''he said she said'' and the wishy washy perjury laws in the UK family Courts

[Laurence de Mello]

As a child I was taught not to lie, lying was a serious crime in my parent’s household. Yeah! we have all told the odd ''white lie'' we would not be human if we didn’t, but real lies, the type that can get others into trouble is in my book BAD!

My parent’s rules, although despised at the time, have imprinted themselves on my psyche. Now as an adult and well into the autumn of my life, I make sure those rules stand with my own children. When one of my younger children has done something quite naughty I tell them, '' tell mummy the truth and the penalty is less, lie and you are in real trouble'' this seems to work rather well and I like to think that it makes sense to them that telling the truth gets you more stars. Lying gets you in BIG trouble! I noticed with the younger ones at around age 5 that with this rather basic bargaining method, and after the understanding of it, telling the truth became easier each time a Pow Wow was called..

 

I grew up in a military home and believed also that a handshake over a deal or agreement was a bond of honour! I continued to have this rather romantic view when I started my adult life and this vista through pink lenses continued through university and various career forays, till I finally settled down in television and media still believing that when one shakes hands over a ‘’deal’’ one did everything in ones power to keep the pact intact, unless of course there were outside powers that could not be controlled..

Sadly I noticed as the years passed and I became wiser to the ways of the big wide world, that the handshake was slowly but surely losing its value, until today, where the handshake has just become little more than a superficial gesture, rather like a wave into an anonymous crowd.

After years of commercial television production, I gradually moved into factual programming and then found myself for the past 16 years doing investigative journalism, naively believing that I was fighting the good fight for justice and truth and making a difference. With my work, I found myself in some rather hairy but exciting predicaments, such as going undercover in places like Moscow, disguised as a buyer of uranium and invited to take various long car rides with some very big Russian uranium traffickers, who were packed with some rather impressive heat, seemed to me, to be pretty much the raw thing.

Was I trying to uncover corruption because I'm some angelic life form, No! No way! On the contrary, I swear like a trooper, have a very big mouth and used to smoke menthols like a Turkish soldier, till I had a heart scare last year. . I’m not the nicest of people it seems, as I am often disliked for my outspokenness, opinions and brash approach.  And far from having quaint ideals of how the world should be run, I have to say my sympathies can be found in some of the strangest circles. For example, I found some members of ''La Cosa Nostra'' and the Columbian drug cartels among the most honourable men I have ever met.

 So, after having moved with some of the biggest criminals on the planet, including those in the dark corridors of the Vatican, whilst getting information for my investigations, I came to believe I was pretty ''streetwise''. That was until my son was abducted by an ex husband and I had to deal with the UK family courts!

Now, the difference between labelled criminals and weak and nasty critters that work for the putrid UK family courts, is the code system and one big word comes to mind, Honour. The family courts have none, and I found some Cafcass officers in particular to be among the most nasty, deceitful and twisted criminals I have ever met. The most frustrating thing about these putrid life forms is that, when on the street and one comes across such cockroach's of the human species, someone can take them into a dark alley and give them a fairly good whipping. Sadly, we can’t do that to Cafcass officers, as even so much as a difference of opinion can cost us the most precious things in our lives, our children. So how can we oppose these pustules that have become the omnipotence of the family court? Where even the family court Judge fawns over their unqualified opinions and looks to them for their eminent ‘‘recommendations’’! We can’t oppose them, we can’t fight them and as much as we would like, we certainly can’t make them ''disappear'' down a dark hole full of wet cement! So what can we do?

My measly suggestion is we need to approach the family courts and the law in a different way. We need to make the law work for us and not get sidetracked with the frustrations that these inert gasses cause. Why get another stomach ulcer planning what we are going to say or not going to say at our next Cafcass interrogation, when there is an obscure word in jurisprudence that springs to mind? The secret word is PERJURY.

Now, perjury is a much misused and frequently misunderstood word and for these reasons it is gently but surely brushed under the big dirty rug of the family courts. True perjury in the UK is still today a criminal offence with custodial sentences of up to 7 years. Now let’s examine what perjury is and where is the fine line of crossing from perjury into PERJURY. Many use the term so easily ‘’oh he perjured himself on the stand’’ usually referring to him saying something like ‘’I didn’t get there to pick up the kids on time because my car broke down;’’ when she knows that he was actually with his new girlfriend having a quickie in the garage! This ‘’he said she said’’ is so common in divorce and family cases that now Judges glaze over when they hear the complaint ‘’but your honour he/she perjured him/herself.’’

  Real Perjury to be noticed and acted on has to be well documented and to do this one needs to spend more time on the paperwork and less on the emotional stuff. If we the parents can document everything that happens during the long months of proceedings and keep a paper trail, we have a better chance of dealing with this plague. Cockroach Miss Cafcass will be perjuring herself on a regular basis. We have all had to deal with the frequent twists of the truth where there is not much we can do about it. For example while at a one hour meeting with my son after his abduction, with Cafcass present, he asked that he may come for a trip with me I was planning the following week, the Cafcass officer raised her voice in that tone that says ‘’I know your child so much better than you who has been its loving parent for x amount of years’’ and said ‘’oh I think that’s a little too soon’’ to which my son interjected saying ‘’no its not, I want to go’’. Only an hour later, after Cafcass being asked to give her oral report to the judge stated ‘’the contact went well, only the mother rushed a little and insisted on the trip but **** told his mother it was a little too soon’’. I immediately jumped up and objected and told them this is not what happened as I have it all recorded. Immediately the Cafcass officer said ‘’yes, that’s right it was I and not**** that said it was too soon, yes he wants to go’’ and I got myself a few precious days with my son.

The odd thing here is if I had been recording someone else in that subterfuge manner, the judge would have gone ape-shit, but he completely ignored the incident certainly so as not to highlight the lies of Cafcass that could be read later on the court transcripts, especially as he knew I had it all taped and could compare the Cafcass officers version and the true event! But what if I hadn’t had the guts to jump up and risk the judge screaming at me, it would have been on the record that my son thought it was ‘’too soon’’ and I would not have got the precious days that I and my son wanted so much.

Too many parents are rightly intimidated by Cafcass and the lies that are thrown around the court room, our lawyers tell us ‘’don’t piss off the judge by challenging the Cafcass officer’’’.

 Two years ago I had a conversation with supposed top child advocate Caroline Usher. During a conversation about a Cafcass officer that was clearly incompetent and out of control with his sense of POWER, and his brazen dislike of the fact I challenged him for physically dragging a 13 year old against his wishes back to an abusive father, she told me abruptly, ‘’don’t you dare criticise J. M, he’s one of our best Cafcass officers’’!!!!!!!!! Really? ‘’ one of our best Cafcass officers’’ not only refused to respect the ‘’child wishes’’ when he asked to go home to his mother, those ‘’wishes’’ that he was permitted only months before in The Hague to choose where he wanted to live after his father abducted and brainwashed him, but Mr slimy Cafcass even refused to look at documentary medical and police evidence given to him that the father who he was blatantly supporting had seriously abused another child from another marriage saying ‘’it has nothing to do with this case’’. And he gave his recommendation to the Judge that the child needs ‘’limits’’ the mother is ‘’volatile’’ and for this the child should be returned to the abusive father. Yet a child advocate tells me not to ‘’dare’’ to criticise him! Who the hell are Cafcass?? And who exactly are these child advocates working for?? If they believe no one should dare to challenge Cafcass! But we’ll save that for a future discussion.

 

What we really need to be doing now is bombarding the courts with the facts and make it clear they are facts. Challenge the evidence, comments and reports we know to be lies. The only way to do that is to RECORD EVERYTHING. Invest in a small digital recorder that has a USB socket and tell the Cafcass officers that you are recording the meetings Every time your ex speaks to you on the telephone tell them also, you are recording it. Cross check statements and dates and times and anything that shows that a lie has been told or written in a statement or Cafcass report, highlight it and cut and paste the other version next to it with the citation of when and where it came from and include those brazen contradictions in your response statement.

You would be amazed at how much we miss when we open those piles of eagerly awaited documents. When we are emotional and upset we miss so many crucial details that prove lies and perjury.

If you are dealing with a sociopathic or manipulative ex, go back over all the old statements from day one of all the proceedings and compare them with the new ones. Cross check events and comments and do the same with emails, text messages, phone calls and Cafcass reports. Look at it as a one would look at a murder investigation, examine everything.

Make sure you email comments to Cafcass and keep records of those mails. Follow up phone calls with Cafcass with an email documenting what was discussed and ask for a reply. Use the option for mails where you get a ‘’read receipt’’ so they cannot say they did not get or open the mail and if they have not opened it, you have them again for not being attentive to the case. Keep a paper trail. Keep a timeline of everything. Those of us that use attorneys don’t just sit back and think they will do it all for you, as so many will never attack Cafcass, or even question them. If your lawyer is telling you all the time that if you ‘’don’t like’’ the way they are doing it they can’t represent you, so be it!  tell them to take a hike and get another lawyer that respects your instincts and instructions.

We need to be bombarding the family courts on a daily basis with documentary evidence of perjury. Lawyers tell us that the judges are not interested in perjury, but they cannot ignore it when it’s in black and white and especially if it is malicious, meaning someone lies to get you into trouble or assassinate your character rather than just lying to defend themselves. The more of us that do this the more the courts will get nervous that attention is being brought to the fact that they are in effect breaking the law by letting documented perjury go unpunished.

We need to be demonstrating and going on marches demanding that we want perjury rightly punished in the family courts, rather than the endless time consuming demonstrations of asking for ‘’justice in the family courts’’. We need to make perjury a live issue with all statements, reports and testimony in the family court and ask that it be punished for the criminal act that it is.

We need to be lobbying parliament that our rights are being infringed when documented perjury is being committed and going unpunished. Only when Perjury in the family courts is looked at as a serious offence, just as it is in the criminal courts and those that commit it are severely punished with custodial sentences, will Cafcass and ex partners think twice about lying in the family courts and things will get easier. Only when Perjury is consistently highlighted in the family courts and becomes the nefarious crime that it is, will we yield more power with Cafcass, Judges and vindictive ex’s. Only when truth is rewarded and lies are punished, will we be getting the justice for our children and ourselves that we deserve.

 

 

Wikipedia- Perjury, also known as forswearing, lying under oath or lying on oath, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the case. For example, it is not considered perjury to lie about one's age unless age is a factor in determining the legal result, such as eligibility for old age retirement benefits.

Perjury is considered a serious offense as it can be used to usurp the power of the courts, resulting in miscarriages of justice. In the United Kingdom a potential penalty for perjury is a prison sentence of up to 7 years. However prosecutions for perjury are rare. Statements of interpretation of fact are not perjury because people often make inaccurate statements unwittingly and not deliberately. Individuals may have honest but mistaken beliefs about certain facts, or their recollection may be inaccurate. Like most other crimes in the common law system, to be convicted of perjury one must have had the intention (mens rea) to commit the act, and to have actually committed the act (actus reus). Subornation of perjury, attempting to induce another person to perjure themselves, is itself a crime.