Children caught between warring parents

A CUSTODY case has shown what can happen to children whose parents are feuding.

Two girls, aged eight and 13, have been profoundly affected by their parents’ fights, the High Court in Pretoria heard, one ending up in hospital after refusing to eat. The children’s advocate, Corné Lindeque, told Judge Pierre Rabie, who was hearing an urgent custody application from the girls’ mother, that they were “trapped in the middle”.

Both parents had badmouthed each other in front of the children. “The [mother] even used one of the daughters’ telephone to send messages to the [father]. This upset the daughter very much.”

Lindeque said the mother visited the girls unexpectedly at school on August 1.

“Both were concerned that she was going to remove them without [the father] knowing of it. She told the children that she was carrying pepper spray with her and that she was going to use it on [the father] should she come across him.”

Rabie said the children became “very nervous and anxious when [the mother] screams at them” and “are in fear that she would cause trouble at school and embarrass them by screaming”.

He added: “They also carry the burden of making plans in an attempt to keep the parents apart to avoid conflict.”

The father said in an affidavit that his wife had assaulted him, threatened suicide, pulled a knife on one of the children and threatened to leave South Africa with their daughters.

At a meeting in Lindeque’s office she threw herself on the floor crying hysterically, the judge said. “The children, who were in an office close by, could hear her ravings and they were extremely upset.”

Rabie denied the mother’s custody request, saying they should stay with their father and have contact with the mother under supervision of a social worker for two hours a week.