The system is stacked against the parents.
Regular people have no idea how the system works, but Social Workers have professional lawyers backing them. They know how to stack the odds in their own favor.
If they know they're going to be heard by a fair Judge, they send in a different lawyer to say they are unprepared and ask for an adjournment.
Twice they played that trick on me, before one Judge finally seized our case and insisted he be the ONLY one to hear it. After this, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) lawyer played it so that the court date was delayed for several more months!
They do not give you court documents (containing their case against you) until you are entering the courtroom hearing. How can you and your lawyer possibly prepare your defense? Yes, you can ask for an adjournment to prepare -- but this means 3 more months wait -- and you know that your children need to come home ... NOW!!!
Oh, and if you do come prepared enough to demolish their accusations, they will simply withdraw their Application so that the Judge never hears your evidence against them and never knows how badly they behaved trying to set you up! Remember, your own lawyer will act in good faith and share the evidence you have gathered with them BEFORE the court hearing ... but your lawyer will not receive disclosure of their evidence until the same day as court.
Our MCFD battle went on for 3 years.
My husband was charged with sexual assault of a minor
--- FOR BATHING MY DAUGHTER ---
who was protesting having her hair washed.
(The incident that Chuck's son, Benjamin witnessed.)
He was tried and acquitted.
The Supreme Court Justice, who heard the case, gave a SCATHING report.
In the "Reasons For Judgement," the Judge clearly stated that MCFD had led my daughter's testimony, but had NO actual evidence of sexual assault.
I gave the "Reasons for Judgement" report to the MCFD Team Leader,
who refused to read it.
He said that the Judge's report DID NOT MATTER!
During my husband's criminal trial -- before the prosecution made her final submission, the Judge said:
"Please clarify your basis for this charge -- and I DON'T want to hear about the bathtub incident anymore. If that were my child, I would've lathered my hands and washed her whole body! If this man were her natural father, we wouldn't be here today, would we?"
Nevertheless, the rumors and allegations had grown to the point where my small community had turned away from us, and believed that my husband was guilty and that I had protected him. One Social Worker spread gossip that my husband had "confessed" to her. Someone posted on Social Media that my husband was a predator and my older son was luring young girls into his truck for him.
By the time Liam was in Kindergarten, other children were asking him if his Dad had molested him too! There were little kids, for crying out loud!
When they finally started the process of re-integration with our family, it was only because my daughter was cutting herself and had a plan to hang herself.
The counsellor assigned to the task of re-integrating our family, could only sit there, horrified, as we all clung to each other and wept.
My daughter had been told that I abandoned her.
I had made a list, in my diary of all the rumours and allegations -- trying to make sense of it all, trying to understand what was true and what wasn't. -- My 9-yr-old daughter's counsellor read my diary entries to her over and over again and told my daughter that it was was all true -- that I had known, was in on it, that her own mother had knowingly let all these things happen to her ... that she needed to "remember" it all ..... until finally my daughter started to believe that she must have blacked it all out.
After my daughter became suicidal they sent her home to me.
... and closed the file as a "SUCCESSFUL RE-INTEGRATION."
A JOB WELL DONE!
....
This account of TRUE events that took place 11 years ago and was written by my friend, Anna.
It is the seventh in a series that she and I will be sharing here on Steemit with the familyprotection tag. Please share this story with others, so that we can wake people up to the atrocities being committed in our so-called civilized societies. The mainstream media will rarely broach the subject. We must expose these stories to the light of day -- and stand up as a society to stop this abuse of families and children.
