Judge: Sorry I have to ban blameless dad from seeing his children
A JUDGE apologised yesterday for barring a father from seeing his children after their emotionally disturbed mother spent years turning them against him.
The blameless father was ‘demonised’ by the mother, according to a court ruling.
But social workers failed to notice that she had twisted her children’s minds against him and for five years did nothing to stop her or to help the children.
And an attempt by social workers and a ‘trans-generational psychotherapist’ to re-unite father and children proved disastrous because the psychotherapist did not understand how strongly the youngsters had been alienated.
Judge Stephen Wildblood told the father he was ‘ truly sorry’ that he had lost his family and added that the lack of contact with him was ‘deeply harmful’ to the children. However, he ruled that it would be too disruptive and harmful for social workers and the courts to continue to allow him to press for his right of contact – a decision which means he will be unable to see them or even send letters and cards.
The hearing ended eight years of attempts by the father to win the chance to see his children through the courts.
Judge Wildblood, the chief family judge in Bristol, told him that ‘this has been a long, heartbreaking and expensive set of events for you to endure’. He added: ‘I do hope that you will find some happiness in the future, despite all that has occurred.’
Judge Wildblood has ordered almost all details of the case to remain secret, including evidence from years of court hearings, and even the ages and sexes of the children.
But he said: ‘This is one of the most disconcerting cases that I have encountered in 30 years of doing such work.’ The father, who the judge said is smart, thoughtful, intelligent and ‘ plainly loves his children’, began his attempts to see his children after his family broke up in 2011. But, his ruling said, ‘the mother has alienated the children from the father’.
The children’s ‘perception of this father is skewed and dominated by the mother’s own emotional vulnerability,’ the judge found, adding that she demonised him.
The judge said that a central reason for the father’s failure to win contact was that social workers did not spot that the mother had turned the children against the father.
‘It took years, probably five, to identify the extent of the emotional and psychological issues of the mother,’ he said, adding that social workers had been ‘manifestly superficial and naive’.
An attempt to re-unite the father and children by sending them to live with him for seven weeks was recommended by ‘trans-generational psychotherapist’ Karen Woodall.
But, the judge said, she underestimated the depths of the children’s alienation and they refused to eat and eventually ran away.