This woman should be jailed, not given her child back.

The BBQ Pit
1

I don’t think I’ve ever started a Pit thread before. I’m quite excited about it. I know of a situation that sickens me and I’m going to relate it to you.

There is a woman (let’s call her Susan) who has an ex-husband (we’ll call him Jeff). Susan had a child by Jeff before they were married. When the child (we’ll call him Michael) was five weeks old, he was brought to the hospital in cardiac arrest. It was apparent he’d been assaulted.

Jeff was subsequently charged with something or other relating to child abuse, as Michael was now severely brain damaged. Jeff admitted to beating and shaking Michael on three occasions. The final shaking is what caused Michael’s massive injuries. For context, Michael is now tube-fed, unable to be mobile, and suffers a whole host of other tremendously saddening afflictions and conditions.

Jeff was sentenced to three years in prison for this offence. He served only six months. My understanding is that he was released early since he was receiving a great deal of threats and there was a good chance he was going to by physically harmed if left in prison.

Jeff and Susan were subsequently married. They conceived another child. They attempted to hide this fact, by Susan entering the hospital under her maiden name. The foster parents of Michael found out and notified social services. Social services took the girl upon her birth (let’s call her Amy).

Social services made a petition to the courts for permenant custody. The judge ruled that she would grant possession to the Susan on a number of conditions. One was that she had to divorce Jeff and have no contact with him for one year afterwards. She had to undergo three months of intensive counselling with a phychiatrist or psychologist or someone of that sort. She also had to move in with her parents.

The judge is going to be making a decision next week, and it is extremely likely that she’ll be granting possession of Amy to Susan. The divorce has become final and word is that the psychologist is going to give the opinion that Susan will be a competent mother (ignoring the fact that social services’ psychologist says that Susan is “addicted” to Jeff and that she’ll never really leave him, and that no child is going to come before her love for him).

This poor little girl, who I think is coming up on two years old (and who is absolutely brilliant and adorable, though I’m told that she can be a real mischivous and annoying little shit when she wants to be) is going to be going to a mother who protected the man who caused her first child substantial and material permenant harm (she testified at his trial that he was not a bad person and that it was an accident). This, despite the fact that Jeff’s step-sister testified in court that he sexually assaulted her from ages 7 though 12, or something like that.

I really don’t give a rat’s hairy ass if this woman has turned her life around and is going to stay away from Jeff. She proved during the trial (not to mention her subsequent marriage to Jeff) that she cannot be trusted. AT ALL! EVER!!

This is fucking* ridiculous. This judge should be strung up herself! There isn’t even a permenant barring of contact from Jeff. Only for one goddam year! I’m just sickened by this whole thing. Poor little Amy will suffer some manner of harm by the hands of this man, I’m certain of it. And her fucked-up mother is going to be just as culpable. And when that happens, he’ll probably spend another six months in jail. Motherfucker*.

  • The words “fucking” and “motherfucker” brought to you courtesy of the Pit. I really should come here more often. Fuck, yeah!
2

There’s a good chance *everyone in prison * is going to be physically harmed if they stay in prison. So I really doubt that was a reason they let him out.

3

Simply re-telling what was told to me. Take it with a grain of salt.

4

Susan and Jeff should both be in prison still.

“…was receiving a great deal of threats and there was a good chance he was going to by physically harmed if left in prison…”
Sounds like letting the punishment fit the crime. I wonder how tough he was, when everyone was his size or bigger. Send him right back there.
Send Susan to prison as an accomplice.
Things like this make me want to vomit, but it happens all the time. Courts rule that the child should stay with the parents, and keep sending them back. Then they moan and wring their hands when the fuckers finally kill the child.
Talk about your Failure Of The System!

5

But there’s some set of moral standards amongst prisoners (go figure). Doing harm to a child is at the top of their shit list.

6

I didn’t think a judge could force you to divorce your spouse. What God has put together let no man put asunder and all that.
I do think it’s very sad, but I’d LIKE to think that the father could be helped in some way. I would Like o think that with enough therapy he would be able to have a healthy relationship with his child and hs wife.

I’m an optimist, but I’m not stupid.

I think the best thing, in the real world, would be a nice foster or adoptive family for the little girl and to be as far away from her parents as possible.

7

Well, Madame Justice (I think that’s what we call em here in Canada) may not have been able to “force” her to divorce, but she can say, “you’re not getting your child back until you divorce him.” Which is just ridiculous. This man, who shook a five-week-old baby until he suffered irreparable harm and rendered him in need of 24-hour-care for the rest of his life, needs only stay away from Susan and Amy for one year. One fucking year! He shook his baby! He raped his step-sister. This is not a normal and safe human being.

Today, I’m waiting for information from someone close to the situation, and then possibly going to blow the lid off of this stupid story to the press. Hopefully some reporter will pick up on it and turn it into public outrage.

8

ONLY 6 months for severely damaging the boy for the rest of this life? Sick.

The boy will require millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded care throughout his life. In some respects what he did was as bad as or worse than murder. That “father” owes society more than 6 months.

9

Oh, and I didn’t mention that Susan has said that when she gets custody of Amy, she’ll be happy to let Amy continue having a relationship with her brain-damaged brother (who are currently both in the same foster home) if Amy wants to, but that she will drop off Amy and not stay, because she doesn’t want to see Michael.

:frowning:

10

Standup Karmic,

What you have described is simply horrible. If the courts can’t get this thing right the first or second time, I hope you can continue to monitor the situation and try to jump in at the first documentable signs of danger or abuse to the two year old girl. If the court places her in a situation where she is destined to be harmed, then the only thing to do is try to minimize that harm and get her out as soon as can be done. :frowning:

11

That was the first thing I noticed too. I have never heard of a convict being released early because he was in danger. I’ve heard of people being put in protective custody, but not simply released. This makes me wonder how many other things in the story may not be correct.

12

Since everyone’s piling on, let me just play a little devil’s advocate:

  1. While Jeff is indisputably a scum-sucking pig, SUSAN was not convicted of a crime and did not, based on the information you provided, commit a crime.

While I appreciate that Susan may not be the best mother in the world, the courts are understandably leery of punishing people for things that other people did. That’s as it should be. The judge in this case cannot act as if it was Susan that was convicted of manslaughter, because she wasn’t. The judge can’t just make laws up or pretend things happened that didn’t happen.

Indeed, I would suggest that the judge in this case probably went as far as he/she could go when there is in fact no criminal judgment passed against Amy. While I fear for the safety of any child in a bad situation, I would remind you that it’s also not a good thing to give the courts unfettered rights to take kids away from parents for any reason at all. Canada has a long and lamentable history of courts taking children away from parents for bad reasons.

  1. The limitations on Susan the judge imposed are in fact quite severe, and go well beyond any precedent I am aware of - forcing her to divorce, forcing her to live with her parents, etc. The judge probably feels a year’s forced non-contact will break Jeff’s spell over her, and that’s possible. Having her live at home will help that.

Maybe these measures will work and maybe they won’t, but again, the courts cannot just take kids away forever or have people drawn and quartered when the person in question hasn’t actually committed a crime.

  1. As others have pointed out it would seem we are hearing a version of this story very slanted against Susan and in at least one respect (why Jeff was released) not entirely factual. There’s no evidence being presented by SUSAN would be a bad mother without Jeff around, except that we’re assured Jeff will be around. That might be true, but the courts can’t just do anything they want.

I agree that Amy likely WOULD be better off in a foster home, but I also like due process.

13

Excuse me, but do you mean to say that in Canada, a parent can’t lose custody unless they’ve been convicted of a crime?

Because that’s certainly not true in the US. I worked in child protective services in NY and I could see Susan permaently losing custody with a few details filled in-

1 Jeff assaults Michael on three occaisions , the last resulting in brain damage. Susan either knows about it, but does nothing to protect Michael , or covers up to protect Jeff. (which would be the point were Susan herself does something wrong)

2 Susan and Jeff both lose custody of Michael in a family court proceeding- entirely separate from a criminal proceeding and having a lower standard of proof.

3 Susan gives birth to Amy, and loses custody based on her neglect of Michael

4 Susan divorces Jeff, and regains custody of Amy under supervision. One of the conditions of the supervision is that Amy (and possibly Susan) have no contact with Jeff. And the case returns to court at the end of the year if social services believes continued supervision is necessary , or sooner if she fails to abide by the conditions.

14

It’s pretty sad when convicted murderers, rapists, theives, etc. understand something that apparently, our judges don’t, isn’t it? Ironic.

15

Wouldn’t that make her an accessory to the crime???

16

The problem here, as far as I can see, is the lack of restriction on Jeff, not Susan or, more importantly, the lack of protection for Amy. If the issue of custody of Amy is now before a court, then the court should be setting restrictions on her behalf, one of which should be protection from Jeff. Forget Susan and conditions on her. Take her out of the equation except for her role as a protector of the child within the custodial home; if she wants to leave Amy with a sitter a couple of nights a week to go to Jeff’s house and boff Jeff’s brains out, that’s on her and her conscience (or lack thereof). But the court should absolutely grant a permanent restraining order to the child with social services acting to do spot checks and unannounced visits (including late night visits) to ensure that Jeff isn’t anywhere near.

17

There is legal precedent for this? A ‘child-abuse-related’ conviction removes your right to procreate? (This is just a factual inquiry, I am not voicing an opinion.)

18

IAMN an expert, just a social services peon in another province, but this is despressingly unfamiliar.

The orders from the judge don’t really sound all that strange, given the situation. They’re likely not orders to her so much as conditions she must fill if she wants her daughter in her care. If she can’t stand to get divorced, she could accept that her daughter would end up in the Minister’s care permanantly, instead. I’ve never seen a divorce ordered, but most of the cases I’m familiar with didn’t have a marriage to begin with.

Unfortunatly, what happens too often is that the mother will promise on a stack of bibles to sever contact and keep her partner away from the kids, in order to have them returned to her, and then let him visit anyhow (because she knows him so much better than those social workers anyhow, and she knowshe’d never hurt her kids).
If she’s gonna be one of those, the best case is that she gets caught fast. Social services needs ot be called the moment she breaks that order, and Amy will probably end up in a home that will put her safety first, where it damn well belongs. If this person close to the situation that you know is close enough to watch Susan, all the better. Amy’s chances of being given over to the care of a good foster home and eventual adoption get alot better if Susan gets caught breaking the rules during her year off from Jeff.

19

Unfortunately, no. The person I know is affiliated with the foster home where Amy and her brother live. Nobody has the resources to hire a private investigator and social services apparently isn’t interested (or doesn’t have the money) to do so either. I am planning on talking to another friend whose fiance is a P.I. to see if she can convince him to do some pro bono work. They are three months into their one year separation, and we’re hoping that they’re still seeing each other and that at this point, maybe they’re getting a little sloppy. We don’t know where either one works, but I’m told that they’re known to work about four blocks apart in the downtown core.

You were correct, in that the divorce and one-year separation were not court orders, but merely conditions of return of custody.

Earthworm Jim, I believe that the correct interpretation would be that a child-abuse-related conviction gives social services the right to take custody of a child under the belief that the child is in a potentially harmful situation. This court proceeding is what determines whether they must return custody or if the child is made a permanent ward of the province.

blowero, I find the explanation of his release to also be somewhat dubious, but chose to relate exactly what I’ve been told. The person who shared this information with me wouldn’t necessarily be in a position to know the full reason of Jeff’s release, and this person is potentially reading the situation wrong. I have no reason, however, to doubt any of the remainder of the story. The person who told me the story attending a significant number of the hearings, I believe even going back to Jeff’s first conviction. The person who told me the story (geez, that’s getting tiring…in the event I have to refer to this person again, I’ll simply call this person “Bob”) is of impeccable character, and I believe that Bob has been told that Jeff was released because of signficant threat of harm. The remainder of the story is not open to the same kind of speculation, and I believe the remainder to be materially accurate.

20

Actually, I believe it’s sex crimes that are on top of the shit list. (Irony of ironies, that excludes prison rapes) I doubt beating your kid half to death would raise an eyebrow.

I don’t know how it in Canada, but here, at least at the county jail level, inmates are sometimes turned loose just to make room.