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?

The times confirms the hearing today is in open court, but it's for directions relating tI they is charge of the collection order, which is no longer needed now Ethan is found.

So I guess we may be waiting for any judgment about contempt and any sentencing.

'To the discharge of the collection order' damn you ipad.

going through a bad break up during or after pregnancy leaves some parents unable face having ongoing contact for years to come with a person that hurt them - especially if that person cheated, left them and moved on and they are the injured party in all of

There seems to be a fairly widely held view that a cheating husband/male partner has, by the very fact of his cheating, abused the DCs and is therefore a risk to them. Similarly, I have seen it regularly written on MN that a man who ends a relationship during or soon after pregnancy is not putting his child first and therefore cannot be trusted to be a good parent.

I wonder if the women who act on this do so because they genuinely believe that their DCs are at risk?

Maybe the ex partners are a risk and that is where "I believe you" came from. Nobody believed so many women and children for so long.

Peruvian - I think I have already said this, but I do think outright blackhearted lies are very rare. What is much more common is that people construct a narrative that they come to believe - he hurt me, he is not a good person, he will not be a good father.

And of course many non-resident parents (I know this is no longer the correct term but what I am supposed to say? 'the parent with whom the child spends less time?') don't help by behaving like arseholes and compounding the pain everyone is feeling - its very common to have new partners paraded around at contact.

I do think courts can be too dismissive of the massive emotional pain caused by a relationship breakdown - it took me five years to feel 'normal' after mine.

Its easy to see how the pain caused by that can cloud your judgment about what is right for your child. But what I don't understand is why you would chose to add to this pain by pursuing a court battle over many years when you cannot prove anything you say.

People need to be supported and encouraged first not to have children with people who are abusive and dangerous. If they find themselves caught in such a relationship they then need help and support to document the abuse and to get out as soon as possible. But it is not a sign of a 'failing system' that it requires proof of serious allegations about another; its a sign of its health, I wouldn't want it any other way. If someone makes a serious allegation about my fitness to parent, they had better have something other than just their word or the opinion of their neighbours.

tut are you saying that you think that ending a relationship is grounds to label a man abusive towards his DCs, irrespective of his conduct and behaviour towards those DCs prior to the split?

Icimoi - I do think that, a sizeable minority of parents, when going 'head to head' with LEA / NHS can be told they are 'emotionally abusive' to silence them.

They are then left with the options of moving (which could cause stress to the child) or going to the Press (which could cause stress to the child) or staying in a situation which doesn't meet their child's needs (which could cause stress to the child). If the parents are put under enormous strain, this will cause stress to the child.

I appreciate that this is a different set of circumstances, but I agree with Chaise that it is a common tactic from certain professionals who feel threatened.

I saw an article recently about the child who was taken abroad for Cancer therapy (sorry, names elude me, broken night...). He has had the therapy and made huge progress but that family were hounded. The Head of the NHS from the area they 'ran from' was harping on about their poor choices 'emotionally damaging their child'. Still.

Yes the Aysha King case was a very sobering example of how wrong a relationship can go between parents and professionals.

But in defence of 'the system' after the first hot mess of international arrest warrants, the courts reacted quickly and fairly to this situation and made it clear to the family they weren't going to be 'punished' for what they did.

Sorry, ASHYA King - the Transparency Project also reported on that case, if you are interested.

www.transparencyproject.org.uk/ashya-king/

Spero, in our case the court case was about power, control, furthering abuse and his personality type.

In my case a recent medical study showed due to brain structure, we are very open to be abused. I spent years trying to learn and teach myself and children ways to be safe.

I think my ex fooled himself as has been described above by others. I also think he was vulnerable to his new partner and her let's say qualifications, they needed be to be bad to justify their behaviour. to themselves and those around them.

I don't doubt it for a moment King Tut - sadly there is a lot of that kind of behaviour going on. I hope you are in a better place now as a family.

There is a really good balanced blog post here from a mum who has been through having her child removed by an ex and she offers some good practical tips for anyone in this situation.

survivingsafeguarding.co.uk/2015/06/14/the-missing-mum-case-from-both-sides/

*They needed me to be bad.

Well I wasn't and am not bad me and my children had been abused by them all, because of an invisible medical condition.

I will always be sceptical about these things now due to my experience.

I have ptsd as a result of false allegations in court. My children have lost medical care, decent education and socially due to mistakes. They keep going and will be disadvantaged for life yet these so called professionals just get on with their lives possible wreck havoc on innocents after wrecking ours. We will have no justice or happy end we will just survive.

Spero - thank you - your brain is functioning better than mine this morning! I shall look at the Transparency link - thanks.

Yes, the Courts did (eventually) seem to make a right decision but that family still went through hell and are still afraid to return to their country.

KingTut - do you mind if I pm you, pls? (don't want to derail thread).

Ihave, I agree that some professionals do try to silence parents who are simply asking that their children get their legal entitlement to support, as indeed I said; I simply questioned the assertion that there are thousands of people on the SN board saying that has happened to them. The professionals concerned in such cases do tend to have their own agenda, e.g. local authority officials, clinical commissioning groups and schools who are trying to protect their budgets, and educational psychologists, therapists and teachers employed by those organisations. That is rather different from cases like this one where the professionals involved weren't employed by either parent and were not suggesting that Ethan be taken into care.

I also disagree that parents in that situation only have the options you state. What they have also is the option of appealing to tribunals, presenting their own evidence, and if necessary taking legal action in their children's names to enforce their children's entitlement to education and provision for their SEN.

In a situation like this one, where the mother is already in court proceedings, her option if the court's decisions were wrong is to appeal; abducting her child in the false belief that publicity will help her is blatantly the worst possible option.

voyageofdad - I agree. I am very sorry that anyone on this thread has had to go through such horrible experiences. I don't doubt for a moment that these things happen and that the effects of such experiences are very negative and life long.

But I do doubt doubt that they are common place, simply from my own experience, now spanning some 15 years of full time work in the courts.

Whether common place or not, we just cannot extrapolate from our own experiences an immutable rule that applies to everyone and everything else without exception. I agree that is very dangerous.

And for those who persist in arguing that male judges aren't capable of delivering sensitive judgments about the needs of small children, read this one from Mr Justice Holman as he grapples with who should care for a small boy after his dad murdered his mum.
www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWFC/HCJ/2015/48.html

Icimoi - Yes, I take your points in your first paragraph.

Re options though - no Tribunals where I am (Scotland) just Ombudsman (in pocket of LA's) or Independent Adjudication whose results are not legally binding. There ARE no other options.
What of the parents who don't have the money to take legal action, or who break down under the stress and become ill / unable to cope with legal action?

We also have the spectre of the Named Person for Every Child. When your Named Person is also the Prof about whom you have a formal complaint, things can get very nasty very quickly.

But, yes, absolutely, in this case it was very unwise for the mother to 'disappear' during Court proceedings. I am sure she felt desperate, however it has not helped her case. Whether it has damaged the child (during 'run' or after if she is given less contact) it is hard to say at this point.

No matter how bad things went I never once broke a court order, once one was badly written and caused confusion.

I guess deep inside I think it must be very bad to consider to break a court order as we saw with the King family.

The difference is the Kings went on YouTube and put their point across factually and RB went to the press and we got wishy washy emotional comments. We still don't know what her gripe is with the reports.

iHAVE, I know nothing about the system in Scotland, but isn't the Additional Needs Support Tribunal similar to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal in England and Wales?

In England and Wales, you don't have to be legally represented for tribunals and, if your income is very low, would qualify for legal aid. If you have to take court action, it is usually in the child's name so they are very likely to qualify for legal aid in their own right.

Yes, there will be the occasional parent who feels unable to cope with enforcing their child's rights, but the alternatives you put forward of going to the Press, moving or staying in a situation which doesn't support the child's needs are, as you point out, also extremely stressful, and there is quite a lot of support out there for parents challenging local authorities. For what it's worth, many parents find it quite therapeutic using the law to fight back against bullying local authorities.

therapeutic fighting, speak for yourself.

Not all of the hearing is in open court, second half is ongoing.

King Tut, if you find yourself being bullied by a local authority which is itself breaking the law, wouldn't you find it incredibly therapeutic pointing that fact out and threatening to take them to court if they don't start complying? Especially when you know that your child can get legal aid to support that? I'm sure I would.

From the BBC News website:

The actions of a runaway mother at the heart of a custody battle were "utterly irresponsible", a judge has said.

Rebecca Minnock and relatives tried to manipulate the press with a "publicity stunt" when she fled with Ethan, three, Judge Stephen Wildblood QC ruled. But he said he would do what he could to ensure Ethan had "an effective relationship with both parents".

No.I am not someone attracted to drama and fights. I got dragged into this. Naturally I am a peaceful person who likes a quiet life, a laugh with an interest in nature. I didn't train in law/cp or any type of high drama lama type profession.

I now keep myself knowledgeable in subjects that are not me, to keep us safe. I learned about abusers and equality to model better for my children and teach them how to be safe.