Rebecca Minnock - on the run with child after court battle

[BreakingDad77]

Is this one of those cases we wont get to the bottom of as to whether she is someone with MH problems or scheming father driving her to them?

I would be pretty fucked off if I was a child who reached adulthood to find out I'd been prevented from having a relationship with my Father because the state had decided it was better to err on the side of caution and stop any meaningful contact.

Verena,

Utter nonsense,

The father is not abusing the child, he is not taking the child away from his mother.

You are clearly projecting your own experience and a parent that denies a child a relationship with the other parent is not loving the child by doing so.

verena how is the father abusing the child?? just how?

Karen Goodall's agenda seems quite clearly - to me at least - that she believes every time a mother does not permit contact that this is 'parental alienation'. maybe she has got more impartial, I confess I haven't checked out her blog recently. My encounter with her was now 2-3 years ago.

Lucy Reed makes the point fluently that a lot of us have been making - the court system can't change parents. Parents have to own their own behaviours and reactions to one another. No judge can micro manage family life.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tj6vl

God Verena what an awful thing to say! So it's ok for the mother to run and prevent the childs father for seeing him? No
Responsilbilty? She isn't at fault?
I cannot believe you can wildly make these statments just based on the fact she is his mother. The father has done nothing wrong!
I literally cannot fathom why people have children with these supposed monsters then cannot co parent. Being an adult is putting the child first not your own selfish wants and needs. Refuse to believe no one can parent your child other than you. Deny them that love!!
One of the most disturbed children I teach at the moment is broken by the fact his mother cannot co parent with his father and he is prevented from seeing the parent he adores. She is so beligerent in the belief only she will do he is an angry wreck of a boy. THIS is abuse.
Hopefully she will stop this soon and it will be resolved so both can have a loving relationship with their child. Not her's. Theirs.

Verena - parents do a lot of appalling and harmful things to their children in the name of 'love'.

You can feel all sorts of very strong emotions for a child and still be quite incapable of doing what is right for that child.

Refusing to let a father have a relationship with a child, when there is no evidence to show that the father be any kind of risk, may be done out of 'love' - but the impact on the child can be very serious and very negative.

I don't doubt Rebecca M loves her child. But that is not the point.

From years of reading Karen Woodall's blog that couldn't be further from the truth.

Pink tape has helped me as a LIP and in this link Marilyn Stowe describes what many of us fathers have to face. Not the bit about Vicky Haigh)

www.marilynstowe.co.uk/2011/08/23/vicky-haigh-case/

I suspect that Verena is a rather vulnerable person. I reported her posts because they were a terrible idea, but it is clear that she isn't thinking straight.

about seven paragraphs in.

More often than not society will attempt to make excuses for a woman's behaviour whereas a man displaying the same behaviour will be vilified.

it's clear she felt she was never going to be allowed to have contact with him again and running away was an act of desperation.

No, excelsior, that is NOT clear. She was to be allowed supervised contact, and no doubt if she had proved herself trustworthy it would have become unsupervised. Prior to that, she had him for three nights a week until she started breaking the court order: again, that could have continued indefinitely if she had been sensible. In fact the entire situation would never have arisen if she had simply been prepared to allow her child to have reasonable contact with his father from the outset. It's the fact that she has run away which now puts her in danger of not being allowed contact again.

More often than not society will attempt to make excuses for a woman's behaviour whereas a man displaying the same behaviour will be vilified.

Feminist led organisations such as Gingerbread and Women's Aid would argue the contrary though.

sonnyson, sounds like you'd fit in rather well with F4J. They hate MN too. Did you join up just to post on this thread?

I have never had anything to do with F4J.

I do not hate MN.

I have read mumsnet for years.

I felt that could post on this thread as I have faced a similar situation.

Spero,

You have always given excellent advice, so if you say that in your experience you haven't encountered professionals working together, then I believe you.

However, I have experienced this, and so have many other domestic violence victims who I have spoken to (the majority of whom are mothers).

Examples: Information being offered selectively to the court, even by guardian's solicitors, to minimise risks posed by fathers, and to suggest mothers are problematic for being concerned about contact progressing (even in instances in that parents have had legal representation, information supportive of parents cases isn't always included within bundles, which poses the question - why not?) Judges have been known to be changed at the final hour, so they are not as familiar with cases, so this can then be exploited by father's counsel, and in some cases guardian's counsel. Furthermore, the chronologies within bundles are written by father's counsel, and they don't always accurately/wholly reflect the events up to date. It is not unknown for risks that have caused professionals concern, to be missed out of chronologies, alongside the evidence to accompany it.

All of these loop-holes (and many more) allow injustice to happen within the court system, and this is happening I assure you, I know this from my own experience.

I have also mentioned Karen Woodall, Marilyn Stowe and Lucy Reed.

Are you trying to say that Feminism cannot be criticised when discussing family law?

As the files regarding this case are not accessible to the general public the true always will be unknown, I would take everything written and said with a pinch of salt.
It is well known that there are some women and some men who like to obstruct contact between the other parent and the child. My own personal experience here: also it is very well known that both women and men after separation want to portray the other parents very often the mother as an unfit parent, she could be driven to the brink so the father can have custody of the children something fathers would not manage to achieve unless they use dirty tricks. Unfortunately sometimes very inexperienced gullible social workers are assigned to these difficult cases which contributes to a written report/assessment with no reliable value.

sabrinna

why did you put two seperate comments made by sonny together,as if they are one sentence or meant to go together? the womens aid comment was way back up thread.

Gingerbread are not a feminist organisation. I don't see why you should criticise feminism when it comes to family law - law is, and always has been, written by largely by men.

It's all man's fault then eh?

Excelsior - all I can say is there is a big difference between professionals 'working together' to ensure the efficient running of the case and 'working together' in collusion to stitch up vulnerable parent.

The first is a professional duty, the second - so far as I am concerned - simply does not happen.

But I can understand how a worried and paranoid parent might mistake one for the other.

"SDTG: Because contact with biological parents is not essential. Plenty of children grow up happy and healthy despite the fact that their fathers have fucked off and never shown any interest in them. It's a matter of risk, that's all."

Firstly, biology isn't the issue per se - if a person has been in a child's life, having a good, loving nurturing relationship with the them, parenting them, then surely it is better for them to stay in the child's life as much as possible (as long as they are not harming, damaging or abusing the child)?

Why is it better for a child who has not been abused, but who has two loving, caring parents who happen to have stopped loving eachother, to lose contact with one of those parents, biological or otherwise? Is it OK for that child to be collateral damage in an attempt to stop children having to have contact with an abusive parent, however laudable aim is?

And for me, the word 'despite' is key, in your second sentence. Growing up healthy and happy despite their fathers having fucked off implies that the children have had to overcome things, battle through difficulties because their father has left.

If a child does not have to face those extra difficulties and battles, isn't it better if they don't have to face them unless it is necessary? And if the father is a good enough father, not abusive or damaging his kids or wife, why is it necessary for them to have to face these difficulties?

Gingerbread supports single parents, whoever they are. They campaign for better support for single parents and provide guidance on navigating, for instance, the benefits maze. You are just completely wrong about them.

Mumswinner is sadly right.

Poor wee boy. I'm not agreeing in mums actions, but she was clearly desperate. There's no winners in this.