Barbara Kay: Children’s aid societies gone rogue

Barbara Kay | April 16, 2014 | Last Updated: Apr 15 4:40 PM ET

In a rare victory for common sense, a judge has pointedly rebuked a CAS for its appalling conduct.

It was called “the trial that never ends.” A custody battle, in which the London-Middlesex Children’s Aid Society (CAS) became the cynosure of a London court’s ire, took place over 154 days, causing a huge backlog in other cases. It’s a tawdry tale, but it speaks to an untreated cancer in the child-services domain that cries out for chemotherapy.

The story began in 2010 when the London-Middlesex CAS applied for a court order to protect three boys, aged 15, 12 and 5, after a parental separation (the family name cannot be divulged). The mother had made multiple accusations demonizing the father: that he emotionally abused her; that he was a sexual abuser; and that he was a murderer who used the oldest boy “as a gun in his hands to try to kill the mother of these three children,” in words from Judge John Harper’s decision.

The mother was, to put it mildly — confirmed by recordings, e-mails and text messages — unreliable and manipulative. The three boys repeatedly alerted the CAS to their mother’s violence, alcoholism and sexual indiscretions. Yet the CAS blithely ignored all evidence to the contrary of their own settled conviction that the mother deserved their support.

Finally the mother accused her oldest son of trying to kill her, which brought the family into criminal court. Yet after a preliminary hearing, and ever-shifting testimony from the mother, the Crown reduced the charge to “excessive self-defence.”

Judge Harper assigned two-thirds of the court costs to the CAS — a record $1.4 million — and $604,500 to the mother. He had scathing words for the CAS, whom he charged with becoming “a lead advocate” for the mother and the driving force for the trial. He said that the agency went to great lengths to smother any evidence that countered their theory that the mother was the victim, overlooking her ever-shifting narratives, with their notes referring to her as the “Society’s client.”

It was revealed at trial that mandatory document-sharing was running a year late, and that one CAS supervisor, tasked with providing information to lawyers, had removed 475 pages of notes, records, summaries and emails from the file. (This, by the way, is a criminal offence, although to my knowledge the supervisor has not been charged.) Judge Harper also noted that meetings were held to discuss how to protect the mother and case workers from the father.

This case is not shocking at all to long-time critics of child-protection services

Judge Harper wrote that that the father was lucky to “dig out from under the avalanche thrust upon him,” and that “the scars to the children” were permanent. In summary, “This was exacerbated by the actions of the Society, some police officers, some women’s groups, a school board and her employers … many of whom accepted without any level of scrutiny the (woman’s) self-reports.”

This case may be shocking to readers who have not been exposed to the systemic abuses that run rampant throughout child-protection services, but it is not shocking at all to long-time critics, only one more heartbreaking story revealing the gender bias, amateurism and power-tripping that flourishes for lack of a checks-and-balance system that protects child and parent victims from arbitrary actions like those recorded in this trial.

What is shocking to me about this case is that the CAS’s depthless pockets for protective litigation services weren’t enough to stave off justice. I receive on average a CAS horror story a week — mostly well-documented narratives from fathers similarly victimized by mother-supportive CAS case workers — and these dads just don’t have the money or the strategic cunning (sadly needed) to go up against the CAS behemoth. I have followed the stories of several men — smart, disciplined, determined to remain fully engaged with their children, and convinced that their airtight cases of professional misconduct would right the wrongs they had suffered — and one by one seen them stymied at every turn by a circling of the CAS wagons in defence of the mothers.

Everyone knows the child-services stable needs a good mucking-out, but no political party in power will seize the shovel.

CAS workers cannot be sued if they have acted “in good faith.” In the Middlesex-London case, Judge Harper noted that the CAS had “acted in bad faith.” Sadly, they act in bad faith all the time. Getting nailed for it is the exception.

Everyone knows the child-services stable needs a good mucking-out, but no political party in power will seize the shovel. Suppose this case were gender-reversed. If an alcoholic, abusive father had custody of the children; if the children begged their case workers for help; and if the case workers rebuffed them in order to protect the father: would it not act as a wake-up call?

Wake up!

National Post

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In Ottawa, the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa is openly referred to by the senior members of the Ottawa bar as "The Gestapo".

In Ottawa these lowest forms of life fabricate evidence to take children from fathers and give them to violent mothers. The locals in Ottawa call them "The Mother's Aid Society"

They gain their victories in court by using former CAS lawyers who became Judges. Around half of the Ottawa Ontario Superior Court Judges are former CAS lawyers and their names spell an endless trail of terror for fathers.

Tracey Engleking is the latest Liberal Government appointee to the bench. She has a long history of Fabricating Evidence, Obstructing Justice which is why she was selected to be a Judge.

Another example is Jennifer Belishen, who used to be the lead lawyer for the Ottawa Children's Aid Society, again, another extremely nasty psychopath who makes an endless series of decisions for the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa.

Belishen is known as a "supermarket judge", one who you can "shop for". Her phone will take your call if you have the right connections.

Another is Timothy Minnema, a former lawyer for the Children's Aid Society of Kingston where he was the member of the Dutch Reform Church, notorious for supporting Nazis during the second world war. Not that fact makes Minnema a Nazi but, his decisions and actions sure do. This low life personally fabricates evidence in court, has no compulsion about taking children from fathers and throwing them into foster care, knowing, that the CAS will then stick handle the child into the mother's home.

There is a very long list of deplorables at the Ottawa Ontario Superior Court and unfortunately the Provincial court now called the Ontario Court of Justice.

The rot runs deep at the Ottawa Court House. The list of Justice of the Peace, is a long list of people with sycophant psychopaths, with serious personality disorders with endless ethical issues. They issue the search warrants, grant bail, issue summons and hold hearings in which politics decides the issues not the law.

If you are a father, do NOT live in Ottawa. The Justice system in Ottawa is utterly corrupt and it will remain that way because it is infested with Criminals with the power of god.

The worst of the worst are the lawyers and officials like the Child Protection Workers for the Childrens Aid Society of Ottawa. Phil Hiltz-Laforge, Rob Godman aka Robert Godman, Claudette Knuckle-Dugan are all the worst form of child abusers who fabricate evidence to protect violent mothers abuse children.

The Ottawa Police, are perhaps Canada's largest criminal organization with "rotten cops" who fabricate evidence to, just like the rest of the Ottawa authorities, to remove children from male victims of domestic violence and to place them with violent mothers.

Check out Det. Peter Van Der Zander or Samuel Wayne Smith No. 880 or Van T Nguyen, these three cops are professionals at fabricating evidence and obstructing justice.