California Family Law Malicious Spousal Abandonment Law Homeless

The following contains thoughts from paralegal Melissa Ashby, and from attorney William Geary, based upon observations made from a number of highly contested custody cases.

Have you lot ever been sexually abused, been part of a truly violent household, been part of a family affected by drug abuse, or had a parent imprisoned for a crime? If you have, then y'all know the affect information technology has on all members of a family, especially the children. When dealing with a parent who has a drug and booze problem, a violent history, or a criminal history, you come up to empathize the toll it takes on the children involved, and the need for possibly supervised or terminated parenting time.

Just what if yous are involved in a divorce or a child custody case and you are of a sudden on the "wrong side" of false allegations concerning sexual corruption, violence, drug abuse, or crime?

Making Simulated Allegations in Custody Cases

All too often in our practice, we have seen divorce and custody cases where a parent decides that, in order to level the playing field or substantially lean it their way for full custody, the best course of activity is to make false and severe allegations confronting the other parent.  These allegations range from allegations of sexual offenses to allegations of physical and emotional abuse, allegations of serious criminal offenses, allegations of drug corruption, allegations of domestic violence and allegations of negligence.

The procedure of uncovering the falsity of allegations such every bit these or disproving of such allegations, involves lengthy and expensive  investigation and litigation, often times requiring or mandating the employment of expensive experts, attempts to get records from police departments, attempts to become records from physicians, attempts to have witnesses come forward and dealings with kid protective services and other county agencies. Interest of all or some of these experts and agencies sometimes creates fifty-fifty bigger problems and often times further variables with which to bargain— all in a example where the allegations are simulated.

Sometimes parents make an accusation and if information technology is found unsubstantiated they scramble to come up with other allegations, one after the other, thinking that at least i "might stick"–  all causing years of harassment and litigation, not to mention potential chore loss, criminal charges, and, about importantly, severe mental trauma for the parties' children. Many times, the parent against whom these allegations are made cannot afford the legal and expert fees or multiple attorneys it takes to prove his or her innocence. While all of this is going on the parent may not even have the ability to even talk to the children. What is alarming to the states is the level to which some people volition go to ensure that the other parent will have absolutely no relationship with their children.

How False Allegations in Custody Cases Touch on Children

Children are gifts, not possessions. This is a simple truth which many bitter or selfish parents do non consider during divorce or custody disputes. It stands to reason that when parents' relationship ends information technology is due to some kind of divergence of opinion, exist it a big difference or i which is minuscule. These differences can make parenting together difficult but parents ofttimes lose sight of the need for the children to exist with their parents – both of the parents—even if the parents do not get forth.  Parents may subconsciously starting time viewing children as pieces of property which the other parent cannot have or share.

I believe that parents know that courts generally favor shared parenting and that, without some proven heinous human activity, the courts volition probably grant shared parenting since it makes sense that a child should accept the interest of both parents in his or her life, if possible. Fortunately, where the allegations are serious, our feel is that, when the client can hang in long enough, simulated allegations are finally proven to exist false.

But what about the children?

Even when an accusation is eventually proven simulated, often times years or months of litigation have occurred. Usually the children have been told one or both versions of "what is going on," or even sometimes coerced to be involved in the making of simulated allegations. The emotional corruption to a child involved in this blazon of litigation based upon simulated statements often times irreparably changes the grade of a child's life.

Think most a kid who has been needlessly examined by children'due south hospital rape or molestation examiners, a child who is told to lie and defend one parent over the other, a child who is existence stigmatized past visits at school by a guardian ad litem, a child whose honey is being purchased, a child who is asked to lie to law, and a child who witnesses a parent being arrested.

Recall about an impressionable kid who is falsely made to see a parent existence portrayed as a monster. to the point where the child believes it, or at least to the point where it is "not okay" to dear that parent any longer.

Who would practise this to their ain child, or to any child? Who wakes up and decides that the parent that was perfectly adequate yesterday, is a monster today, and that, to proceeds some advantage or satisfy some selfish want, it is okay to continue a mission to destroy the other parent, alienating them past proverb that parent is suddenly a child molesting, drug addict, who beats their child?

What near the parent who engages in these tactics, and what about the child? Is this non abuse of its ain kind—perchance of the worst kind?  What kind of parent finds these tactics reasonable? How many parents are losing custody of their children, losing decision-making abilities, losing the right to admission records based on fabrications?

Even if the attempted fabrication is revealed, how many parents volition gain full or joint custody but have a potentially unsalvageable human relationship with a child who is emotionally broken or so damaged that he or she doesn't want to exist with that parent anyway?

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Source: https://www.divorcemag.com/blog/false-allegations-in-custody-cases

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