In a case which tells us more about the conflicting processes of the legal system than it does about the merits of this case, a woman who tried to stab her baby to death has been given the right to contact by Justice Mostyn in the family courts, three years after the event, after spending time in jail for the attempted murder of her child.
Whilst in jail in 2011, the mother was also given the chance to spend time with her daughter, who was by then 3 years old. Permission was granted by the Family Courts.
The mother faced an awful predicament: she was married to her cousin, in an arranged ceremony. The marriage was deeply unhappy. Upon seeking to leave the matrimonial home, the husband told her to go back to her native country, but that she couldn’t take their daughter with her. The mother’s response was to issue a threat of her own: if I can’t take our daughter, then no one will have her.
When the room she was in was empty, the mother stabbed her baby daughter in the stomach. She was caught attacking her child by her husband, who came into the room shortly after the attack started.
Despite the mitigating circumstances, we feel this case belies possible mental health issues, either spurred on by a deeply difficult marital life or perhaps prior to the marriage itself, we cannot see any justification for encouraging contact with a child’s attacker, regardless of whether or not they are a birth parent.
The twist to this story comes in the mother’s application for contact itself – she was due to be deported to her home country shortly after serving her jail sentence. By invoking her Article 8 rights under the law (Right to Private and Family Life), and by gaining contact with her daughter, she has effectively managed to remain in Britain. And although it appears from the facts in this piece from the Mail that the mother came to England reluctantly, we can’t help but feel that she would not be welcome in her home country, as a divorcee with a prison term under her belt for trying to murder her own daughter.
It also strikes us as odd that this parent should have been able to invoke Article 8 – after trying to kill her own baby daughter, it is hard to justify enforcing such a right in the face of the ultimate test inherent within the Paramountcy Principle: the risk of future harm.
And this is what seems so bizarre to us. How can a court award contact, to a parent who clearly poses a terrible threat to a small child, without so much as a psychiatric report in sight. How do the courts know what kind of a threat the mother poses to her child and what support will there be when the child finds out her mother tried to kill her? These are all very concerning questions, for which we don’t seem to have any answers.
This mother could quite clearly be viewed as an unfit parent, and yet thousands of families every day in the family courts are denied contact on fleeting observations made under extreme work conditions, in a system which is buckling under the stress of delay and lack of resources.
We find it astounding.
Mostyn, sir, what on Earth is this all about?
Researching Reform 
Natasha, two things (we did a piece on this story too):
1. The house wasn’t empty when she stabbed her nine-month-old baby. She was interrupted by her husband.
2. Should your title read ‘fathers’ not ‘mothers’?
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS
(and the women who love them)
http://j4mb.org.uk
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Hi Mike,
You’re right the house wasn’t empty, the room she was in was. I will amend that, thank you.
And no – we can use mothers or fathers – as you will see from my post, I have added the term parents several times. It is apt in this case to use mother, because the parent in question is, a mother.
As a friendly suggestion, it would probably be hugely beneficial to your cause if you weren’t so myopic on issues, all of the time. People tend to ignore causes eventually if they’re rammed down people’s throats constantly. No one likes a pushy pressure group. And I do say that in earnest – your cause is a good one.
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Thank you Natasha, but when are ‘competent mothers’ denied contact with their babies or children?
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Mike, having assisted both mothers and fathers pro bono for a few years now, I can tell you that competent mothers, as well as competent fathers, are often denied contact. I’m fascinated that you either can’t, or won’t see the reality. Either way, it is the reality.
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Natasha, thank you, but why would ‘competent mothers’ be denied contact? I’m genuinely surprised. If this were remotely common surely gender feminists would be up in arms about it? I can assure you they’re not. And even if it happens occasionally, it’s surely outweighed HUGELY by competent fathers being denied contact, so the title of your piece is both misleading and offensive to all the ‘competent fathers’ denied access to the children. I understand around 1 million fathers never get to see their children, most because the family courts system stops them.
We recently posed the question, ‘Is Janet Street-Porter the most vile woman in Britain?’ on the back of one of her recent pieces:
http://j4mb.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/janet-street-porter-the-most-vile-woman-in-britain/
Finally, thank you for your ‘friendly suggestion’, and I accept you made it ‘in earnest’, but men’s human rights activists – myself included – aren’t going to be told what to do, what to say, or how to say it, by anyone, whether men or women. They’ve tried to be polite and reasoned, decade after decade, and it’s got them NOWHERE. That’s why people are flocking to sites like http://avoiceformen.com, the most-visited men’s human rights advocacy website in the world. Next June I’ll be speaking in Detroit at the first International Conference on Men’s issues, being hosted by AVfM.
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Hi Mike, thanks for your post. I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do. I was politely trying to explain that every time you go onto a blog and try to skew the issue so it’s about fathers’ rights, you devalue your cause, and your group. There are groups dedicated to fathers out there that get it right. Check out DadsHouse – they are the leader in this field. Why does the UK government listen to DadsHouse, invite them to brainstorm at the Home Office and host their events in the House of Lords? Because they, unlike so many angry and myopic fathers’ groups, understand that being angry and one-sided is, to put it bluntly, ineffective.
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Yes, I can see DadsHouse have changed how fathers are treated, by engaging with the government. Oh hang on, no, they haven’t. I guess that’s why the government engages with them.
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That’s a rather undignified and silly retort, Mike. DadsHouse are responsible, to a large extent, for the government re-engaging with fathers, which they stopped doing after FFJ. Change doesn’t happen overnight. If it did, your group would be viewed as an epic fail, surely? How long have you been campaigning Mike? Probably longer than I have. But you hang in there, just the same, hoping for change, like we all do.
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Many thousands of mothers worldwide are denied contact with their children by Family Courts. Why?. Because they sought to protect their children from their violent, abusive fathers but Courts ignored or disregarded the evidence or if accepting the evidence of the violence and abuse, took the view that, “Well what he’s done in the past doesn’t mean he’ll be the same in the future and he says he’ll be a better Dad in the future”. DUH!..
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“I understand around 1 million fathers never get to see their children, most because the family courts system stops them.” – less than 0.08 per cent of applications to Family Courts for contact/custody of children are refused (male and female).
Close to a million fathers in the UK owe in excess of 1.3 billion pounds in Child Support so it may be reasonably assumed that not being involved in their children’s lives and carrying out their financial responsibilities to their children is of their own choosing.
So the numbers of fathers who are denied contact with their children by Family Courts are infinitesmal and as Courts have granted contact/custody of children to fathers with convitctions for violence, rape, child sexual abuse, paedophilia etc, then it is difficult to see under what circumstances Family Courts have denied such contact. Serial killers?. Mass murderers?.
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An Arizona woman is accused of trying to poison her four children, including one who died, and of stabbing her former husband, all on Christmas.
Casa Grande police say 35-year-old Connie Villa was arrested Sunday on suspicion of one count of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder.
According to police, the ex-husband called 911 after he was stabbed when he went to Villa’s residence. Officers found the body of 13-year-old Aniarael Macias, while Villa with stab wounds believed to have been self-inflicted.
Autopsy and toxicology results are pending on the girl, believed to have been poisoned.
The three other children are in good condition and are now with their father’s family.
It’s not immediately known whether Villa has an attorney. A possible motive hasn’t been disclosed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/30/connie-villa_n_4518636.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009
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There are two issues to disentangle from this piece. 1. Should this mother have been allowed contact with her child who she caused serious harm and possibly intended to kill?. 2. Why therefore are other mothers denied contact with their children by Family Courts?.
In answer to the first question, fathers who have been imprisoned for intimate partner violence (including murder) or other serious offences of violence against the person or have been convicted of child sexual abuse or paedophilia or rape of the mother, are routinely given such contact by Family Courts. In the case of rape, it frequently means that the rape victim has to have regular face-to-face contact with her assailant. In another recent case, the maternal grandparents have to take the children on prison visits to the father who killed their mother/ daughter.
In answer to the second question, in the vast majority of cases of mothers being denied contact, the reasons are that the moher has refused to allow the father to have contact with the child (usually because she earnestly believes he has abused the child or is a violent offender against herself and the child – and there is often clear and convincing evidence to support her beliefs but which has been disregarded in favour of unsupported allegations of `alienation’). Some mothers in such situations have fled abroad or interstate to protect their children, only to be dragged back under the Hague Convention or Family Law Rules, and in those instances the punishments are imprisonment, heavy fines, or being ordered to pay full court costs. And of course the punishment for her and the child of not being permitted to see each other ever again.
The simple answer as to why this occurs is contained in two words – father’s rights. All that Mostyn has done is that on this extremely rare occasion he has extended those father’s rights to one mother.
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Thanks for your comment R. I’m just astounded by the decision.
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Natasha, why oh why do you continue to permit this man/father hating over the top woman to post such trash on your otherwise wonderful blog? Don’t you think that by now she has made her self plain over the years with her hatred of all that is male? She has an excuse for every mother that has ever harmed their child, and yet always turns the mother abuse argument towards blaming fathers, how damn convenient of her. I’ve heard it all before, it’s the same old rant. Surely she has had her day here! Bitterness personified. I know you won’t post this, but you will continue to do so for her.
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for being kind about the blog.
I always post everyone’s comments, regardless of whether I agree with them, or not. The only time I don’t, is if the posts lack the right amount of civility. It gets bumpy on the blog from time to time, but that is the nature of Family Law.
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According to this Judge “future emotional harm” is more dangerous to a child than attempted infanticide.
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Hi Natasha. You say ‘competent mothers are often denied contact’. Can you point me to any newspaper articles on the subject? Thank you. Genuinely curious. We write a lot about fathers’ rights – and we’ll be writing a lot more in the coming 18 months, before the 2015 election – and nobody has ever made such a claim to us before.
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Hi Mike,
You can check out the blog, if you wish. There are lots of posts on mothers denied contact and I recently interviewed a woman for the site who has been denied contact, despite the fact that she is not viewed as a threat and her ex partner has diagnosed mental health issues that make him a danger to their child. I also wrote about a mother who had her child taken away in Ireland because the child missed a few days of school for a holiday and the recent case, again presided over by Mostyn, where a foreign national had her child taken from her, from the womb.
Mike, where have you been? 🙂
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Didn’t I hear that Baby Ps mother was allowed contact in prison with her other children? On release from prison she took parenting classes which suggest contact is ongoing. Does this mean she will have her other children returned to her later on?
A child should be allowed to see their parents even if they have done something “criminal” to them or their siblings. Why? The child has to come to terms with what has happened and if contact helps that process then they should have contact. The alternative is they reinvent what has happened and it can grow into something different. When that child is older (adult) and can fully assimilate what has happened the adult can decide if they want to keep in contact or not.
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Hi Dana, I think to assume a child has come to terms with something like that is a rather large assumption.
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Hi Natasha, Everyone comes to terms with what happens in life simply because they have to, for their own peace of mind. The authorities I would hope would organise therapy too so that peace comes earlier rather than later and its true that some may never comes to term with what happened. I didn’t say forget but rather understand and know it was nothing to do with them.
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I know of 4 mothers and one father who were denied contact with their children and who have never harmed them .I can name one “vicky haig” who was named in Parliament.She is denied contact with her daughter for believing the child’s accusations of sexual abuse by the father.She was sentenced to 3 years jail for speaking to her then 7 year old daughter (whom she had not seen for two years) at a chance meeting in a petrol station!!
Others were jailed for sending a birthday card,waving in the street,ringing a door bell where the children lived,and speaking in the street !
Police ignore accusations of sexual abuse by a parent time and time again ;refusing to take statements,then family courts punish the parent believing the accusations by giving exclusive custody to the alleged abuser and denying all contact to the other parent after putting gagging orders on both !
None of the five I refer to were ever accused of harming their children other than supporting their children’s accusations of abuse by the other parent !
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Hi FA, I think Mike Buchanan might be interested in these cases.
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Baby Ps mother whilst serving a very little jail term for her murderd baby was allowed to be escorted from the prison to see her other children, and now with another mother allowed to see the baby she tried to kill, well all comes back to what has always been known as the law is an ass. I have said many times publicly and have put on the web page of “children screaming to be heard” for the thousands of families who have no contact with their children taken into care on allegations only they need to commit a crime and once in prison will get the rights to contact with their kids. I was never a feminist but my views have changed due to so many women who think that by producing a baby they can hang on to the man and if the man does leave then the kids are used as the weapon, same with divorce many women want all I am not saying all women are evil, but i get sick and tired of women complaining . A good example from women calling my help line years ago, “my husband goes to work every day and just comes home and falls asleep in the chair” my answer always “so you stay home all day afternoon tea with your mates you dont have the worry of getting up travelling in the traffic to get to work under pressure to pay the bills worried in case he gets the sack and so on, so yes 20 winks after a tirering day he deserves that, So lets come back to the recent case of the mother mentioned in your blog for many of these women married when they are still children them selfs and from the way they are brought up perhaps she as many women did have a traumatic time and did not want her child to experience what she had gone through and having witnessed first hand in India Africa Egypt and many other third world countrys then i can relate to why she tried to kill her baby but it does not make it right, so here is a question for all and beleive me i have questioned many and all say OH I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT. for many years Mother Teresa orphanages have taken in untold thousands of children, so where have they all gone to live and should any one go to India or the likes they will know there are not that many people who can afford to take in another child, how many of those kids have been sold to paedophiles, no one has ever bothered to find out and what i witnessed for the children in India 4 years ago then it is time that the women in third world countrys stopped the mass production of kids and start to bring change for them selfs and not by the killing of kids.
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Thank you for your comment, Maggie. It really does seem odd.
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The “mass production”” of children in Inida and the rapid increase in HIV are not the fault of women. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6161691.stm
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Hello again,
I’m astounded by this judgment, too. It seems to encapsulate almost everything that is wrong with ‘Family’ Law.
I’m interested in Mike Buchanan’s view, as he has recruited to his party the main mover and shaker in the Equal Parenting Alliance, the party I campaigned for in the last election. Mike may be promoting equality but I have to say it does not come across like that, at least in this post. It comes across to me much as the feminist nitpickings came across in the seventies and eighties. And I say this as a (former) Father’s rights activist who has scaled a few buildings including David Cameron’s constituency office, to protest. I’d do so again, too.
There is still the feeling amongst many that the Family Courts are biased against fathers. I think this is misinterpreting the position. They ARE often biased against the non-resident parent; I could name several mothers who have lost contact with their children because they left the marital home. It is usually the father who becomes the non-resident parent, hence the popular perception that this is a gender issue. I don’t think it is. The Family Court system is unfit for purpose; it causes immense distress to parents and to children and its rulings are often bizarre and cruel. These Courts are doing profound damage in our society by their actions and they must be opened up to public scrutiny. There will always be cases where a father or a mother thinks the Court is biased over gender, and sometimes it is indeed true. But I believe that it is not, generally, a gender issue.
Natasha, may we have that working lunch soon?
Roger
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Hi Roger, I look forward to it. If you don’t mind emailing me at Sobk13@gmail.com, then we can arrange over email. Thank you, Roger.
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May I remind all that there are also thousands of grandparents with NO RIGHTS WHAT SO EVER and they are the ones who planted the seeds for the future generations, it is time that mums and dads also fought for their parents the grandparents to have contact with the kids in care, grandparents are the ones selling their homes to pay for legal teams all going no where, I would love to hear that all of those old fuddy duddies who call them selfes judges and sit on their thrones and pass sentences on grandparents to lose contact with their beloved grandkids they even have the cheek to put gagging orders on grandparents yea put the elderly in prison lose your grandkids just like the governments are stealing their properties. So to all who write a blog about contact for mums and dads remember the grandparents please.
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Can’t say I disagree with Mostyn this time. Or most of the time, especially over his genuinely accurate tale on shared residence orders….not long after his own marital split. However, he should not have been able to make the decision over this woman, because he should already have been publicly drowned for his part in the Italian woman’s case. The callous and casual manner he handled that hearing contrasts with this; just shows how capricious and media fearful these judges are, and where their true measures of what is in a child’s best interests lie. If they are not being watched, they compound each other’s evil. If they are, they appear to act with humanity.
Also, I do wonder if this is a political stunt to dampen down the evidence that arrogant British judges think they own the whole world’s children and can snatch thousands of them passing through without informing their Consulates.
British judges suck up to Corporate greed conducted behind the screen of family court secrecy when not being watched (children and the associated legal fees and care industry profits are massive) and play politics when being watched. Like any politician, they have the narratives all lined up for any circumstance, regardless of the facts. Facts mean little in family law; when its (presumably) done on the balance of probabilities, narrative is good enough.
This poor woman…..forced marriage, effectively kidnapped and brought here, to this stinking country, unhappy home, threatened with being sent home without the child….enough to drive anybody nuts. Temporary insanity borne of desperation, no more unless shown to be otherwise.
Quite agree with the case management decision not to involve an expert. In that, I also disagree with Natascha. So many of them are scoundrels we have no choice but to tar them all with the same brush. If Mostyn felt the right thing to do was for the mother to see the child, he was right to protect that decision. We should consider the situation she was in drove her to an insane act; change the situation, help her out meantime, supervise the contact closely and build things up, there should be no reason to presume that, if the situation be fixed, her relationship to the child not fall back into line. Too much focus on the personal act and not on the situational forced marriage. If she’d stabbed her ‘husband’ she’d no doubt be walking the streets now.
Mike B: competent mothers are smeared and denied contact in public law cases all the time. In private law, it tends to be fathers denied. The court is a Corporation wanting to keep the revolving door spinning. Their decisions are based on what promotes applications in either jurisdiction.
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Hi Stu,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I think a lot of the experts are poor at what they do. However, we still need experts to make competent examinations. So, I can’t see any other way of working out whether someone is mentally unwell without them. Competence and process are closely interlinked, but we have to acknowledge we need proper experts in certain cases.
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One hopes it will be Experts who value their reputation and who are not paid for by local authorities to mirror what they want them to say!
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Keep in mind that the general public class all Families in contact with Childrens SS to be like these misfit parents. BTW. If permitted by R&R M.B. could look at the Video I made some years ago and read my comments there.
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Hi Phil, you’re welcome to email me the video. Thank you.
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THANK YOU. Natasha. I do hope that many comments will be made.
Google:– Walsall ss-forced adoption
I had never spoken like this before. I was more amazed when the young man posted it on Youtube.
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What the hell is going on in this world. So many loving mothers have been dined contact with their children after the social services have taken them using false reports against them. I for one havent seen 2 of my boys since august through no fault of my own. The social services and the family courts need to urgently change the way they work.
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Thank you for your comment, Karen, we’re so sorry to hear that. Apologies, we’ve edited your post to comply with reporting restrictions.
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This is a big problem that needs to be sorted out. the SS always use the excuse “its not in the childs best interests” to keep parents away from their children. Severing ties between parents and children is a violation of human rights. the SS just smile in your face when they tell you your kids dont want to see you anymore. these types of cold hearted people should never be allowed to work anywhere near children.
scandalous disgrace.
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