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PAS and court

SASX's picture

Submitted by SASX on Thu, 10/25/2012 - 3:56pm

A few months ago I started looking into being a volunteer GAL. In my state (Florida) all GAL's are volunteer and the program is free to families. For the past several weeks I have been going to training. Today's training was court room observation. Case I wanted to highlight here.

Divorced parents.
Children: 7 yo boy and 3 yo girl.
DCFS got involved due to the physical altercation that took place between the parents on a custodial change in front of the kids).

Sitting at the tables in court were the attornies for DCFS, the case manager, dad, his attorney, GAL and the GAL attorney.
And mom and her attorney.
DCFS had a witness: a counselor who had seen the 7yo boy exactly: once.

Recommendations from all were to terminate/suspend the mothers visitation with the 7yo son only. Everyone (except the mother and her attorney) were in agreeance.

Dad in his wisdom (stupidity) decided to ask the judge to talk to the child one on one.
Judge granted a five minute meeting with the child. It turned into a half an hour.

Then the child was sent to a play area with a bailiff babysitter, while the judge unleashed the wrath of hell upon the fathers head.

Seems everything that boy told the judge started with "Well Daddy says". Kid knew all about the divorce, that supposedly mommy cheated on daddy, that mommy steals daddies money every month, that mommy doesnt love him as much as his sister because daddy said so. And those were some of the tame admissions from the kid.

The final nail in the coffin: Apparently the child has been telling the case worker, in front of dad, that he does not want to see mom, that if he has to see her he will kill himself. When the judge asked why he said that "Daddy said if I told you that he would buy me a four wheeler."

Judge gave dad an a$$ chewing I will remember for quite some time, terminated the fathers visitation with BOTH kids, awarded the children to the mothers custody full time, doubled his child support and ordered all involved into intensive counceling, her final salvo to the dad:

"If I hear in the future any indication that you participating in parental alienation I will send you to jail for child abuse".

It would appear, some judges do recognize PAS and act on it. It is also obvious that DCFS, GAL and therapists need more training to identify it.

Comments

StickAFork's picture

Submitted by StickAFork on Thu, 10/25/2012 - 3:59pm

Wow!! What a turnaround. Kudos to that judge for actually looking past the reports of others!

Pilgrim Soul's picture

Submitted by Pilgrim Soul on Thu, 10/25/2012 - 4:01pm

Bravo to this judge! Amazing and encouraging!
Thank you for posting this, you need to let the PAS-affected community know that this is possible.
So many will be cheering for the judge - and the kids.

SASX's picture

Submitted by SASX on Thu, 10/25/2012 - 4:15pm

Father did not seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed. Most arrogant/cocky perhaps, but not the sharpest.

Note: dad is rather attractive. Mom is a little north of average.

My guess is that dad has the (female) case worker (female) GAL (female) therapist all snowed by having the kid tell them this... and since the judge was also female.. let the boy tell her one on one and he would get his way.

You could tell from the expression on dads face the entire hearing that he fully expected the judge to give him what he wanted, he was not nervous in the least. Mom was shaking, not crying pity party but shaking like a leaf.

When the judge lit into dad every single jaw at each of the tables dropped. Dead silence, no objections. Rap of a gavel and done save for a pissed off judge still fuming.

SASX's picture

Submitted by SASX on Thu, 10/25/2012 - 4:16pm

In DCFS cases in Florida where child residency is being determined, the judges WANT to see the kids. They are brought to court, introduced to the judge, get a stuffed animal and go play in the kids room.

It allows the judge to put a face to a name, makes the children real to them, not just a name on a piece of paper.

aggravated1's picture

Submitted by aggravated1 on Thu, 10/25/2012 - 4:15pm

Wow, that is awesome!!
PM me your county, I am in FLorida too. Hopefully it's the one I live in.

Shaman29's picture

Submitted by Shaman29 on Thu, 10/25/2012 - 4:15pm

I'm grateful the judge saw through what the father was doing. That just makes me sick to my stomach.

My DH witnessed PAS just in the last few days. Not with his kid but with her little sister (not DH's child).

Bio-Dad of youngest kid was on trial for violating a stalking order (filed by Uberskank just to make trouble for him). Uberskank set him up. She asked him to take their kid to a school event because she would be working and their child begged to go. BD agreed to do this, so he picked up the child and attended the event with her. While they were there, Uberskank walked in and demanded he leave. He pointed out she asked him to be there because she was working and she would have to be the one to leave. In response, she dialed 911 and he was arrested because he was in violation of the stalking order.

Eighteen months later they finally had the trial. DH was to be a character witness for the BD. While he was sitting there he noticed his kid's younger sister enter with her grandmother, wearing an outfit that matched what Uberskank was wearing.

Turns out, the ADA and Uberskank that it was a brilliant idea to have this child (9) testify against her own father. Fortunately the charges were dismissed. Uberskank lied under oath and the attorney for BD pointed it out during the cross examination. Based on her testimony and the cross examination, the judge dismissed the charges.

However all DH and I could think about was what if he had been convicted (6 years in the state penitentiary)? There is a good chance that poor kid would have convinced herself it was her fault her father went to prison. We asked each other, why didn't Uberskank shield her kid from this instead of throwing in the middle of it and making choose between her parents? Why didn't the ADA realize how horrible it would be for this kid to do this?

Uberskank makes me sick and I cannot wait for the day the Karma Bus runs her skanky ass over.

Unfreakingreal's picture

Submitted by Unfreakingreal on Fri, 10/26/2012 - 10:52am

Sad for the child that his dad did that. Good for the judge for actually seeing thru the BS. Good for the mom that she took her kids away from that maniac.

sandby's picture

Submitted by sandby on Fri, 10/26/2012 - 2:25pm

This gives me some hope that judges actually have a clue and are looking out for parental alienation. PAS has been declared not to exist and there are so many judges that are clueless about it.

But this is such a no-brainer type of situation that I'm afraid this is all judges see as PAS. I wish more judges would meet with the kids involved in their cases more often. They are suppose to be objective, but they go completely on the opinions of other. If the GAL has been hookwinked by BM, then the judge almost always agrees with the GAL. There isn't always a clear gotcha moment where it's clear what's going on. My skids' BM isn't so blatant and the alienation has been going on for years, even while she was still married and she constantly belittled and bashed the kid's dad for every little failure. The kids can come up with all the reasons they hate their dad going back 10 years because their mom never let them forget any of it.

Judges don't question them on how they know all of this, why they remember it or why their mom tells them all these things they shouldn't have any knowledge of. I wish the current judge would spend more than 5 minutes actually engaging his brain and thinking about our case rather than speeding through it.