and shaming judges.

[Douglas]

I realy think that the MRM should get agressive about this kind of thing and start naming and shaming judges.

That's one reason why I spent the time finding who and where he was.

I don't live in New South Wales, or any other part of Australia, so cannot take it further. If those in Australia, provided with my research, choose to do nothing with it, then quite frankly they deserve the shafting they're getting.

All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

[Marx]

I'm fairly certain Percy will be on this like flies on shit.

[bowspearer]

Mother waged campaign to alienate her children from their father.

Mother wins custody battle after terrifying children about father

Kim Arlington

January 4, 2011
HER ''delinquent attitude'' to parenthood was denounced in the Family Court after she waged a campaign to alienate her children from their father.
But the woman has still won sole custody of the two children, who are now so distressed by the prospect of a reunion with their father, a judge has ruled they should not have to see him.
The enmity between the parents, who cannot be named, has made their children's lives unbearably miserable, Justice Stewart Austin said. He concluded the only way to end the conflict was, ''regrettably'', to terminate the children's interaction with their father.
Advertisement: Story continues below
The court heard the man used to have loving relationships with his son, 13, and daughter, 10, but has barely had contact with them since the mother launched court proceedings last year to stop them spending time together.
Justice Austin was satisfied the mother ''embarked upon a campaign to align the children with her and reject the father'' - behaviour described by a psychiatrist as emotionally abusive to the children.
Police and child welfare agencies investigated and dismissed the mother's allegations that the father abused the children.
The girl, when interviewed by officers, said she and her brother had been promised rewards if they ''told the police about Daddy''.
Justice Austin said the mother made further ''outlandish, unsubstantiated allegations'', including that the father had installed a tracking device in her car, a surveillance camera outside her house and had broken into her home.
Her paranoia ''invaded the children's day-to-day lives''.
The children grew to fear their father might kidnap them after their mother kept them at home to prevent their abduction from school.
The court in Brisbane heard the little girl wet her bed, while her brother had threatened self-harm if forced to see his father and was vulnerable to developing a mental disorder.
Justice Austin found the ''primary cause of the children's desperate emotional turmoil lies with the mother''. Her conduct, he said, was lamentable.
However, he did not agree with the father that the children should live with him. While there was no risk he would expose them to harm, it would be ''highly problematic and dangerous'' to force them to live with him when they did not want to see him.
Justice Austin was aware the man would be disappointed but said the court's priority was not achieving a just result for the parents, but serving the children's best interests.
He ordered that the father be allowed to have his children's school photographs and reports. He can also occasionally send them gifts and write to show ''he still loves them and has not willingly abandoned them''.
Asked in court about how much responsibility she accepted for the children's emotional despair, the mother replied: "I've done the best thing I can for my kids.''

EDIT: I have spoken with a woman called Stacey from the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission who point blank refused to investigate Justice Austin. The reason she gave was words to the effect of "he made a ruling in a case he presided over". The Premier's Office gave the typical indifferent response of "send us a letter and we'll investigate" without showing the slightest bit of interest. Typical from the govt and judicial system here.