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?

Yes I'm pretty sure my wider family's first reaction wouldn't be a full page spread in the Sun...

My Family wouldn't have helped if I had run away.

I do genuinely find it odd that I have had so much engagement on mumsnet with mothers who have been victims of violence but say the courts don't take it seriously - but all my experience in court has been the exact opposite.

If a woman had a split lip from a partner, I would be astonished if a judge did not take that very seriously. Violence from one parent to another is seen as a serious failure of parenting, even if the violence wasn't directed at the child the child may have heard it, or seen the aftermath. This is incredibly emotionally damaging and judges know this full well.

All I can assume is happening is that the split lip or similar incident happened several years ago, the man denies it and there is no evidence other than the woman's word, which may not be enough, particularly if she didn't make any complaint at the time.

So I guess the best advice must be - complain, document, tell someone as soon as you can. The court can only do its best with the evidence in front of it.

And I am afraid i have many examples of women exaggerating or making up serious allegations to thwart contact. Just as I have many examples of violent disgusting men who shouldn't be allowed near any child.

Neither sex has the monopoly on appalling and stupid behaviour when it comes to parenting. But in this case you have findings of fact by a court that have not been challenged, so I am afraid you are stuck with them - unless you want to abandon entirely the rule of law of course.

Yes, re shaving head to avoid drug tests - the courts can and will draw an adverse inference from this, i.e. you shaved your head to avoid a test you know would be positive. Judges really aren't as stupid as some posters portray.

If your ex has a drug problem sufficient to impact on his/her parenting then you have to get some evidence about that. Domestic and european law insist that courts must take serious action to protect a child's right to a relationship with both parents. You need serious evidence that one parent is unfit in order to stop it.

Agree. But there are enough people probably urging her to do it - your child your rules hun! Family courts always get it wrong don't they!

No thought for the repercussions. I think they just get off on the drama. Interesting that one of the family said 'its all got out of hand' once the police were round their house.

Yes it has a bit hasn't it?

I also had advice from my lawyer in how I portrayed exh at the hearing.

There's a certain amount of "if he's so awful why did you have kids with him?" that you have to be aware of.

it is such a horrid thing when a relationship breaks down and there are children involved.
Obviously in the absence of parents staying together an amicable state of affairs is best for the children.
However, unpicking the truth and deciding where a child should live must be a complete nightmare.
My friend has gone through 6 years of hell with court ordered drugs and alcohol testing, mediation, family therapy, supervised contacts that have been missed and ignored.
Finally the relationship with the child is developing but only when the court told the mother that if she continued to obstruct things and make up lies that the child would be placed with the father ( my friend). He now very happily drives 3 hours to spend the day with him every other weekend and he is going to get chance for the child to come and stay for a few days over the summer holiday.
She sounded so credible, so sane and yet it was all lies and all my friend could do was comply to the letter of the court orders and open his life to minute scrutiny in order for the court to realise she was being obstructive.

I hope there is a sensible outcome for the child and if that means supervised contact with his mum for a while whilst she gets her head round the father not being a bad dad even if he was a bad partner.

It is far more likely that allegations a man is abusive are true than that they are untrue. Time after time, when a man kills his children and/or his partner/ex partner, she will have been trying to keep him away for some time: involving the police, taking out injunctions, blocking contact etc. It would be far safer if men were restricted to supervised contact in the case of any allegations of abuse - better a child loses contact with an essentially harmless father than a child is hurt or killed by a dangerous but plausible one.
Yes, this is a feminist issue, because we live in a world where it's really only a very short time since women and children were legally the property of men and dependent on the whims of the man of the house: they had to please him or be beaten/starved/deserted or whatever. Some people still think that men have ownership rights over not just children but women. Fathers should always be percieved as the least important people in the case of a custody disput unless there is a lot of well-corroborated evidence that the mother is neglectful or abusive (rather than that brought up by the man, his lawyer and his friends...)

Spero, I managed after lots of fobbing off to work out why dv was ignored. The Police were too lazy to report it to ss. It took several subject access requests and complaints years after court, the police didn't give it to my solicitor or CAFCASS. Long long back story.

No SGB I don't agree at all.

I think what I learned from my own separation was that a shit husband (who starts out as a pretty shit dad) can become, not exactly a good one, but a fairly harmless one.

My ex put DS into dangerous situations when little and didn't have one decent parenting bone in his body. However, as time has gone on and DS has got older, they have settled into a fairly straightforward routine.

Don't get me wrong, I still don't rate him and to me he does the minimal..... but he has had chance to settle into his role over the course of a couple of years.

If some of these mothers just calmed down let their ex prove themselves, they might find the same.

You can't, just can't, have a system such as SGB describes.

Allegations need to be proved. Otherwise all you have created is another abusive system. For fathers could make serious allegations too, and them the mother would have to be removed from her DC to exactly the same extent as proposed for the father. Nightmare.

It doesn't matter whether a particular type of offence is more prevalent for men or for women. For child abuse can be perpetrated by either, so all allegations need to be treated equally. And tested in court.

Fortunately, the law says that children have the right to a relationship with both parents.

Sorry SGB but I disagree with almost all of your post.

It's blinkered and one sided. Much like Ms minnocks attitude to this.

I agree with SGB.

A friend is in a situation where she has had to fight to stop the father getting contact, and he is a convicted paedophile and rapist - currently in prison. It has cost her £10K+ in legal fees so far. She's been dragged to hearing after hearing with this man - who is produced from prison each time (nice day out for him??), is playing the legal system like a fiddle from his prison cell, and wants the children to be taken to the prison to see him. This is ongoing.

If I didn't know her personally, I would never have believed this could happen, that the legal system would allow it.

So even when there is proof (in the form of convictions and prison sentences) that the father is a Very Bad Man (Paedophile and rapist) - the mother can still have a fight on her hands to stop him seeing the children.

What risk can he be to the children from a prison cell?

What's your evidence for that SGB.

How do you KNOW that most allegations against men are true? What is the factual basis for that assertion, other than what you have read on line? And where do the on line authors get their stats from?

The children don't want to see him. They have been psychologically damaged by knowledge of his crimes - and he also wants access to them "when he gets out of prison".

Even if someone is a Very Bad Man and in prison - the children might still benefit from seeing him. He is half their DNA after all. Make him a monster, and you are saying to the children they are half a monster.

Most cases with a man in prison, well that's an end of that. but in some cases it is decided that it is in the child's best interest to have direct contact. Sometimes the children need that.

I am afraid it IS a legitimate question that you chose to have children with such a man - and in many cases women chose to have more than one child with the same abusive man. It does say something about your choices. And the end result is you share a child with this man. You can't just air brush him out of existence. Your child was created by you and him together and that does matter for a child.

How old are the children? If they are over 12 and saying they don't want to see him, I would (again) be very very surprised if a court was 'making' them.

yy Spero

You really think it's in the children's best interests to be dragged to a prison visit, to their "father" currently being held on the sex offender's wing, against their will? I don't.

For the very reason that you can't say 'father' in inverted commas.

He IS their father - for better or for worse. And in some cases - by no means all - it is of benefit for children to make up their own minds about just what kind of shit their father is, rather than simply be fed what their mother tells them.

But once a child is 12 or over I would be amazed if court was 'making' them go. The children can get their own lawyer once they are competent to instruct, which is usually about then.

The court hasn't made them - yet - as I said, it's ongoing - she's being dragged to hearing after hearing with this man - and it's costing her £1000s in legal fees, as he appeals everything, then asks for adjournments and so on.

I was just pointing out that even men with convictions against women and children (their mother was a victim) don't have an easy time in the family courts.