- 'Hostile' mum loses custody
- By Clare Dyer, Legal Correspondent
- The Guardian (UK)
- 22/05/2004 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: admin ( 100 articles in 2004 )
A senior high court judge has taken the rare step of ordering two children to be taken from their divorced mother and handed over to their father because the "implacably hostile" mother repeatedly frustrated the father's attempts to see his children.
The move, described by lawyers as "highly unusual", signals a growing acceptance by judges that sanctions against mothers who defy contact orders are inadequate.
As fathers' groups such as Fathers 4 Justice step up their campaign for reform of the system, judges are becoming more ready to acknowledge its flaws and to seek ways of addressing them.
Mrs Justice Bracewell, the senior judge in the family division after the president, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, granted the father a residence order last Thursday even though the mother is the primary carer for the two girls, now aged six and eight.
The relationship between the couple, identified only as Mr and Mrs V, started to disintegrate in 1998 and they separated in 2000.
Mrs V originally refused to let her former husband see the girls, but he persisted, going to court and winning orders giving him access. Mrs V sometimes refused, for no reason, to let Mr V have the children in defiance of the court orders. On other occasions she made unfounded allegations that he or his family had assaulted them.
To back up the accusations, she took the children to hospital and police stations and they were interviewed by police and social workers.
The judge said she was satisfied that the children's need for a relationship with their father would only be met by transferring residence to him. The allegations made by the mother were either false or had been exaggerated and had been made to frustrate contact between the father and the children.
The move, described by lawyers as "highly unusual", signals a growing acceptance by judges that sanctions against mothers who defy contact orders are inadequate.
As fathers' groups such as Fathers 4 Justice step up their campaign for reform of the system, judges are becoming more ready to acknowledge its flaws and to seek ways of addressing them.
Mrs Justice Bracewell, the senior judge in the family division after the president, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, granted the father a residence order last Thursday even though the mother is the primary carer for the two girls, now aged six and eight.
The relationship between the couple, identified only as Mr and Mrs V, started to disintegrate in 1998 and they separated in 2000.
Mrs V originally refused to let her former husband see the girls, but he persisted, going to court and winning orders giving him access. Mrs V sometimes refused, for no reason, to let Mr V have the children in defiance of the court orders. On other occasions she made unfounded allegations that he or his family had assaulted them.
To back up the accusations, she took the children to hospital and police stations and they were interviewed by police and social workers.
The judge said she was satisfied that the children's need for a relationship with their father would only be met by transferring residence to him. The allegations made by the mother were either false or had been exaggerated and had been made to frustrate contact between the father and the children.
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