Divorced Man Hasn't Seen His Kid For 2 Years
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
155.23193
Summary
In this episode, I speak to the mother of a young boy who was taken into care after being falsely accused of murdering his step-father and lost his family in the process of legal proceedings. This is the story of how the legal system failed him and how it led to his son being placed in care.
Transcript
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thought where did the lawyers fall into this they capitulated at every my my own sorry gave up
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without a fight at every opportunity so i did better representing myself not having a clue
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what i i made progress in the private law why because i think they knew the rules of the game
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they knew that well you're a man and there's a woman who just will not
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relent she's implacably hostile it's another buzzword and they just will not question the woman
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they cannot they won't question they won't do the lawyers won't even question the lawyers but i'm
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confused because i'm supposed to interview a law firm soon well i think i think they're second
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guessing now that they've seen my channel but but but they said because i i spoke to like the
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woman who owns it and she was telling me that a lot of the men don't listen to advice
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and this is just what they're saying right and they're also they also say that
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um they don't have of course like of course they're going to help the men
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like they don't have any incentive not to they only get paid
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right if we help the men that's how we get clients okay so my question like why would they
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not give you good advice because they could see the writing on the wall because they know that they
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know how these they know how these cases play out they yes they did give a lot of advice they advised
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me to quite frequently accept responsibility for things that i was accused of oh i have
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i have this old-fashioned thing called integrity right and it's it's a bugger sometimes because they
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want you to say put your hand up oh it was it was me oh i'm going to i'm going to meet you halfway on
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this i'm going to meet you halfway on that but but if you have integrity you understand that there's
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truth and untruth right and i'm going to say what is true i'm not going to start down that slippery
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slope of saying yeah i it's partly my fault i i will go part the way but not you know because
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because because you just know it's going to get even worse if you accept some liability then they
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want you to accept more more and more and more and more until until and and they were the ones that
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told you to get the psychologist yes that eventually that led to your son being put into care a lot of
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the problem is that when we talk about teams of solicitors barristers lawyers that you're probably
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imagining kind of monolithic group of people that follow me around throughout the proceedings right
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that started seven years ago and i'm still in contact with them no there was a different
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different one parachuted in every time so i never really got to build a relationship with any solicitor or
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any barrister at all and that was difficult it was challenging because whenever a barrister would walk
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through you think and they've got their little a4 piece of paper oh right okay well you've got to
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um you've got to admit this this and this um we don't there's no point in a fact-finding hearing
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uh because there's no point i mean well hang on we want i want a fact-finding hearing because i want
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the truth to be out so some barristers would say yes we want a fact-finding hearing the next one would come
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and say no we don't then the next one would say we do and i'm left thinking well i don't know so the
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final order kind of reflects the confusion and what it needed really was a judge to to take control of it
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and to do what needed to be done a judge wasn't willing to do that just playing the game okay so
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and has there been any progress since your son was put into foster care
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no well progress like do you get you haven't seen him since he's been in foster care i haven't
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seen him for two and a half years no um the way it is
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look there's another family okay there's another family i won't mention their names
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i won't mention the names because they are as far as i'm aware going through the process as well now
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when archie died was murdered um my son in time became best friends with another young lad okay
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now this young lad was he was lovely he was um came from quite an upper class family and uh
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uh you know in this country we have we have classes and it's probably more obvious where i live really
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that's not to say the classes don't mix especially in rural areas a very small community one primary
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school that sort of thing so but these were kind of seen as very respectable people pillars of the
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community you would say um even in depressed nobility and all that sort of thing right so it's exactly
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the sort of person you'd want your son to make friends with right and um so they they used to play
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the army games that me and my son played and all that sort of thing and i used to converse with the
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father who because i was being told i've been told a lot of bullshit right by the the local authority and
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by the school i i know i didn't trust what they had to say because they'd always say oh yeah he's doing
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well now he's doing far better now without you mr jones because he's in he's in care and we can do
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with a state right so we can do everything we're perfect and yeah so much progress has been made
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apparently but this the father of this this little boy knew better because he was involved he got to
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see my son because play dates and that sort of thing so i was getting a very different picture painted
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by him uh while i was getting back from local authority was well your son doesn't want to see
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you eventually he's scared of you um he hated playing the games he used to play by the way
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um he only went camping he only played soldiers with you because he was scared of him
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and this this other father said well this this is rubbish your your son goes on about you all the
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time he he worships you he plays all the same games with with his boy um and the police are telling you
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that or the school the social services are telling you that oh that's yeah so that they they occasionally
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give me updates but really the social services do not want to engage with me at all after he's in care
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it's all very reluctant and they really want to end