Originally posted by Wingnut_0
#3: Hortlund..I was a police officer for 8 years before going into a different line of work. In that 8 years I feel quite safe to say I've dealt with so many custody cases I couldn't even give an accurate guess as to how many. But your long paragraph just goes into length about what I said. Whether the case is civil custody or turns into a criminal investigation, allegations are just that...allegations unless proof exist to back it up. And I have no doubt that the Justice department looked at the "facts" and concluded the allegations were baseless to act upon.
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There was no investigation as to whether Julian was abused by his father performed by any US authority. That is a fact, I thought everyone knew that. The US authorities simply had no way to conduct an investigation of that Cuban dad in Cuba. If they did it when he was in the US the investigation is a joke. Investigations like that take months to complete. There are two possibilities here. Either we misunderstand eachother, or the law in this aspect is very different in the US and in Sweden.
Sweden:
As soon as there is even a suspicion that a child is being abused, the court, the police, social services, hospitals doctors etc are REQUIRED by law to report that suspicion to the social services and/or the police. The social services are then required to fully investigate the accusations. This investigation continues until it is PROVEN that the child is not faring ill/in danger. I meet these social service-"investigators" regularly in my work, and let me assure you that they take their work very seriously, and they dont close an investigation until they are 100% certain that the kid is alright.
US:
If the dad says he's a nice guy, ship the kid to Cuba?
After 2 years of investigations involving crimes against children, I hold what children say as high suspect. Their easily swayed into the parrot syndrome of repeating what someone else tells them to.
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Thats why you never ASK the children what they want. There are other ways to find out what the kid wants/thinks/feels. The most widely accepted method right now (and I believe this to be true all around the world) is where the psychologist asks the kid to draw "friendship circles" or, if the kid is smaller than that, to use dolls who represent various persons in the childs surroundings. I see this every week in the custody cases, and trust me, it works. What happens is that the child is given a set of dolls, "this is mom", "this is you", "this is dad", "this is your best friend" etc etc. Then the psychologist sits and plays with the kid for an hour or two. This is done at every session, approx 1-2 times a week for a number of weeks. After a while, a pattern appears in the way the kid is playing with the various dolls. Dont ask me for the exact psychological explanation for this, after all, Im no psychologist. BUT it becomes very obvious who the kid likes best, who he trusts, who he fears etc etc.
I could show you kids in my local area that when with 1 parent they say they wanna stay there then go tell the other parent the same thing. Where to draw the line? A child is a child until emancipated as an adult by the laws of whatever state/country their in. Older "teens" and their thought have more bearing than a 5 or 10 year old's statement but it still doesn't resolve the fact their a minor and under their parents/guardians control.
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First, Id like to note that you did not answer my question. Howcome?
Second, it is impossible to draw a line saying for ex that kids over 13 are allowed to testify in a custody case. Every child is different. You have to make an individual judgement based on that particular childs maturity level. To understand what maturity level a child has, and to decide whether the child should be allowed to "have its will", you HAVE to have some kind of investigation.
As to your next to last statement..the court ordered the child turned over and the family refused and tried delay tactics....therefore I fail to see where that statement has actual bearing upon that particular action.
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...you were a police officer for 8 years??
Last time I checked, delay tactics were still legal. You dont send in swat teams in a custody battle just because one side is trying to delay the verdict.
