Gult by Gender ~ Bill Coleman Victim, of Connecticut Injustice system

Don Tenn and Fathers-4-Justice US protest Bill Colemans jailing for rape based on only the word of a spouse who used the Nuclear Bomb of Divorce/Custody Battles and got a Connecticut DA to prosecute. There was no physical evidence. Only She said-He Said. Courts will bend over backwards for a woman whose good at sounding victimized.

Woman teacher exposed as 'predatory paedophile' who sexually abused young children she followed into public toilets

By Chris Brooke
Last updated at 7:33 PM on 07th October 2009

An apparently respectable woman teacher has been exposed as a 'predatory paedophile' who sexually assaulted children 100 times.

Carole Clarke, 46, has told police that she systematically attacked boys and girls over a 17-year period by following them into public toilets.

The offences were primarily committed against youngsters aged between four and seven and she always acted alone, Grimsby Crown Court was told.

Facing jail: Former teacher Carole Clarke, pictured here in 2006, admitted following children into public toilets to sexually assault them

Clarke, a part-time college tutor, is facing a lengthy jail sentence after pleading guilty to six charges on the day she was due to stand trial.

She has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced on December 14.

Although the assaults dated back to 1992, Clarke was not arrested until January this year when a health worker raised concerns with police.

The exact number of offences and victims is unknown but the court heard how Clarke told police she committed around 100 offences on a small number of children.

She also admitted two counts of indecently assaulting a child during or before June 1992 and three charges of sexually assaulting a girl under 13 during or before August 2008.

One of the sexual assaults occurred in a public toilet in Grimsby's Market Hall, while two others occurred in public toilets in Woodhall Spa. Six other counts of sexual assault, which she denied, will remain on file.

Clarke, who was reported after seeking help from mental health professionals, has been on remand since her arrest in January.

Detective Sergeant Stewart Watson, of Humberside Police, said: 'Predatory paedophiles such as Carole Clarke are rare. There are claims between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of abuse against prepubescent children in the UK is committed by females.

'However, only about 5 per cent are thought to involve a woman acting alone. There are still those members of the public and even experts who ignore women's capacity for sexual abuse.

'Thankfully education is challenging these beliefs.'

Clarke worked as a part-time tutor for adult students at Franklin College in Grimsby between October 2003 and April 2007, and also taught adults from home.

Principal Peter Newcome said: 'She was employed as a part-time tutor for adult learners, teaching English for speakers of another language.

'She taught very much in the open with people around and had no students under the age of 19.'

The case follows the shocking prosecution of nursery worker Vanessa George, 39, who admitted carrying out a string of child sex offences at Bristol Crown Court last week.

Mother-of-two George, who worked at the Little Ted's Nursery in Plymouth, teamed up with Colin Blanchard, 38, and Angela Allen, 39, to form a paedophile ring after meeting on Facebook.

The trio, who had never met until their appearance in court, carried out a series of sex attacks on young children and exchanged sickening images over the internet.

The case caused a national furore because it involved horrific abuse by a woman trusted to care for children.

But the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child protection charity which deals with female sex offenders, said up to a fifth of paedophiles are women.

Michele Elliott, director of charity Kidscape, said: 'The reality is women abuse. I think we have to acknowledge it for the sake of the children who are being abused.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1218804/Woman-teacher-exposed-predatory-paedophile-sexually-abused-young-children-followed-public-toilets.html#ixzz0THItuwXD

Dad support group coming to Chatham

Posted By ELLWOOD SHREVE, THE DAILY NEWS

Posted 3 hours ago

Dave Flook wouldn't be moving to Chatham if his ex-wife didn't live here with their daughter.

But since he's coming here anyway, the current London resident wants to make an impact on the community.

Flook, 32, who founded "Not All Dads Are Deadbeats," about a year ago plans to move the support group to Chatham in November.

He is also planning to hold an introductory meeting for Chatham NADAD Oct. 15 at the Chatham public library branch, beginning at 6 p. m.

A web designer by trade, Flook said he created the online support group blindly, noting he felt alone and isolated in the court process and just wanted to meet other people in the same situation.

But he didn't realize how quickly it would grow, noting the first seminar attracted about 130 people.

The website www.notalldadsaredeadbeats.com has received over 20,000 unique hits. He also receives calls daily from all over Canada, noting many people are asking questions because they are confused about the whole process.

Flook has what he calls "de facto custody," noting his daughter stays with him every other weekend.

"The main reason why I started up Not All Dads Are Deadbeats was that realization if you don't stand up and fight against it than you support it indirectly," he said.

"The issue of parental alienation in court and justice is very prevalent, however, it's one of these things that's not generally talked about as much as it should in society," Flook added.

He also plans to organize playgroups through the group.

Flook said having the role of being a "weekend dad," it can be difficult to find other kids for your children to play with because "you're just so disconnected from their normal lives."

Flook also hopes to create some jobs, noting he will be looking to hire web designers and sales people for his business Pure Web Group.

And he has plans to create the Web Design School of Chatham.

The focus will be on teaching people to create higher-end web sites, known as content management web sites.

A former graphic design and web design instructor at Fanshawe College in London, Flook said he has researched the area and said there is no course offering thorough instruction in this area.

"Essentially, I love being in front of a crowd of people sharing my passion for my web design and I'd like to express that further."

eshreve@chathamdailynews.ca

http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2046067

Where separation occurs without anxiety

More and more jurisdictions are moving to a more equal system in marital breakdown instead of the winner take all in Canada that awards a single gender over 90% of chidren's physical custody. Australia's system is an improvement but not a complete model. Only 15% of cases result in 50-50 custody. That is certainly better than before and far better than the sorry state of affairs in this country brought about by lawyers and judges. We do have some centres in Canada that could easily become similar to the OZ Family Relationship Centres. One good example is the Calgary Counselling Centre. Belgium's model is one of the best with a presumption of equality from the start.

I too share the dream of Mr. Parkinson. One day perhaps we can set up centres to act as the first line of defense for saving families from the disaster of family law. We have first responders for Fire, Police and Health emergencies. Family breakdown is a crisis of major proportions and money needs to be invested in 1) saving marriages that can be saved 2) If abuse is involved get family counselling instead of the current paradigm of providing $208,000,000.00, in Ontario alone for a single gender. This is not working 3)Treat each member of the family equally but truly look at the best interest of children. Currently that appears to award custody physically to mom and marginalize dads as visitors 4) if abuse, physical and/or emotional cannot be curtailed the non-abusive parent gets custody. 5) Include a follow-up appointment process to let parents and children know they are not forgotten and alone. 6) As they do in Belgium severe penalties for with holding access. That is equivalent to kidnapping there and jail can result for the abductor. You can be ensured it will only happen once, if at all.

Often the canard of male abuser - female benign is brought up as an issue for shared parenting. It is a non-logical argument. Stats Can reports abuse between genders as pretty much equal. It impacts about 8% of women and 7% of men. Lets turn that around. It doesn't impact 92% of women and 93% of men. The logic of not having shared parenting when 92-93% of the population is not affected makes no sense. Lets start acting logically instead of the shrieking we hear from certain quarters. See my earlier posts on dealing with abuse.MJM

RICHARD LAUTENS / TORONTO STAR

Alfred Mamo, a lawyer in London, Ont., says the province’s family court system has gotten worse in the past decade. It’s “making people crazy,” he says.

Where separation occurs without anxiety

October 07, 2009

Susan Pigg

living reporter

It seems that Australia isn't all that different from Canada – except, of course, for the accents and the kangaroos.

About 40 per cent of marriages end in divorce, weddings are on the decline in favour of living common law, and a lot of couples don't know where to turn when their relationship ends.

Well, at least they didn't until 2006.

That's when the Australian government launched one of the most ambitious set of divorce reforms in the world, aimed at putting family first and providing a raft of supports for couples, whether they're just starting out, or struggling to save their marriage, or trying to shield their children from separation flak.

In the past three years, 65 Family Relationship Centres have opened across the land Down Under. The well-marked storefronts, located in high-traffic city centres, are the backbone of some $400 million in family law reforms meant to ease the pressure on overburdened courts, reverse the phenomenon of "disappearing dads," and ensure divorce is as painless as possible for children.

"They're part of a 20-year cultural change – the first port of call for people managing the transition from parenting together to parenting apart," says University of Sydney law professor Patrick Parkinson, who pushed the previous, John Howard government for the new approach over pumping more money into the courts.

The program is meant to be one-on-one, recognizing that the worst moments for separated couples and their kids are the first hours and days after one partner announces they're leaving.

It's also meant to be affordable. Everyone who walks through the door, or calls the toll-free line, is entitled to three free hours of help every two years, whether it be on-site counselling and mediation or off-site specialized services. After that, costs are based on ability to pay.

Walk in the door of a Family Relationship Centre and you are greeted by a "parenting counsellor" rather than a wall of pamphlets. Their job is to get a sense of your personal situation and how it's playing out for your family, and to assess what help you need to start moving ahead.

The centres are meant to act as triage units for ex-partners who may be hobbled by mental health issues and addictions, or children acting out because of prolonged family conflict. "They will not close that file until they are certain that person has got the help they need," says Parkinson.

Mediation is a mandatory first step, a move aimed at making the costly and adversarial court system a "mechanism of last resort."

The last of the centres opened last year, and already Australia has seen an 18 per cent drop in court filings, Parkinson says.

The reforms included legislative changes aimed at making shared parenting the norm (except if there are extenuating circumstances such as violence in the home, mental health issues or addictions) and support payments more equitable.

The idea is to give ex-partners much-needed flexibility, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing they can go back to the centre in a few weeks, or even years, to tweak details or change custody arrangements without the expense of hiring a lawyer and going to court.

The reforms were inspired in part by a 2003 national survey that pointed to a worrisome trend. It found that 36 per cent of 1,000 separated men interviewed hadn't seen their children in the previous year – because of conflict with their ex-spouses, distance, economics or remarriages – although 80 per cent of them wanted to.

As well, MPs were being deluged with calls from constituents upset about divorce issues and their treatment in the family court system.

But, most of all, there were growing fears that family breakdown and conflict was resulting in increased social problems among kids – from drug abuse to gang activity – and more children being taken into foster care, says Parkinson.

Out of those concerns came a national commission, 1,700 submissions and the landmark "Every Picture Tells a Story Report" – not unlike Canada's 1998 report, "For the Sake of the Children."

The only difference? Australia moved on its commission's recommendations, while most of them remain shelved here in Canada.

Family law lawyers such as Alfred Mamo of London, Ont., contend things here have gotten worse over the past decade.

Many of Ontario's family courts are on the brink of breakdown thanks to a perfect storm of problems: a shortage of judges, lengthy court dockets and a woefully inadequate Legal Aid system that is forcing more litigants to represent themselves, with no understanding of complex family law, rules of evidence or even what documents they need.

Judges complain that has added to the chaos by necessitating adjournments that drag out cases and drive up costs.

The result is a two-tier system of justice in Ontario. Couples who can afford it are flocking to costly private mediation and arbitration to avoid getting bogged down in court. Everyone else is mired in a legal system that's so slow and unpredictable, it can take a child's lifetime and the couple's life savings before a judge finally makes a ruling. Many lawyers believe that's actually ratcheting up tension and adding to the number of high-conflict divorces and allegations of parental alienation.

"The lawyers need to own some of this," says Mamo, echoing litigants who blame attorneys for dragging out cases to make more money. Lawyers call it "milking the file."

In defence of his profession, Mamo adds: "To some degree we're in the cancer business. You want to help everybody, but the reality is you can't because human emotions are just so complicated and there are so many variables.

"We could be doing a lot better, though, there's no doubt about that."

Just 2 to 3 per cent of all disputes end up in full-blown trials, but that's largely because litigants go broke first.

In especially overloaded courts in high-growth areas such as Newmarket, Brampton and Barrie, judges are often expected to plow through 25 to 40 cases a day. Litigants complain they can spend hours – and thousands of dollars on a lawyer – waiting for just 15 minutes before a judge and another months-long adjournment.

"The system is making people crazy," says Mamo, who co-authored a study of the courts two years ago.

University of Western Ontario professor Peter Jaffe, who worked with Mamo on that study, describes family courts as "restaurants without kitchens.

"You can ask for anything you want, but in the end all they have is a couple of items, hamburgers and hot dogs," says Jaffe, word academic director of the university's Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women and Children.

Some 17 of the more than 80 family courts in Ontario have on-site mediators, and they have diverted some couples from the courtroom and toward a workable settlement. But the much-lauded Family Law Information Centres – court-based services that were intended to act somewhat like Australia's Family Relationship Centres – are, in most courts, little more than pamphlet booths.

Duty counsel, who are supposed to help ensure litigants are properly prepared for their first court appearance, usually have time for just 20 minutes per client. Volunteer law students pick up some of the slack, but just in major centres like Toronto and London.

"We can't tinker – the system is broken and needs very significant reform," says well-respected family law lawyer Philip Epstein.

Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley recognizes the need for reform, and says the government has been pressing Ottawa to help – especially in appointing more judges – since 2004.

He's been meeting with family law experts to see what Ontario can do on its own, and quickly. He's already announced $150 million more in legal aid, most of it for family law, but lawyers complain that's far from enough.

Australia's Parkinson is determined that, over time, the Family Relationship Centres will become more than just after-separation services for couples. His dream is that they help prevent family breakdown.

He takes pride in simple signs of progress – like the four filing cabinets that line one wall of the centre in the seaside industrial city of Wollongong, 1 1/2 hours south of Sydney.

Three of them are packed with the case files of separated couples. The fourth is full of families working hard, with the help of centre staff, to save their marriages.

Read more from this series:

Divorced dads can't catch a break

The good divorce: Equally shared parenting

Kids hit hard in nasty divorces

Grandparents go to court for access to grandchildren

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/articlePrint/706400

In the UK Shared Parenting Guidelines Controversy

An informative video on the current debate with Shared Parenting in the UK.

Toronto Star ~ Grandparents go to court for access to grandkids

In many cases upon family breakdown the male parent gets cut off from their child through a process called Parental Alienation. The custodial parent, female and sometime male, will tell the children their other parent is unworthy to see them and may in fact harm them. The children wanting to be loyal to their custodial parent go along with it to avoid further trouble. This affects all the target parents extended family including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Fifty percent of their genetic heritage is MIA. Often this alienating parent has a personality disorder which complicates everyone's lives and starts a very expensive and painful process to achieve the equal status that existed before the marriage failed. Judges exacerbate it by awarding physical custody to one gender in over 90% of cases. It is a massive social engineering policy with tragic consequences.MJM

RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR

One grandmother denied access to her late son’s children has amassed hundreds of photos to show the court the big role she played in their lives.

October 06, 2009

Susan Pigg

Living Reporter

In the next few weeks, Helena Sheppard will appear before an Ontario family court judge and ask to be granted one wish before she dies – the right to be a grandmother again.

It's a role she revelled in before her son died unexpectedly last year, a loss that was so sudden and shattering she couldn't bring herself to leave home for weeks.

Since then Nana, as she was once lovingly called, has found herself shut out of the lives of her son's two children.

She has been given the cold shoulder at their sporting events, virtually cut out of Christmas and unable to reason with her daughter-in-law at a handful of get-togethers she'd hoped might break the impasse.

Sheppard (not her real name) is battling her second bout of cancer and scared time will run out. She has turned to the courts to intervene, knowing that it's an expensive long shot that could cost her her house.

"I'm not asking the judge for anything more than the same relationship I had before my son's death," she says. That included sleepovers, cookie bakes at Christmas and a schedule of all the children's games.

"I used to stay with them Christmas Eve, but I know that's never going to happen again."

The retired office worker spoke on condition her name and hometown not be identified, for fear of jeopardizing her campaign for more access to her grandchildren. She spends her days researching grandparents' rights on the Internet. She has amassed hundreds of photos to show the court how she has been a big part of her grandchildren's lives from when they were born.

"It's hard to not see the grandkids on top of the pain you carry around from losing your child," she says. "They've already lost their father, now they're going to lose their grandmother, too? By denying them access to me they are losing another loving relationship. And then they will have to deal with yet another death."

Sheppard is by no means the first grandparent to sue in the hope of getting more access to grandchildren in the wake of a child's death or divorce. Among all the heartbreak that plays out daily in Ontario's family courts, "grandparent cases are the saddest," says Toronto lawyer Paul Pellman.

He has seen the issue from both sides during 29 years as a family law lawyer: He and his wife took over raising two grandkids from a daughter who struggled with addictions and mental health issues.

"These are people who have really given their utmost to love and support their family. They are usually very involved people who just want to stay involved."

The disputes can stem from years of bad family dynamics, bitterness over their child's marriage partner, or legitimate concern that the grandparents are unstable, too intrusive or defying the parents' wishes for their own children. In some cases, parents hope to wipe the slate clean and create a new future for their kids by cutting out reminders of the past, Pellman says.

Bancroft grandmother Joanne Hannah, 68, hasn't seen her three grandsons in seven years, since her son and daughter-in-law died under suspicious circumstances. Her son, a respected professional, committed suicide after coming under police investigation in the death of his wife.

Hannah was a big part of the children's lives before the tragedy ripped both families apart. But as the months went on, she says, she was gradually cut out of their lives and so turned to a lawyer for help.

"We spent $30,000 and we got an access order, but it's not worth the paper it's printed on," she says in frustration. The 2003 court order called for monthly four-hour visits and extra time for holidays and birthdays. The guardians obliged for a while, until visits became increasingly strained and then stopped, Hannah says.

The couple refused to discuss their defiance of the court order when contacted by the Star.

"I have pictures and memories of the children which I look at on a regular basis," says Hannah, 68. "I have a book that I write notes to them in. But I just can't afford to go back to a lawyer."

Pellman urges grandparents to try mediation first, with the intervention of family, friends or religious leaders, because litigation can cost $20,000 to $50,000, and the courts aren't always on Grandma's side.

And he warns grandparents that even if they win access, the most they can expect is "a modest relationship" – a few hours a month, maybe an overnight visit and a week of vacation. "They're not going to get invited to bar mitzvahs or baptisms or confirmations."

Joan Louise Brooks has seen ugly court battles start over far less during her 23 years as president of the grandparents' rights group GRAND Society (Grandparents Requesting Access and Dignity). She and Betty Cornelius, founder of the support group Cangrands, have spent years offering advice and pushing for legislative changes to protect grandparents who feel they have become second-class citizens after the divorce, or more often the death, of their child, especially if the bereaved spouse remarries.

Alberta, Quebec, New Brunswick and B.C. recognize grandparents' rights but don't guarantee them. Two attempts at similar legislation in Ontario have failed. Bill 33, which would amend the Children's Law Reform Act to stress the importance of maintaining relationships with grandparents, passed second reading last year but is expected to die.

In particularly bitter disputes, such as the landmark Chapman v. Chapman and Lusher v. Lusher – both involving domineering grandmothers whose interference in the family was thought to be more hurtful than helpful – courts have sided with the parents.

But in most other cases, courts have taken a "cautious pro-contact approach," looking carefully at the facts of each case and what's in the best interests of the children, says University of Toronto associate law professor Martha Shaffer in her 2004 research paper "To Grandmother's House We Go?"

The area of grandparent access is becoming increasingly challenging for the courts, notes Pellman, as judges struggle with the offspring of certain modern relationships – the children of common-law, same-sex and casual-sex partners.

This year, for instance, Pellman represented a gay man who was the sperm donor for two lesbian friends. He and his partner had weekly access and would often take the child to visit his parents. When the mother eventually tried to cut weekly access, the donor took them to court and won.

"The judge was quite impressed with the grandmother's testimony," Pellman says. "She saw the child as her grandson. Even though her son didn't have intercourse, this was a planned pregnancy and he was a daddy. This is going to become a big issue in the gay community where kids can have, potentially, four sets of grandparents."

While that may concern some, Pellman takes a more hopeful view and sees room in children's lives for a whole bunch of relationships.

"I call it the maximization-of-love philosophy. Why shouldn't children be exposed to the most love possible?"

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/newsfeatures/article/705808--grandparents-go-to-court-for-access-to-grandkids