Call this installment One. The last day in Court was yesterday. Finally! I do not envy the Judge. Although perhaps he thinks he has an easy task on this one.Paul and Zabeth invited me so I was present at the home assessment session in Baynes' home on Tuesday afternoon when two social workers visited. They appeared to be satisfied with the place then and on Wednesday in court the assessment report was discussed. The children have their first six hour visit in the home on Saturday, supervised yet nonetheless, a wonderful opportunity to be a family in a home environment where the two boys will recognize so many familiar items.
I was also in attendance in court on Wednesday at the final episode of Finn Jensen's Summation for the Ministry application. We met in a small court room with nine chairs.
Jensen began at 9:30 and he concluded by 12:30 pm. He concluded with a statement to his honour Judge Crabtree, that the Director, meaning Bruce McNeill was asking for the Judge to rule that the children were still in need of protection and therefore to award a Continuing Care (Custody) Order for all three children.
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| First Afghan War, January 1842, 4500 British and Indian troops against 30,000 Afghans and Ghilzai tribesmen |
This is the kind of case in which the injuries to the child are unexplained. He said that the Baynes' explanation for the injuries was unsatisfactory. He told the Judge that it was the Director's obligation in this kind of case to effectively demonstrate a balance of probabilities. He was fully confident that this had been convincingly conveyed, that is that the balance of probabilities fell to the Director's position that the risk has not been eliminated and that Zabeth's testimony should not be accepted. He asserted that the Baynes have not worked with the Director (eg. The social workers) or participated as parents in the risk assessment. He questioned their ability to sustain themselves financially and suggested that at the time of Baby B's injuries the parents had been stressed by joblessness and were isolating themselves and not accepting help and even suggested they are in a similar position today and that the potential risk remains.
I digress from the court report for the moment to say that some of what Jensen said here is not merely disputable, it is also inaccurate or incomplete. We are speaking about a three year period. During the past several weeks there have been overtures by the Ministry to talk with the Baynes (a little - too late) and the Baynes have declined during these final days before a case conclusion. In declining they knew they were opening themselves to this precise criticism of not working with the Ministry but they listened to their advisors. After three years MCFD is at the end of this long delayed hearing designed permanently to take from the Baynes, THEIR CHILDREN, and now mcfd wants to talk. During the first year and one half there were meetings and while the meeting invitations suggested an agreeable, even promising agenda, the meetings were invariably designed to elicit a confession from them. This persisted until the Baynes' trust in MCFD eroded and hope of cooperation by the Ministry evaporated too. Paul and Zabeth have been employed at menial labour to be sure, but adequately providing for their needs and confident to be able to support their family. They live in a comfortable family rental home with adequate facilities for all their children and large yard outside for the children to play. Please recognize once more that they work evenings doing custodial work, because visitation with children is scheduled for day hours and they have not missed one of those opportunities but even asked for more. If there was normalcy to their home lives, other job opportunities with better income would be considered. That is a reasonable expectation. Further, there are many families who make a go of it on less than a professional's standard of living and have learned how to shop and to live with less. And to infer that joblessness for a term was sufficient to trigger violence against a baby is pure invention. That is a guess-assessment of a man and a woman who are unknown to the guess-assessor who certainly did not know them at all in 2007. They are certainly not in a similar position today. If job stress were sufficient reason to suspect risk, then no one in that court room would be risk-free. Nor were the Baynes isolating themselves back in 2007. That is a lawyer's statement based upon a social worker's report of a collateral witness' opinion. But the couple's own testimony counts as certainly as does such an hypothesis and they said they were disassociating merely from one couple for reasons that were stated in court as interpersonal issues and having nothing whatsoever to do with the nurture and well-being of the Bayne children, or desiring to withdraw from society. It makes a person think that everyone associated with MCFD would be better judges of character if they were employed as border guards. "And what was the purpose of your trip?"
I'll tell you more tomorrow.
Good for the Baynes, and their advisors, for not falling into the trap of talking to MCFD at this late date.
ReplyDeleteAnd how wonderful - even though social workers will be present - how wonderful that the children will be able to come into their own home!
Thank you so much for this blog, Ron, and for everything you have done (and it is obviously a lot) for the Baynes, and hence for all families who are affected by MCFD, or who could be affected by MCFD. People like you make an enormous difference. What a great thing to have done in your life, to help expose such injustice, and help a family in such dire need.
1. I gather transcripts are now being prepared and would be ready by a certain date.
ReplyDelete2. Then Mr. Christie and the Baynes would be travelling to the registrars office in Chilliwack to view these documents and be permitted to take notes but not make photocopies (unless they pay the thousands of dollars required to do so).
3. Mr. Christie would then provide Finn and the Judge with a written-only rebuttal.
4. Lastly, in due course, a judgment would be produced, and that would require an attendance to hear.
5. In the Order, a date would be provided for the actual return of the children.
I would be curious to hear if dates were mentioned to see if it would appear likely a return would happen before Christmas.
Sometimes there is is a quick summary judgement of a couple dozen pages, made so the family won't have to wait until the complete, detailed reasons are produced. This would be nice to see in this case.
These are classical actions and allegations in MCFD's "child protection" world. When parents deny abuse, SW allege that they are not working with MCFD and therefore remain a risk. Working with them usually means admission of guilt as a prerequisite and jumping the hoops set forth as fishing expeditions and humiliation. Be mindful that these hoops are constantly changing if they fail to find fault in one aspect, they shift their concern to something else. There are always more excuses to justify their lengthy oppressive involvement.
ReplyDeleteGiven the deep pocket of taxpayers, MCFD's lawyer will drag on and on and take up 70 to 80% of court time. The longer their sale pitch, the better the chance of getting what they want. If they tell a lie 10 times, it becomes biblical truth. They do a good deception job though. Most people and some judges, who don't know the parents, after hearing seemingly true allegations from a government ministry will more likely to believe them than parents.
Parents are often worse off as they lose their children and job to attend visitations on a regular and endless basis. Of course, MCFD uses this in court against parents, conveniently omitted the fact that they are the real author of this problem.
I envy the Bayne's support from their church and pastor. When I went through similar prosecution a few years ago, my church folks pulled out Romans 13 and lectured me to be submissive to government. They obviously have taken this chapter out of context and do not have a thorough understanding of the Bible.
Lack of understanding of what MCFD's "child protection" really is and the absence of the right solution contributes to the success and the continuation of this oppressive industry.
11:54 AM Anon
ReplyDelete1. the specific transcripts being prepared for the Baynes are the three pages of Finn Jensen's summation and there is hope this is ready within two weeks.
2. The guestimated cost may be several hundred dollars to one thousand and some interested friends are considering pooling some donations to acquire these which makes this review effort so much easier than sitting in a registrar's office. Any other interested donors would be welcomed.
3. Mr. Christie written response will go the the Judge and to Jensen as you say.
4. And 5. I assume you are correct
Given that once the Judge receives the Christie response, he said he would take 8-10 weeks to review all evidence, reports and transcripts, I believe late December is an appropriate guestimate for Judge Crabtree's ruling to be completed.
Dear 12:52 and 12:55 PM, you both spoke to an aspect of transcribing the transcript and one of you asked me to pass your advice on without publishing, so I have chosen to do that with both messages, do it is directed solely to the Baynes. Okay?
ReplyDeleteDon't worry. Rumpelstitskin will be back. He hasn't finished spinning straw into gold yet.
ReplyDelete