Broken
I haven't written about Max for a long time, despite him being on my mind everyday. The recent news about Rebecca Minnock has brought a lot of feelings and emotions flooding back. The main feeling has been despair, not for my own situation, but for the system that purports to be designed and used in the best interest of the children, but is actually falling apart at the seams. I have no idea what lies at the root of Minnock and Williams problems, but I know from experience how a seemingly ok relationship between two parents can go from supportive to warring in a matter of weeks.
The turning point in my case wasn't the split, it was the involvement of others like solicitors and other advisors. Those advisors ask normally responsible and caring people to start looking for deficiencies in the others parenting because they know, especially if they are professional advisors, they have a higher chance of winning if a violent temper or history of drug use can be mentioned in court. I say mentioned, because in many cases these pieces of information are often lacking in any proof or evidence, they are merely hearsay, often made up to create a convenient smokescreen before a case even makes it to a full court hearing. If you say a lie enough times, it becomes truth.
In my experience courts are almost powerless apart from in the most extreme cases. Not many parents run away with their children to avoid court orders, but, many purposely break court orders on a regular basis. In my case, despite having a court order for almost shared care (a court rarely gives equal shared care), that order was broken many times. I remember one occasion, naively thinking I'd be able to call the court and they'd do something about it, but, that wasn't and still isn't the case. My only option, to start more legal proceedings, and by the time you find yourself back in court, it's a different judge with no real idea what has happened in the past and no time to read the history of the case.
In my final hearing, I'd turned up expecting the worse, and just before walking into the court room, my ex's solicitor walked up to me with a big envelope and said "I thought you'd like these back". In it were all the letters, cards and photobooks I'd sent my son over the past few months. At the time I put on my brave face and walked in to the court room to represent myself, thinking back, I don't know how I did that. I walked in with a legal right to share custody of our son, 20 minutes later I walked out with the legal rights to send him a Christmas and birthday card despite there being no evidence of bad parenting or any wrong doing. Despite the previous hearing asking for reasons the court order had been broken so many times, this judge told me he hadn't had time to read the history and would base his decision on what he heard on that day. That decision 4 years ago paused my relationship with my son and I haven't seen him since.
I am harbouring so much anger towards the system that made that happen, and has caused the recent events in the Minnock case. We are guilty to some extent of not being our best selves when faced with these kind of situations, but, the biggest perpetuator is the system, described to me many times by District Family Judges as a sledge hammer to crack a nut. We use a court system designed to find one party guilty, or to look for victims, when in many cases, no one has done anything wrong, especially the child. But, I have no answers on how to fix it, nor do I have the energy. Maybe one day I will.
