Free Dating Site    

In case most of you guys haven't figured it out yet.....if there is no civil communication between two parents....there isn't a good chance of the NCP getting 50/50 custody in a family court.

Men who fight for joint custody while pursuing a reduction in child support at the same time...kinda look like their motives for increased custody aren't genuine..and they may come off looking sleezy....JMO though.

In case most of you guys haven't figured it out yet.....if there is no civil communication between two parents....there isn't a good chance of the NCP getting 50/50 custody in a family court

Why should the NCP parent be held to a higher standard than that of the custodial parent. When there are accusations of abuse on the part of the custodial parent they don't have to provide proof in order to gain sole custody.~soccersweep~

^^^what planet are you living on? I don't even know how to respond to that comment..
time to grow up and get out of the sandbox darlin.

All of the other cases you sight are a far reach and present a huge risk to the CP (mother in your eg) in making those false allegations...You are representing the extremes....most CP's (mother's) would not take that risk.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A woman steps into a “shelter for abused women” and lies to the staff that her husband is abusive. The staff then supplies her with a letter of endorsement that is highly prejudicial to the husband in court. She is then awarded custody of the children. The father’s relationship between his children is ripped asunder merely on the say-so of a shelter worker. Shelter staff are giving these women the upper hand in divorce court; despite the fact that the shelter staff have never met the men involved, have only heard one side of the story, and have only known the women for a short time under highly artificial conditions.


Judges are “most definitely swayed” if a woman is staying at a shelter and court documents include a letter from the facility implying that the father is dangerous, says Ms. Baragar. “I mean, you’ve got sort of a ‘professional’ now saying he shouldn’t see his kids.”

Ms. Baragar, herself, has used the tactic on behalf of her own clients. She cites a recent case in which she represented a woman who “came in with this two- or three-page letter which I attached to the affidavit, and [the father] was denied access on that basis. Nothing else. It depends on the judge. Some judges are more cautious than others. But in that particular case he was absolutely denied access.”

One-Stop Divorce Shops by Donna Laframboise
© Southam Inc., National Post, Canada, November 21, 1998

Two years ago, Terri admitted that she abused the battered-women's shelter system. Although her husband had never assaulted her, she told a Winnipeg conference examining false allegations in family law that she lied to shelter staff, and to herself, because it was absurdly easy and because she had something to gain.

Terri says her husband's drinking problem made their seven-year relationship a rocky one, and that she had left him before. Her mother urged her to go to a shelter, she says, in the belief that the counselors would help her achieve independence. Terri (who requested anonymity to spare her now former husband further embarrassment), says she telephoned a Winnipeg shelter and was told only abused women were admitted. "I went to the door and I cried and said that my husband was abusive. My kids weren't with me because I didn't want them to see how I had to get in."

Terri says the intake worker accepted her story at face value. So she retrieved her sons, then three and six years old, and went back to the shelter where staff began coaching her on how to gain the upper hand in divorce court.

A year ago this week, Sandra Cliffe, an employee of a British Columbia women's shelter, followed her conscience. She contacted child protection authorities with concerns that a nine-year-old girl staying at Yew Transition House was being emotionally neglected and abused by her mother.

On medical leave since then, Cliffe recently submitted her resignation. "I've been treated like a skunk at a picnic," she says, "even though, by law, if I believe a child is being abused I'm obligated to report it."

The shelter, which receives nearly $300,000 a year from the B.C. government, distributes flyers describing itself as a "safe place for women and children." Among the list of services provided by the shelter, according to these flyers, is "support and advocacy for children."

But Cliffe, who worked 20 hours a week at Yew House for more than four years, says this is little more than lip service. Because many of her co-workers were hard line feminists, she says, a child's needs took a back seat.

Shelters used in war on men, expert claims by Karen Unland
Pizzey, who carried a sign reading "False Charges Are Also Abuse," said people have a responsibility to protest when social service organizations suggest that only men are violent. Most women who ended up at her shelter were "as violent as the men they left," she said. Reacting to abuse they suffered as children, these women often abuse their own children and tend to return again and again to dangerous relationships, she said. " It isn't a question of just saying it's only the man's fault. It's her responsibility as well," Pizzey said.

Arlene Chapman, provincial coordinator of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters, said Pizzey's views are ludicrous. "She's obviously out of step with the sheltering movement...It was the feminist movement that started the shelters, and thank God," Chapman said. Last year, Alberta shelters housed 5,212 women and 6,232 children [ Note: According to shelter directors, 25% were not battered women, but women looking for hostels.].

Ms. Chapman said it is "absolutely preposterous" to suggest women and men are equally abusive. "There is a gross power imbalance between women and men," she said. An abused woman tends to go back to her partner at least three times before she leaves for good. But it's poverty, not a tendency to seek violent relationships, that sends the women back home, Ms. Chapman said of Pizzey: "This woman needs to be educated."

Donna Laframboise
National Post

Fred Greenslade, National Post / Regan Thatcher, the family law lawyer who represented Mr. A., says that while false sexual abuse allegations in divorce cases have declined in recent years, they're still too common.
A four-year custody battle ends with a child being reunited with her father after a Manitoba judge criticizes social services for pursuing unfounded sexual abuse allegations against him. Donna Laframboise reports

- - -

In September, 1995, a common-law relationship between Mr. A. and Ms. T. (who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of their daughter) broke down.

Ms. T., whom Madame Justice Laurie Allen, the judge presiding over the custody hearing of their child, describes as mentally ill, went to Osborne House, a Winnipeg women's shelter.

While in residence at the shelter, the couple's then 3½-years-old daughter, K., underwent a child sexual abuse education program.

Soon afterward, Ms. T. reported to a doctor that K. claimed her father had sexually molested her during an access visit. The doctor found "no medical evidence of sexual abuse," but referred the child to Family Services (the equivalent of Children's Aid in other provinces).

After a social worker showed K. a video about sexual abuse intended for children aged six to 12, K. reported to the social worker that her father had touched her pelvic area.

Catherine Hudek, the director of abuse services, who had become a counsellor to Ms. T., continued to insist Mr. A. was guilty even when the police and a psychologist disagreed. In the view of the judge, the child's mother might also have abandoned her suspicions "but for the forceful intervention of Ms. Hudek."

Even though internal memos show that Ms. Hudek had concerns about Ms. T.'s mental health, Judge Allen says Ms. Hudek did not share them with the court. "She did not feel that Ms. T.'s mental health was an issue in custody/access proceedings, a statement I find incredible," wrote the judge.

"She wrote public reports on behalf of the agency about Ms. T.'s parenting ability which were . . . at variance with her own concerns as to Ms. T's mental stability."

Judge Allen awarded sole custody of K. to Mr. A.

Ms. Hudek, for her part, resigned her position in July, 1997, to pursue a master's degree. Currently on contract with the Manitoba government, she is writing a manual on how to properly investigate child sexual abuse allegations.

Regan Thatcher, the family law lawyer who represented Mr. A., says that while false sexual abuse allegations in divorce cases have declined in recent years, they're still too common. "It's not as bad as it used to be. I mean it used to be just terrible. But you talk to lawyers that do domestic law and they're going to tell you false allegations happen all the time."

A FIGHTER IN EXILE

The Sunday Times (London) August 17 1986

Erin Pizzey, who pioneered women's refuges in the Seventies, has retired to New Mexico. BRIAN DEER found a changed woman

"UGH," gasps Erin Pizzey, as if the cup of hot English tea she is drinking has been salted rather than sugared. "The American woman is an appalling species. She doesn't cook. She doesn't look after the children. She is a revolting nuisance as far as I am concerned."

Pizzey, now 47 and more or less in exile, sprawls uneasily in a low wooden armchair on the porch of her New Mexico home, one leg propped up on a pine coffee table. The scenery that surrounds her might have mellowed another woman. Her house stands in an expensive private estate 12 miles from Santa Fe, the state capital and the south west's fastest growing tourist resort. A few hundred yards beyond the fence that marks out her land rise the first steep foothills of the Rockies.

But Pizzey appears unmoved by the beauty of the setting, and even in the 80F heat is not practised at keeping cool. "Women have all the power and men have very little," she carries on. "Men die young and spend most of their lives trying to pay the mortgage. A woman sits at home with money in her pocket. She can choose to work, and she always could."