The following story is yet another tragedy discussing a case of a dad who lost custody by a misandric court judge. This bencher may be incompetent in dealing with complex interpersonal human relationship actions particularly dealing with child custody and who is part of a group who give sole physical care to moms 90% of the time. They do it on the least amount of evidence favouring the mom even if there is overwhelming evidence she has serious problems. It is a production line of negative consequences for children based not on good science but mythology.
In 2006 the Federal Conservatives appointed to Ontario's Superior Court, longtime Conservative Alexander Sosna, an Oshawa lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in the 1984 federal election. Sosna is another political hack but then that is the nature of the game for appointments. It is not merit but who you know. He certainly doesn't subscribe to any notion of equality between parents. Conservatives are supposed to be the party of family values but when it comes to marriage breakdown they are as pro-feminist as any lefty liberal or dipper. Sosna was the defence lawyer in a case in Oshawa several years back ( circa 2004) involving 2 boys who were being caged and beaten by their foster parents. He got the foster parents off with a very light sentence of 9 months. The Crown was seeking 8 years. Who did the assessments on the abusive foster parents? Something else fell through the cracks.
I have stated before it matters not whether you have a criminal lawyer turned judge in these chairs or a real estate lawyer turned judge. They are not competent to judge on complex human interpersonal dynamics involving family disputes unless they are the extremely rare appointee with a PhD in Psychology. Child custody is more about interpersonal relationships than law. Putting a non-feminist psychologist in the chair as judge would render more informed and balanced decisions. Even when a judge has a comprehensive psychological report from a competent clinician Sosna chooses the phony one because it favours mom. He should be thrown off the bench but then so should a lot of the other ones who are trained to believe fathers are incompetent and potentially dangerous to have even shared custody. Did I also mention there is this business of entitlements that goes to moms if they have sole custody which also suggests tacit approval by the other branches and levels of the nanny state, such as Status of Women at each level.
This Durham Children's Aid Society is a disgrace and may represent a danger to vulnerable children they have contact with. Hopefully the police will do a thorough investigation of this organization and the management and any potential conspirators working in it are summarily fired and charged for fraud and child abuse. If this fraudster, Carter, has been doing this for 18 years it is worthy of starting a public inquiry into the operation of Children's Family and Protective Services across this Province especially if they operate using the Feminist dogma of a Patriarchy oppressing females and appear to want to officially align themselves with the Violence Against Women movement here who deny females can abuse and promote the fallacy of a Patriarchy whose role is to coerce and abuse women. In math terms the formula is male=abuser, woman=benign. The whole philosophy and doctrine is based on falsehoods and can be considered perpetration of a fraud in and of itself.
These are quotes from the Durham Region News who interviewed Executive Director of the Durham Children's Aid Society, Wanda Secord in the left photo."But he also carried out parenting capacity assessments, measuring the suitability of people to care for children. Ms. Secord noted that in cases where Mr. Carter carried out such assessments, all parties involved had reviewed his qualifications and agreed to his participation."
We are missing the how of this review. Did the CAS produce what they had on file which we know is phony or did they contact the CPA or the Provincial governing body to determine his level of education, what his Doctoral Dissertation consisted of and any conclusions it uncovered. The CAS has the overall responsibility to ensure they have hired a person qualified to do the job. They obviously do not undertake due diligence and this may only be the tip of the iceberg.
"Allegations that Mr. Carter falsified his qualifications have given rise to questions about the validity of rulings rendered in cases he took part in.
"There could be a potential impact on children and families," Ms. Secord acknowledged."
This is quite an understatement from a person entrusted with the welfare of children and making over $130,000 per year of taxpayers money. Secord was predicting a spending overage of $3.9 million as of October, 2009. Perhaps a new model of child welfare agency is necessary that can protect children but be prudent fiscal managers and that is not aligned with an ideological feminist dogma that appears to be on the table through its March. 2010 meeting with the Violence Against Women sector.
Perhaps the most noteworthy case[36] of agency incompetence and bad faith began in 1987 when a Children's Aid Society in Ontario supported allegations of sexual abuse made by a mother against her former husband. The initial allegation of abuse arose in the context of parental separation and related to the couple's young children. The agency worker with primary responsibility for the investigation was inexperienced, and the judge in the later civil case brought by the former husband concluded that the investigation and subsequent agency conduct were negligent in several critical respects.
The decision in D.B. v. C.A.S. of Durham Region may seem burdensome for a public agency with an obligation to investigate all reports of abuse[38] despite limited financial resources. However, the Court of Appeal emphasized that there was not merely negligence, but actually a demonstration of bias sufficient to conclude that the agency staff was not acting in "good faith." Not only did the agency carry out an inadequate and biased investigation, it continued a lengthy child protection proceeding only because the father pressed a legitimate claim for payment of his legal costs in the protection hearing. The decision emphasizes the need for child protection agencies and their workers to conduct fair investigations, and treat fairly those alleged to have abused children.
The Durham CAS has the dubious distinction of being the first Child Welfare organization in canada to be successfully sued for negligence based on false allegations, also involving a father. The following is an excerpt from a report done for the Canadian Federal Government entitled "ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD ABUSE IN THE CONTEXT OF PARENTAL SEPARATION: A DISCUSSION PAPER."
" 3.2.1 Child Protection Agency Liability to the Wrongfully Accused Parent
There have been a number of highly publicized cases in Canada in which individuals have claimed that they have been wrongfully accused of sexual abuse by "overzealous" investigators, and have sought redress in the courts. In most cases, these individuals have been satisfied with an acquittal in criminal court, or a finding in a civil proceeding that refutes the abuse allegation. However, in a few cases individuals have sued investigators for monetary damages to compensate for the expense and emotional anguish from being wrongfully alleged to have abused their child.
Perhaps the most noteworthy case[36] of agency incompetence and bad faith began in 1987 when a Children's Aid Society in Ontario supported allegations of sexual abuse made by a mother against her former husband. The initial allegation of abuse arose in the context of parental separation and related to the couple's young children. The agency worker with primary responsibility for the investigation was inexperienced, and the judge in the later civil case brought by the former husband concluded that the investigation and subsequent agency conduct were negligent in several critical respects. Shortly after the initial report from the mother was received, and without interviewing the father, the worker quickly concluded that the mother's sexual abuse allegations were well-founded. The worker's initial interview with the children had many leading questions, and was conducted in the presence of the mother, who was clearly hostile to the father. The worker later displayed hostility towards the father and his lawyer, and dismissed any concerns about the mother without investigation. Indeed, reports by the children of ill treatment by the mother and the worker's direct observation of poor treatment of the children by the mother were ignored by the worker. The father was not adequately interviewed for his version of the alleged incidents until two years after the initial allegations. The worker kept very poor notes of the various interviews and none were audio or video recorded.
As the child protection trial proceeded in Family Court, it became apparent that the agency's allegations were groundless, but the agency refused to discontinue the protection application unless the father agreed to forego any claim for court costs. The child protection trial eventually took 51 days to complete. The judge in the protection hearing dismissed the agency allegations against the father, awarded him custody of the children, and ordered the agency to pay $60,000 towards the father's legal fees.
The father then began a civil suit against the agency and the child protection worker to recover the balance of his legal and other expenses incurred in his lengthy battle to regain his reputation and custody of his children, as well as punitive damages. In 1994 in D.B. v. C.A.S. of Durham Region, Justice Somers of the General Division of the Ontario Court of Justice awarded the father over $110,000 in damages resulting from the false allegation of sexual abuse.[37]
The judge in the civil suit concluded that the agency and worker had been negligent and unprofessional in their treatment of the father, negatively affecting both the father and his children. The judge found that the father, an Anglican minister, suffered emotional trauma and loss of reputation as a result of the child protection proceedings and awarded $35,000 in damages for this, and an additional $10,000 for exemplary damages to punish the "bureaucracy's" incompetence and abusive actions. The court also awarded a total of $1,500 to the two children for their emotional harm and loss of enjoyment of their relationship with their father. The trial judge also awarded the father $77,000 to cover legal, travel and telephone costs not previously paid as a result of the Family Court proceeding, though the Ontario Court of Appeal reduced that part of the award by $25,000, ruling that the issue of recovery of legal expenses was fully resolved in the earlier Family Court proceedings. While the Ontario Court of Appeal reduced the damage award, it affirmed the principle that an agency could be liable if it was both negligent and biased in its investigation.
While D.B. is a very disturbing case, it is the only reported case in Canada where a child protection agency has been found liable to a falsely accused parent. In other cases where an agency has been found to have supported an unfounded allegation of parental abuse and been sued for alleged incompetence in investigating abuse allegations, the courts have dismissed the claims, generally by finding that the agencies were acting in "good faith" and hence entitled to statutory immunity from civil suits for "mere" negligence, or the cases are still before the courts.[39]"
They have been involved in other litigation as well including (Schmitz 1994). This is but one agency exploring affiliation as a member of the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies (OACAS) with the Violence Against Women Sector. Dads need to be aware of this potential alliance and its ramifications given VAW supports the theory of a Coercing Patriarchy in which all men are abusers and all women benign. Many organizations do not learn from history and it appears more extensive extreme bias against males may be in the offing.
Here is a recent unfolding case in the Victoria, BC area with another fraudster former Children's Aid Investigator, Jason Matthew Walker
MJM
By MICHELE MANDEL, QMI Agency |
 An alleged victim of Greg Carter's - who cannot be identified - holds a business card identifying him as Dr. Carter. (Ernest Doroszuk/QMI Agency)  
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WHITBY, Ont. -- A child custody battle is an ugly, twisted jungle at the best of times, but a Whitby father never stood a chance after family court accepted a disparaging assessment done by a man posing as a psychologist.
And ignored the one by the true PhD.
Now the terrified 48-year-old dad must share custody of his two young boys with a woman who the real psychologist has warned is mentally ill and poses a danger to their care.
Greg Carter, 63, has been charged with three counts of fraud, two counts of obstructing justice and two counts of perjury for allegedly impersonating a psychologist.
He is also facing a complaint of professional misconduct by Ontario's College of Psychologists.
"Nobody should go through what I went through," says "Mr. S", the angry father who can't be named because the case involves the Children's Aid. "If he had kept his unqualified opinion to himself, my children would be safe and we wouldn't have lost all our money to lawyers."
The dad had his suspicions after Carter presented an assessment to family court that said the father had a narcissistic personality disorder -- despite never meeting him -- while administering one test on his ex-wife to completely dismiss an exhaustive, 37-page evaluation by a highly respected psychologist who diagnosed her with a borderline personality disorder.
Rattled by his findings, Mr. S. contacted the College of Psychologists of Ontario and discovered that Carter was not a psychologist at all, but a psychological associate whose registration stipulated that he was not allowed to make an independent diagnosis without the supervision of a qualified psychologist.
He had also told the court that he had a PhD from Pacific Western University, the now-defunct school that awarded degrees based on "life experience" and was branded a "diploma mill" in a report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs.
"I can't believe nobody checked his credentials until I came along," says Mr. S.
What's even more astounding is that Justice Alexander Sosna was then presented with a letter from the College outlining Carter's restrictions -- and the fact that he wasn't a psychologist as advertised -- but still chose to accept the bogus doc's assessment and set aside the damning one by the real psychologist.
The judge, who has a background in criminal, not family law, rejected the dad's bid for sole custody, threw him out of the matrimonial home and ordered him to pay his ex-wife's $13,000 in legal costs within 90 days or he wouldn't be able to see his kids at all.
He had to go to the bank to get a loan because the protracted custody battle had wiped out his $400,000 in savings. But the drain on his finances pales beside his constant fear of what will happen to his sons in their mother's care.
He doesn't understand why a former criminal lawyer is ruling in family court.
"Carter is just one piece of a whole broken puzzle," insists the beleaguered father.
But an integral piece. Mr. S. went on to launch a complaint of professional misconduct against him with the College as did the real psychologist.
"He has been masquerading as a psychologist for some time and had deceived myself and the public about his credentials," the doctor wrote Mr. S. "His conduct is simply unethical."
Carter did not respond to messages left at his home and his Whitby office.
He did offer a tepid mea culpa in a December 2008 letter. "While my concerns are not groundless, I now believe that expressing them in written form based on the information I had was wrong. I owe Mr. S. an apology for that mistake."
But his apology will not give Mr. S. sole custody of his children or undo the harm Carter has allegedly caused in at least two other child custody disputes, including one where his testimony led to a granddaughter being wrenched away from her grandparents after she'd spent most of her 10 years in their care.
"What's an apology if you don't fix the problem you created?" demands the heartbroken father. "He's got to have affected hundreds of people. He's been doing it for 18 years."
And that is why all of his cases need to be reviewed if he is found guilty.
In the meantime, what about all the poor children?
In Mr. S's case, the Children's Aid is now involved after the mom allegedly restrained the 9-year-old by throwing him to the ground and sitting on him. In a list of written expectations on a CAS contract, his ex-wife has been told that her discipline "at no time shall include sitting on either child."
The worried dad has pleaded with them to remove the boys from her care, especially now that Carter's assessment has been discredited, but they refuse.
They say there is nothing they can do but monitor the situation. After all, there's two conflicting psychological reports and the judge accepted the one by Carter
.
They don't seem unduly concerned that he's a man now facing charges for fraud.
READ MANDEL EVERY SUNDAY, THURSDAY AND FRIDAY. MICHELE.MANDEL@SUNMEDIA.CA OR 416-947-2231.
