If there are any custodial/family lawyers please help this "father" win his rights. "Help combat gender inequality in family courts"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28272089680&ref=nf
At this point, I and my entire family is at a loss. My 33 year old brother has been fighting for increased access and visitation with his now three year old daughter for the entirety of her life. From the very beginning, his ex-fiancée made it abundantly clear that if they were no longer in a relationship, she would make it as difficult as possible for him to play an active role in his daughter's life. Her exact words were "I'll get 50 percent of everything you earn, you will never see our child, and the courts will believe everything I say because I am a woman."
From day one he has done everything in his power to have the law on his side. He has tape recorded all conversations so he cannot later be accused of being confrontational, has recorded every rescheduled visit, every doctor's note, out of fear that the slightest slip up will be used against him. As there is a two hour drive that seperates him from his daughter, he switched jobs and suffered a crippling cut in pay, in order to utilize increased access he was told he would be given for living closer to her.
From the stages of her infancy, there was a joint custody agreement in place, with primary residency to the mother, an agreement that would have stayed in place had my brother felt that he would be treated fairly. However the mother's controlling and manipulative behaviour has made it clear to him that as long as she is in a position of court supported authority, he will never be confident that his rights as father are protected.
In the most recent court proceedings (which took place from March 11th to March 14th) my brother fought for sole custody of his daughter and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his ex-fiancee was controlling, manipulative and while on the stand was caught in numerous lies meant to paint both he and our family in general as heartless and religiously backward. Her mother has even gone so far as to poison her daughter's view of our side of the family saying, they don't love you, only Mommy loves you, one of my other brothers is 'disgusting', Daddy's Church bad, Mommy's Church special" (things that I have heard her repeat in my own presence).
Just yesterday my brother received the judge's verdict and not only was he not granted sole custody (as any one who had witnessed the four day trial would have expected) but the original JOINT Custody agreement was varied to sole custody for the mother, denying him any right to holidays or more than two days in the summer more than his regular every other weekend access visits. It is completely and utterly mind-boggling that the courts are upholding this woman's desire to cut my brother out of his own daughter's life. You hear so often about 'dead beat dads or fathers who aren't there for their children - yet when there is a father who wants to be a part of his child's life, all the mother needs on her side is that she's a woman? My brother is going completely and totally out of his mind as he has put his life on hold, and made his daughter the forefront of everything he does. Not only is he being denied the right to raise his own daughter, but is now being denied the right to any significant role in her life. He was not even made aware of or invited to his own daughter's christening a few months after she was born. I am afraid that if something is not done quickly, the mother will effectively accomplish her goal to alienate her from my brother and our entire side of the family. Now the only way for him to combat this is to request an appeal which will cost twenty-five thousand dollars - and having spent the past three years in and out of family court he simply does not have the ability to come up with that amount of money.
Does the family court expect him to just sit back and take it? Should the mere fact that the mother is a woman be enough to compensate for her negative attitude towards us and the negative effects that her manipulation and guilt have already begun to have on her three year old daughter? His daughter seems afraid to have fun around our side of the family, afraid to bring home gifts from her father or our family. Her desire at three years old to placate her mother is interfering with her natural and healthy desire to show love for her father. My brother loves his daughter more than anything in the world, and this is killing him. I want to get this story out there so people realise the level of injustice towards men in family court. Please help us.
Colette MacDonald / Mary-Clare MacDonald
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=28272089680&ref=nf
At this point, I and my entire family is at a loss. My 33 year old brother has been fighting for increased access and visitation with his now three year old daughter for the entirety of her life. From the very beginning, his ex-fiancée made it abundantly clear that if they were no longer in a relationship, she would make it as difficult as possible for him to play an active role in his daughter's life. Her exact words were "I'll get 50 percent of everything you earn, you will never see our child, and the courts will believe everything I say because I am a woman."
From day one he has done everything in his power to have the law on his side. He has tape recorded all conversations so he cannot later be accused of being confrontational, has recorded every rescheduled visit, every doctor's note, out of fear that the slightest slip up will be used against him. As there is a two hour drive that seperates him from his daughter, he switched jobs and suffered a crippling cut in pay, in order to utilize increased access he was told he would be given for living closer to her.
From the stages of her infancy, there was a joint custody agreement in place, with primary residency to the mother, an agreement that would have stayed in place had my brother felt that he would be treated fairly. However the mother's controlling and manipulative behaviour has made it clear to him that as long as she is in a position of court supported authority, he will never be confident that his rights as father are protected.
In the most recent court proceedings (which took place from March 11th to March 14th) my brother fought for sole custody of his daughter and proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that his ex-fiancee was controlling, manipulative and while on the stand was caught in numerous lies meant to paint both he and our family in general as heartless and religiously backward. Her mother has even gone so far as to poison her daughter's view of our side of the family saying, they don't love you, only Mommy loves you, one of my other brothers is 'disgusting', Daddy's Church bad, Mommy's Church special" (things that I have heard her repeat in my own presence).
Just yesterday my brother received the judge's verdict and not only was he not granted sole custody (as any one who had witnessed the four day trial would have expected) but the original JOINT Custody agreement was varied to sole custody for the mother, denying him any right to holidays or more than two days in the summer more than his regular every other weekend access visits. It is completely and utterly mind-boggling that the courts are upholding this woman's desire to cut my brother out of his own daughter's life. You hear so often about 'dead beat dads or fathers who aren't there for their children - yet when there is a father who wants to be a part of his child's life, all the mother needs on her side is that she's a woman? My brother is going completely and totally out of his mind as he has put his life on hold, and made his daughter the forefront of everything he does. Not only is he being denied the right to raise his own daughter, but is now being denied the right to any significant role in her life. He was not even made aware of or invited to his own daughter's christening a few months after she was born. I am afraid that if something is not done quickly, the mother will effectively accomplish her goal to alienate her from my brother and our entire side of the family. Now the only way for him to combat this is to request an appeal which will cost twenty-five thousand dollars - and having spent the past three years in and out of family court he simply does not have the ability to come up with that amount of money.
Does the family court expect him to just sit back and take it? Should the mere fact that the mother is a woman be enough to compensate for her negative attitude towards us and the negative effects that her manipulation and guilt have already begun to have on her three year old daughter? His daughter seems afraid to have fun around our side of the family, afraid to bring home gifts from her father or our family. Her desire at three years old to placate her mother is interfering with her natural and healthy desire to show love for her father. My brother loves his daughter more than anything in the world, and this is killing him. I want to get this story out there so people realise the level of injustice towards men in family court. Please help us.
Colette MacDonald / Mary-Clare MacDonald
