Child Abuse, Divorce, and Child Custody

ALLEGATIONS OF CHILD ABUSE
Divorce & Child Custody (part 2)

By: Marvin Chapman
www.dedicatedfathers.org

In the California Family Code Section 3027.1 it states the following:

“If a court determines...that an accusation of child abuse or neglect made during a child custody proceeding is false and the person making the accusation knew it to be false at the time the accusation was made, the court may impose reasonable money sanctions, not to exceed all costs incurred by the party accused as a direct result of defending the accusation, and reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in recovering the sanctions, against the person making the accusation.”

In over 26 years in the family court arena, I have never experienced nor have I ever heard of any judge actually determining someone has knowingly made a false allegation of child abuse.

Pretty amazing fact when you consider the following:

Outside of family court: Independent third parties are generally the ones making the allegations.

Outside of family court: Mothers are found responsible for 49% of child abuse cases (with fathers, other relatives and strangers making up the other 51%).

Inside family court: By an overwhelming majority, it is mothers who make allegations against fathers [even though statistically, the mother has a higher probability of committing abuse (49% of all cases as shown above). This fact is totally ignored in family court.

Inside family court: The vast majority of the allegations can not be verified or validated; however, the father is almost always treated as guilty from day one.

Research shows that upon the accusation of child abuse in family court, the presumption of guilt is taken for granted by the majority of attorneys and judges. Therefore from the onset, an accused father is treated as though he were guilty. As indicated in Part 1 of this Allegations of Child Abuse section, in family court (divorce court) child abuse allegations require no proof, no validation, no verification, no police reports, nor any other tangible evidence - the mere unsubstantiated allegation will do.

Research also shows mothers often obtain sole custody of the children, terminate or severely restrict visitation with the father, then request an increase in child support due to the reduced time the father has with his children. All of these consequences tearing apart the restructuring family, severely damaging father-child relationships, injuring the father emotionally, and many times destroying the father financially. All of this trauma built around unfounded false allegations. With such devastating consequences you would think family courts would be more pro-active in going after those who make false allegations. Unfortuantely for the families involved, not only do the courts not go after those making false allegations pro-actively, they don’t go after them at all!

The author of this article, Marvin Chapman, has a great website devoted to fathers rights and divorce. Why not check it out?
Visit www.unitedfathers.org

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