False allegations lead to father not seeing his child for 3 years
12 April 2019
The worst things any parent could do is to try to prevent the other parent from having a relationship with their children by manufacturing false and malicious allegations against that parent. Unfortunately this can and does happen as was again outlined in a recent case.
The case centered on a UK born father and a mother who was Pakistani. Having married in Pakistan in 2011 parties moved to the UK with their son being born in August 2013.
The family then took a holiday to Pakistan in February 2015. Having returned in April 2015 the mother was expecting what they thought was their second child. Parties attended at hospital in August for the mother’s first scan with it becoming apparent based on the scan and due date that the father was not the biological father of the child -the mother it turns out had had an affair with another man whilst in Pakistan.
Parties remained living together for a short period of time following which the mother, without telling the father (father having had no contact with his son since). Mother, shortly thereafter made allegations of domestic abuse to the police resulting in her being given refuge accommodation. Despite naming the father as the father on the child’s birth certificate a subsequent DNA test confirmed he was not the father.
Father, having had no contact since late 2015, issued his application in February 2016 to which the mother responded making various allegations of honour based violence against the father alleging that she had been forced into the marriage, she had not been let out of the matrimonial home, had been threatened that she would be deported to Pakistan and that she would be killed.
The Court, considered the various allegations at a fact finding hearing where the Judge found that the mother had in fact lied to the police and the Court and was an unsatisfactory witness. Mr Justice Keehan went on:
“In the course of her evidence it became abundantly clear that there was no truth whatsoever in her allegations.”
None of the allegations were found and as the allegation that the father gave her the ‘cold-shoulder’ and that he was not warm towards her that was entirely understandable in the circumstances. Mr Justice Keehan went further in saying:
“In the circumstances that I have described, I am entirely satisfied that the mother made a false case and false allegations against the father. There is no truth whatsoever in any of the allegations that the mother has made. The father does not pose any adverse risk of harm to the mother: still less is she at risk of honour-based violence from him. His approach to her actions has been measured. It follows that, in my judgment, there is absolutely no reason why the father and [D] should not, as soon as ever possible, have the opportunity to resume their relationship. It is, in my judgment, appalling that this little boy and this father have not seen each other for some three and a half years solely because of the malicious conduct, as I find it to be, of the mother.”
Mr Justice Keehan concluded:
“All the allegations made against the father by the mother are dismissed. None of them are true. This mother has wrongly and maliciously sought to exclude the father from Child D’s life. There is no reason why the child and the father should not now have the opportunity to re-establish their warm and loving relationship and that the father has and plays an important and full role in Child D’s life which will be to the inestimable benefit of Child D. It is to be regretted deeply that the mother’s actions have resulted in Child D and the father not having any contact whatsoever for three and a half years”