Mother speaks out against Injustice


Mother speaks out against Injustice We are here to inspire you, for support, to inform and to help make changes to our current failing Family Justice system. The media has been dominated recently by stories highlighting how the social services are frequently ripping families apart and also by publicity for Fathers4justice. This website hopes to highlight the fact that it is not only fathers who get treated harshly by the Social Services and the courts. The aim of this page is to pool together mothers who have been wronged and to let them get their stories heard. Stories like the one below: For the last six months ‘X’ has been the victim of a witch hunt conducted by her estranged husband, the Social Services and the courts. This has left her three stones lighter, bereft, destitute, with a criminal record and totally desperate for access to her three children. It all began nine months ago after she filed for divorce from her husband, ‘Y’. She woke up one morning to a bin being thrown at her head by him and then watched as he stood by the bed tearing up the divorce papers. Although he was never been obviously physically violent, her husband subjected X to verbal and mental abuse throughout their marriage and behaved towards her in a very volatile and aggressive manner. X realised that if she went ahead with the divorce her home life would be unbearable so decided, mostly for the sake of her children, not to go ahead with it. This turned out to be the biggest mistake she had ever made. Unbeknown to her ‘Y’ began to put his own plan into action. He began pestering X to sign a document to re-mortgage their house, something which she was very reluctant to do as he didn’t really explain why he needed to do this. He also suggested to her that they should get an Au Pair but when X wouldn’t do this he threw a screwdriver at he car windscreen. At this time the pain got too much for X and she admits to using alcohol on a regular basis as an escape although this was only in the evenings after she had put the children to bed. One day there was a trivial row with one of the children before he went to school about a pair of shoes X wanted him to wear which were easy to fasten after PE because he had told her that he had had a bad day before because his laces kept coming undone. All X wanted was for her children’s lives to be as easy as possible unfortunately this often made her a little over-protective of them. On this particular morning, however, her son decided he didn’t like these shoes so took them outside and threw them up a tree. This caused tempers to be frayed and led to an argument between X and ‘Y’. Later that day ‘Y’ received a phone call from the headmistress informing him that his son was upset about what happened before school. It transpired that he had exaggerated what had occurred but ‘Y’ jumped at the opportunity to blame everything on X’s “drink problem”. On hearing this, the Headmistress rang the Child Protection Agency (CPA) and suddenly everything began to escalate out of control and, before long, X’s life changed beyond all recognition. Her Son, ‘Z’, was interviewed at his school while the parents were being interviewed at home. A ‘core group’ was quickly formed comprising of the school nurse, social workers, teachers and a health visitor. When asked to vote whether the children should be placed on the ‘at risk’ register, all of those who actually know X voted against it but were overruled by one vote by people who had never met her before and were only basing their decision on a very one-sided account given by her husband. The children were subsequently put on the ‘at risk’ register for ‘possible emotional harm’. Alongside this, X was told by the CPA that she could look after the children in the daytime but she had to leave the family home every evening and was thus forced to move in with her mother. X was absolutely devastated by this, up till then she had never lest her youngest son, only two years old, with anyone in case he cried for her. A few days later, Z came back from a leisure outing with his father announcing that the whole family were going back to Y’s country of birth and that Mummy wasn’t going with them. Anxious to prevent this, X then got an injunction against Y to stop him from taking the children out of the country as it appeared that he was trying to extract all of the equity from the house and probably didn’t intend to return to this country. Whilst in her husband’s office, X found a list entitled “Ways to get rid of X”. This included trying to get her sectioned, something that he had already tried, and failed, to do. She was distraught to read this and decided, as drink was the only real weapon he had against her, to book herself into a rehab clinic. The evening before she went in, Y permitted her to stay in the home to allow her to pack her clothes. Whilst there she was followed around the house by Y’s mother who was moaning at her that it was wrong the Y should have to give her money when they divorced. That evening Y and X had yet another row in which Y rugby tackled X for no apparent reason and called to his mother to phone the police, something which she did without even asking why. Interestingly, another item on the list I earlier referred to was “Get her arrested”. Y later claimed to the police that X took a knife from a drawer and dropped it. When X explained to her family that Y had phoned the police, she confided that she didn’t have a clue why. The police rang back to check that everything was ok and stated that they would come the next day. The following morning X checked in at the clinic and was immediately breathalysed. Upon seeing that the reading was zero the nurse commented on how unusual this was as most patients have a drink before being admitted. Throughout her stay there, she was often the butt of the other patients jokes as they thought it was hilarious for someone to be in rehab because they drink a few glasses of wine in the evening. Upon being discharged, X received a call from Y saying “This has gone far enough, meet me in town and we will go to my solicitor to sort this mess out.” X waited at the time and place agreed and was shocked to be met by two female police officers who promptly handcuffed her and placed her under arrest. Y was pressing charges against her for a mysterious scratch on the arm that he claimed to have received during the knife dropping incident. X promptly appeared in court, pleaded not guilty and was placed on bail. This enabled Y to obtain a non-molestation order against X. The CPA said she could no longer have normal access to her children and would instead have to have supervised contact with them. A social worker would bring the children to her mother’s house for ninety minutes, two days a week. X then moved into the annex of a friend’s house and the contact continued there on the same basis. It is impossible to understand the pain and devastation that X was going through. She’d lost her home, her children and her life. She’d been accused of being a violent alcoholic and had less access to her children than many paedophiles get. You’d think it couldn’t get any worse but it did. One evening X just couldn’t take any more and made a tearful phone call to Y. The following morning she was woken up by her doorbell. When she answered the door she was greeted by two female police officers who asked her what she was doing there. “What do you mean? I live here” she replied. She was then arrested on the dual charge of ringing Y and changing address, something no-one had told her she was not allowed to do whilst on bail. How would she have known this was not allowed? She has spent her life as a law abiding citizen. At the police station she was told by a policeman that they would have to keep her in a cell overnight but at court the next day they would probably give her a slap on the wrists and send her home. Unfortunately she seemed to catch the judge on a bad day as he was sending everyone to prison, including her. Her family were given no information as to where she had been taken and spent hours on the telephone being passed from one prison to another. They discovered the next day that she had been taken to a prison 30 miles away from home and were allowed to arrange to go to see her the day after. When they arrived and were taken to see her in the visiting room they saw her sat alone at a table. As soon as they reached her she broke down in tears and continued sobbing for 10 minutes. An official commented to her that he couldn’t believe what they are sending women to prison for these days and that she shouldn’t be there. She was eventually released on appeal after 5 days in prison. The supervised visits continued. On one of these visits X told Z that she was going to court to try to see him and his brothers more. She was told by the social worker that this was inappropriate behaviour and the venue of the visits was changed to the social services offices as punishment. X was arrested for the third time when she saw Y and the children in church and spoke to them because the two year old was calling out “Mummy, Mummy!” What mother wouldn’t do exactly what she did, to walk away would be totally against all motherly instinct. Despite the vicar asking Y not to phone the police, he did exactly that. For once X had a judge that could see how desperate she was and, rather than punish her, he ordered that she could see her children more often. X could now see them for ninety minutes twice a week plus four hours on a Saturday. She could now see the two year old for four hours a day but was still supervised, sometimes by social workers and sometimes by her landlady. Z wrote in his school diary that he was so happy to be seeing his mother three times a week. He also wrote to Childline about how unhappy he was at home with his father and the nanny he had hired to look after the children. Z also told X that he would kill himself if she didn’t win custody. By now there had been another CPA meeting and the children had been removed from the ‘at risk’ register and the case had been transferred to local social workers. Initially all concerned thought this was an improvement but they were soon proved wrong. Although most of the new social workers were friendly and supportive, especially one who told X that she had been doing the job for 24 years and was embarrassed to be supervising her, the person in charge started criticising X by saying that she was too lenient with the children and that she gave them too many sweets. She also accused X of undermining Y to the kids and said she was acting irrationally, not with the children but with the people who were causing her downfall. (Personally, I think that most mothers would act at least a little irrationally if they were suddenly only allowed to see their kids a few hours a week!) This was said after X was unable to keep her cool during a meeting with the social worker and Y. X went with her mother to the Z’s school and the teacher showed him his work where he had written how unhappy he was and how he had no reason to live. X wanted a photocopy of this to give to her solicitor but the headmistress insisted that everything at Z’s home is fine. This is the same woman who called the CPA in the first place because he was a little upset and now he is suicidal. X also put the phone down on the social worker when she rang to inform that, “although you are a good mother, I will be recommending that Y has full custody of the children”. After Y did get full custody of the children, The social worker incredibly then recommended that X should have even less contact with the children as she claimed it was disruptive and they are better off with one parent. Right from the beginning, although social workers are supposed to be neutral, it has always appeared as if they have been working for Y. It should be added that Y is a financially motivated businessman who has treated the whole debacle as though this is just another business deal he has to win because if X got the children he would have to give her money. Y has even ripped off his own extended family, he refused to pay some accountants in the family warning them that if they pressed charges it would cause a family rift. X was now allowed to see the children for six hours on Saturdays and for ninety minutes on Wednesday but his did not last long. Z told X, in the presence of a family support worker that Y wasn’t feeding them properly and was hitting them. The social worker went to investigate the claims then said they weren’t substantiated. To make matters worse, Y accused X of encouraging Z to make these claims and the social services believed him and cut contact to just two hours a week in the social services offices. The crazy thing about this is that all of X’s contact has been supervised, how on earth could she have encouraged Z to make these claims without being heard by a social worker. I realise Y is probably being encouraged by his solicitors to eliminate X in order to keep all of his assets but its all at the expense of the children’s happiness. As well as effectively losing a mother they are unable to see the rest of the family. Z gave a note to his grandmother saying “I miss you so much, I always sleep with the teddy bear you made for me”. Before this happened she saw him almost everyday. As well as not being able to see the two year old on his second or third birthday she was also unable to see the kids at all over Christmas and has been denied any extra access on any of their birthdays. She feels she cannot win because the goalposts keeping getting moved. The visits originally began because of Y’s claims about her alcohol abuse. Despite these claims being unsubstantiated, the social services have still not withdrawn but, instead, keep finding more reasons to stay involved. X went back to court to gain more access to her children. Guess what, On the social workers recommendation , access was cut to just one hour a week with an extra thirty minutes for the two year old. The reasoning behind this is that, when they see her, the two older children always say how unhappy they are at home and ask when they can live with her saying “why don’t you do more” and “why don’t you start a petition?” Because X tells them she is trying to get custody of them and doesn’t tell the children off for saying they are unhappy, it is considered to be disruptive. Another of the children’s complaints is that “no one listens to us about what we want”. They obviously feel that their mother is the only one who will but because of this they are punished with even less time with their mother and the social services have said that if it continues they will stop access altogether. Since this webpage was originally written X has been back to court several times and has still got no further. As predicted she came out of the divorce virtually empty handed but was not worried by this as she believed her ex-husband would stop the abuse. Published by Fassit UK© Back