I couldn’t help being drawn to this story in the Torygiraffe.
Neighbours of the former partner of Rebecca Minnock, who is on the run with her three-year-old son, have called for her to be given custody of her child.
The group of residents living near Roger Williams claimed he should not be handed Ethan full time.
They said he should stay with his 35-year-old mother, who has not been seen since May 27 when she fled with him amid a bitter custody battle.
A group of seven residents has written an open letter calling for the custody of the child to remain with his mother.
The group has criticised the "unfair" custody battle, which left Miss Minnock with no right to see her son and say she "has been served an unforgivable injustice".
Neighbour and friend Jan Worgan, 76, has known Mr Williams for "at least 15 years" and Miss Minnock since the beginning of their relationship.
She said: "Rebecca is a lovely person and she proved to be a very good mother. She is there trying to look after her boy and she’s being hunted down like an animal."
A close friend of Miss Minnock, who wished to remain anonymous said: "She’s a lovely girl and Ethan was always happy. She’s been let down.
"A mother takes care of their child from the moment they are born. Rebecca did nothing wrong as a mother or partner and the child should stay with her."
Next door neighbour Dorothy Wynne, 76, who has lived in Ramsay Way for more than 25 years, said: "Ethan is a lovely little boy. He used to love playing with my flowers and leaving stones on my doorstep. Becky never left him. She used to take him down the park.
"She was an awfully good mum. She looked after him beautifully."
With it so far? I think you’ll agree that’s a coterie of fine citizens, standing up for a good mother who is being shafted by the system.
But wait… Here comes the important bit.
Miss Minnock fled her home more than two weeks ago after judges ruled Ethan should live with his father.
She took off after it was ruled she was obstructing access to her son after she made "false" allegations about his father.
Miss Minnock said she had lost "all faith in the system" and her family revealed she would lose Ethan forever if she returned.
That puts things in a slightly different light than the first 75% of the article, does it not? In fact, they seem to have left the MOST IMPORTANT FACTS OF THE STORY towards the bottom, after the glowing tributes to this woman.
A woman who has absconded with her child, away from the courts and from the child’s father, having been found out by the court making “false” (read MALICIOUS) allegations about the child’s father, in pursuit of custody of the child.
Miss Minnock cries that she has lost all faith in the system, after she has been found out for LYING to the system, and the system responding accordingly.
Just what kind of spoilt, deluded bitch is this woman?
If we click through to that last link we find that
Miss Minnock said she felt "trapped" after the judge’s ruling.
She said in a telephone interview with the Sun newspaper: "I just lost all trust and faith in the system completely.
"I just couldn’t bear to leave my son. I just felt trapped.
"I know I’m going to be in a huge, huge amount of trouble.
"I’ve even got family members into trouble but it’s my son and I need to put him first over myself or anybody else."
Woah there, Missy.
The child is not just YOUR son… he is also HIS FATHER’S SON.
You know… the father to whom the court awarded custody, after you were deemed unreliable and/or untrustworthy by the court. In response to which, you acted in a deeply unreliable and untrustworthy manner by absconding into hiding with the child, when the proper thing to do would have been to fight the decision through the courts, the same as any responsible father has to do when a custody decision goes against him – something that is 10x more likely to happen to a father than to a mother.
So, Miss Minnock, Just. Fuck. Off.
You know, by the way, that with the slant of this piece, if there were a scintilla of evidence to suggest that the child’s father is not a suitable parent in any way at all, that information would at least have been alluded to in the article. After all, it’s not as if the father is some kind of drug-addled criminal degenerate, looking at him.
So, enjoy prison when you get back, and quite possibly never seeing your son again, on account of your reckless, moronic, spiteful actions. You have brought it on yourself, and the consequences for your son will be unpleasant for him, and it’s ALL YOUR FAULT, Miss Minnock, you spoilt over-entitled kidult.
There are many ways in which this story is a tragedy, but there is one way in which it is not. In front of a different judge, it is quite likely that true injustice would have been served, and this ever so responsible, stable and trustworthy mother would have been awarded full custody, and the father locked out of the child’s life, all except the thousands of pounds that would have been extracted from him.
It’s almost as if justice is prevailing here, against all the odds.
I do have one thing that I can’t figure out though… on what basis have all these neighbours corralled to support this woman and set themselves against this father, who has been their neighbour for 15 years? Just WTF is going on there?
Ho hum.
AJ
UPDATE: Via @ObtuseMusings on Twitter, we have the summary judgements of the court hearings this week on the matter. Worthwhile reading for more background.
Al Jahom's Final Word 
Any time custody goes to the father, you know there’s something very major in the mother’s background.
If she was really ‘putting the child first’ she’d have obeyed the court’s rulings, and not obstructed them. And she wouldn’t use the poor kid as a weapon.
ARE you a mom? I would run to the woods and no-one would separate me from my children. SCIENTISTS have not figured out the supernatural love a mother has for her children. There are some mothers who have something missing in this, but most of us, yeah we would do more than she did to get away with our kids.
Unless details are given about what happened in the case prior to her ‘going on the run’ with her son, we can’t really give an honest opinion.
I’ve seen first hand how the system works and how it can all come down to one persons opinion, CAFCASS take the lead on behalf of the court, they are supposed to be impartial and think only of the childs welfare. But from what i have witnessed impartiality doesn’t come into it because we are only human and we form a ‘relationship’ with the parents, remember the saying ‘first impressions last’. So a charismatic parent meets the CAFCASS person for the first time, what impression are they going to have of them?
Anyhow i’ve seen how a woman flees from an abusive partner on the advice of an organisation protecting abused partners, the system ordered her to accommodate visitation between her daughter and the ex-partner that once told her ‘if you ever leave with MY daughter, I would track you down and break every bone in your body’. No protection was offered even though this person had a criminal record for abusing a partner from his past, she was simply told ‘if you feel as though you’re in danger, contact the police’, that’s pretty difficult while your ex has you in a stranglehold beating the living daylights out of you, don’t you think?
I digress, my point is that i have seen it first hand how the abused person has been treated as the abuser, how she has been ordered to bend over backwards so that her abuser can see his daughter whenever he chooses, her abuser has been very intimidating on handover, he has sent her intimidating emails with his demands for visitation, all of this shown to the CAFCASS person, witnesses and even voice recordings of him, but still he’s the one being treated like the victim.
So if that is how things went with Minnock, i can totally understand why she would abscond with her son.
Until the details of the case prior to the ruling of the courts, no one knows the facts,
i like how you post
“UPDATE: Via @ObtuseMusings on Twitter, we have the summary judgements of the court hearings this week on the matter. Worthwhile reading for more background.
https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/judgments/roger-williams-v-rebecca-minnock-and-ethan-freeman-williams-2-judgments/”
this is what happened after she didn’t appear at court, nothing in there about the case from inception up to that point…………. very kind of the court to give us details about events after but not before!!