 I was only with my daughter’s father for 8 months; however, it took me 7 years to finally get away from him. He had originally not been interested in my pregnancy, however after I finally left, he was able to use the court system as another form of control and abuse. We were in and out of the family court for seven years, with the final court case lasting three years. My ex had a well-documented criminal history of drug abuse and domestic violence, which the judge deemed irrelevant. There were also many documented incidences of violent behaviour towards other women, but these were also dismissed. Communication kept breaking down due to his violent outbursts, so I asked for contact to be returned to a contact centre to protect myself. Social services had said if I continued to let him hit me in front of my daughter, they would remove her from my care and possibly give her to him. I was absolutely dumbfounded. He retaliated by taking filing for overnight access, something he had never had. He was entitled to legal aid as he supposedly didn’t work. I did work so could not get legal aid, but also couldn’t afford an attorney. It was a vertical learning curve. I asked for a psychological assessment, which the judge was extremely reluctant to allow. Two years later, after all other means had failed, including a warrant for me to serve 10 days in prison, it was finally granted. The psychological assessment exposed him for exactly what he was. It proved I had not been lying and that he posed a serious risk to both me and my daughter. That was 15 years ago. It saddens me that nothing has changed. FROM: "Faces of the Crisis" a Women's Coalition Exhibit
http://bit.ly/FacesOfTheCrisis SHARE, comment and react in support of Emma! MORE Posts of Faces & Stories: http://bit.ly/FacesOfTheCrisisEvent Why are women losing custody in epidemic numbers? "The Custody Crisis: Why It's Happening & How We Can End It" https://youtu.be/Wgo4Rpvy7bc "FACES OF THE CRISIS" is an exhibit created by The Women's Coalition to raise awareness about the international epidemic of judges switching custody to self-serving and abusive men: https://www.womenscoalitioninternational.org Participate in the exhibit by sending your photo to: [email protected][email protected]. You may include a brief account of how you lost custody or were unable to protect your child(ren) if you want. [NOTE: your submission may be edited for clarity, brevity or anonymity.] COLLECTION of stories from submissions: https://1drv.ms/w/s!Aof0RIpSsZZCgoZuINAXgcSlRUraxA Join The Women's Coalition to help raise awareness and fight for a new system: [email protected] DONATE If you appreciate the work of The Women's Coalition, please consider donating! Paypal: http://bit.ly/DonateWomensCoalition Facebook Donate button Facebook Fundraiser Amazon Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/
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 The first documented Custody Crisis case that we know of was recorded by Louise Armstrong [pictured] in her book “Rocking the Cradle of Sexual Politics”. It is the story of a mother who tried desperately to protect her child from serial sexual assault by the father in 1976. Despite abundant supporting evidence, including substantiation by a psychiatrist and psychologist, the judge found her to be a liar, to have coached her child to disclose. Sole custody was given to the father and she was sentenced to jail for three months. She never saw her child again.
Here is her story as told by Louise: From the court documents now before me, we learn that Mary Lou had been divorced from "Harry" in 1975. Custody of the infant child had been granted to Mary Lou with visitation to Harry. In the winter of 1976, Alice, then five years old, had complained to Mary Lou that Harry had sexually molested her. At once bewildered, perplexed, and alarmed, Mary Lou turned to a local but nationally respected child psychiatrist, 'Dr. Smith,' as well as to a local clinical psychologist, "Dr. Judith Wright." Their separate opinions were that Harry had indeed sexually molested the child. And Dr. Smith advised Mary Lou not to allow Harry further visitation (Remember, we are dealing with 1976 here, two years before incest would explode on the human interest pages of newspapers nationwide. Dr. Smith was operating on child-protective common sense.) The following month, Harry filed in the trial court, seeking to have Mary Lou held in contempt for failure to allow visitation, and seeking custody for himself. Mary Lou’s attorney filed to overrule that motion, appending the evaluations of Dr. Smith and Dr. Wright, and seeking to curtail visitation or at least forbid it to be unsupervised. The judge, 'Judge Cain,' proceeded to trail, commanding Mary Lou to proceed with proof in support of her motion to terminate visitation. At the trial of the case some four months later, Judge Cain began by commenting that it was up to Mary Lou to prove reason to terminate visitation, and up to Harry to prove reason for a reversal of custody. No further mention was made at that time of any charge of contempt of court. The court’s findings and judgment, however, included a specific finding of contempt against Mary Lou: "The petitioner has an excuse for at least the denial of visitation, that being a psychiatrist and a psychologist believed the child’s statement of child molesting. The question is not what they believed, hearing only part of the version and not knowing the background or the full factual situation: the question is what the petitioner believed, and … court firmly believed the petitioner … caused the child to make statements, knowing full well the falsity thereof" (italics mine). And so we witness here, for the first time I am aware of, the tactical shift from implicating the child (as an accomplice-witness) and thus exonerating the offender, to the focus on the mother as the source of all lies (thus exonerating the offender). With this result for Alice: "The custody of the minor child may be and is hereby transferred from the petitioner to the respondent, effective immediately, such being in the child’s best interest … The petitioner is found and adjudged to be in contempt of court for her willful, flagrant, and various violations of the orders of the court. As punishment, the petitioner shall be confined to the County Jail for a period of 90 days.” Could this have been taken, back then, as a premonition of the later backlash against child-protective women? Yes—if we could also have read at the time the impending change in social context, the vigorous efforts to once again silence women, to repeal their so-recently gained rights. One burr in Judge Cain’s saddle, as it turned out, was that Mary Lou worked at that time for an outspoken feminist and writer, whom the judge referred to as a man-hater with a poor opinion of marriage, and who he said was brainwashing Mary Lou. This southern judge would seem to have been punishing Mary Lou for, in his view, having fallen among persons with seditious ideas. At Harry’s request, Judge Cain further embellished his decision by restraining Mary Lou from all communication, direct or indirect, with the child Alice—even by use of tape recordings or through third parties. A great deal of wrangling followed, but the upshot is that Mary Lou has never since heard from or been allowed to communicate with her child (now, of course, no longer a child). TWC NOTE: Before 1976, women did not have the power to leave men without being impoverished and knew they would lose their children if they left anyway. It was only after women gained financial independence and supposed equality in the 70's, that they began leaving and hence Custody Crisis cases began. Notice this case occurred before the use of court-appointed minor’s counsels and evaluators who give judges cover. It was also before “parental alienation” gave judges something easy to hang their hat on. This shows the agenda to entitle fathers while blaming, punishing and silencing mothers and children operated even without these tactics. |
AuthorCindy Dumas, M.A. has been researching, writing, and raising awareness about the Custody Crisis since 2003, when she was unable to protect her children from their abusive father. She fled into hiding when Family Court failed her and was tricked into returning home, when her children were given to their abusive father. Archives
January 2022
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