Parental Kidnapping

in Georgia

Father and Mother have 50/50 time share, joint physical and legal custody, week on, week off visitation.

Child is 3 and made allegations to Father that her Grandfather was touching her privates and hurting her. Child also stated that she told the Mother and the Mother just told the Grandfather to stop doing it and that's it. Mother lives in the same house as the Grandfather.

Father called CPS in his state and made a police report, also taking the child to the hospital to get checked out. There were no physical signs of abuse, however, CPS wrote a letter stating that they recommended that the child stay in the care of the Father until the investigation is complete.

With that letter, Father was able to get a temporary protective order against both the child's Mother and Grandfather, allowing him to keep the child an additional week.

Since the Grandfather and Mother live in a different state, the Father was told that this other state had to do the CPS investigation. Father's state strongly recommended a forensic interview for the child since they determined the child to be extremely verbal. CPS in the other state decided to give the case to a caseworker who was going to be out of town, so nothing was done except for phone interviews of the Father, Mother, and Grandfather.

Since no forensic interview was done by the time of the TPO court hearing, it was dismissed based on lack of evidence. Child's testimony was not admissible since it was deemed hearsay.

Father still has child, and according to the court order it is his scheduled week for visitation. Child is to be returned to Mother on Sunday. However, Mother is threatening to come take the child from him. Does she have the right to do so? What should Father do to protect his child? Mother promised the judge that she would keep the child away from the Grandfather, yet then after court called to speak to the child and put the Grandfather on the phone. So she is obviously not planning on keeping him away from the child (and there is no court order that says she HAS to keep the child away from him).

Mother does have the ability to enforce First Right of Refusal while Father is working, so Father is staying home from work so she will be unable to do so.

Do you think Father could get an emergency custody hearing?

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Does she have the right to do so?

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No. The court order says it's his week, so it's his week. She'll have to abide by the order.

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Do you think Father could get an emergency custody hearing?

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Depending on the evidence he can present, it's certainly worth his while to retain counsel and try.

We left a voicemail for an attorney telling him the situation and asking him to call us back first thing in the morning. So hopefully we can get something filed tomorrow or the next day.

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Since no forensic interview was done by the time of the TPO court hearing, it was dismissed based on lack of evidence. Child's testimony was not admissible since it was deemed hearsay.

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There must be more to this. The child is a witness, and this is not hearsay. Are you sure you got this part right?

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Quoting divemedic

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There must be more to this. The child is a witness, and this is not hearsay. Are you sure you got this part right?

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It would be hearsay if the child wasn't in court to speak to the judge. Although the CPS worker who spoke to the child should have given testimony.

The CPS worker has not spoken to the child yet - THAT is the issue. He went on vacation for a week instead of setting up a forensic interview.

And yes, it is hearsay because the child wasn't in court to speak to the judge - but at the same time, the child wouldn't have been allowed to speak in court since she is only 3. So the only way to get her testimony into the court is through a forensic interview, which they haven't done yet.

TN CPS has decided they are not going to pursue a forensic interview since the child is not 3 (she will be in less than 2 months).

Does anyone know how to go about doing a private forensic interview?

Our case is kind of complicated because Mother and Father have joint legal and physical custody, 50/50 time share (week on, week off), neither is primary, but they live in two different states (TN and GA).

Child will be 3 in August. A couple weeks ago, child told Father that her great-grandfather was hurting her privates so Father contacted CPS in GA, where he lives. They filed a police report and did all of the initial work - interviewing him and giving the child a physical checkup. There were no physical signs of abuse.

Since the abuse allegedly occurred in TN, the case was referred to them. The caseworker didn't do anything on the case until Thursday of that week (initially reported on Sunday to Ga and on Monday to TN). He is the same caseworker that investigated false sexual child abuse allegations that were made by the Mother towards the Father a year prior.

He called the Father and started the conversation with "Ok, tell me what you want to tell me". He asked few questions and then interviewed the Mother and the Great-Grandfather.

The Father was granted a temporary protective order against the Mother and Great-Grandfather so he could keep the child in GA without violating their custody agreement. On Tuesday the next week he called the TN caseworker and found out that he was on vacation for the entire week.

The following Monday was the hearing and the TPOs were dismissed due to lack of evidence since TN CPS had not yet requested a forensic interview (which GA CPS had already said they would be willing to do so the child would not have to travel back to TN).

Well Father found out today that TN is not going to let a forensic interview happen since the child is not three (she will be in less than 2 months). They have neither seen the child nor talked to her so they have no idea how verbal and intelligent she is (she is very advanced for her age). The CPS doctor in GA that checked out the child told the Father today that she would call the caseworker and tell him that she spoke with the child and feels she is fully capable of doing a forensic interview. She was going to call back if she made any progress with him, but Father hasn't heard from her so he can only assume that the caseworker has still decided against the forensic interview. The child has to return to the Mother on Sunday per the court order.

What are the Father's options? It just doesn't seem right that a person who has NOT talked to the child can make this decision over someone equally qualified who HAS talked to the child and believes she is capable of doing an interview. Father is completely frustrated because TN CPS is going to close their case due to lack of evidence. The Mother LIVES WITH the Great-Grandfather but refuses to believe the allegations since the Father filed contempt against her a week before this happened (over her not paying him half of her tax return for the child like she is court-ordered to do).

This child is in great danger of being abused again and it seems like there is nothing we can do. The caseworker's supervisor has not returned the Father's call and it is supposed to go in front of the District Attorney tomorrow to determine whether or not the state is going to pursue criminal charges against the Great-Grandfather (which of course they won't since the CPS worker there doesn't think anything happened).

Please help!

Technically, most states don't have an absolute age cut off, but 3 isn't considered to be cognitively verbal - meaning the child (even a gifted child) is reactively verbal as opposed to internally verbal. This is likely a big part of the basis for CPS to not be jumping up and down trying to get a forensic interview. At 3 children need to be led as to what to discuss, and leading is the absolute last thing wanted in a forensic interview.

The difficultly you're going to find in your case is two fold:

First, there has been a prior case of allegations of the same nature. That's going to bias this case, even if the previous case was determined to be unfounded. There's simply no way the child wasn't PREVIOUSLY exposed to such ideas - regardless of the nature or type of the sources and yes, even in light of the age of the child.

Second, for a forensic interview of a child of ANY age to have much foothold in court, it needs to be done IMMEDIATELY at any moment that such abuse is suspected - even if that means that someone stops in the middle of a sentence, in the middle of a physical exam, or whatever, and picks up the phone to secure either a private or public (via CPS) interview - the key is IMMEDIATE. Every minute that ticks by is a minute that SOMEONE (police, doctors, CPS workers, and obviously parents) has the opportunity, knowingly or not, of influencing the child (and the child's interview is already going to be clouded by the prior accusation and the fact that the child is LIVING with a party bringing the accusation). The number of times the child has to recount or be questioned should be kept to an absolute minimum - one is preferred - so ideally, police would have stopped right in the middle of your report to secure the interview, same with the doctor, or with anyone ELSE who spoke to the child.

Even if you had 5 forensic interviews conducted today, you need to be aware that realistically, the defense is going to eat any damning testimony that comes as a result, for lunch - and probably ask for seconds - because such an IMPORTANT aspect of such interviews has already been breeched (and there are many OTHER issues associated). So if the entire thing hangs on the results of a forensic interview this late in the game, with NO physical or other circumstantial, testimonial, or other cooberating evidence, the case has little or no wind in it's sails I'm afraid. If you're adamant about pursuing that aspect, then dig out the yellowpages and start calling around - any reputable child psychologist in the area should be able to point you to a practitioner qualified/certified to conduct the interview. CPS interviewers aren't the only game in town, it's just that getting their results and testimony admitted presents less difficulty than using an "outside" source. (And of course, anticipate that if you secure an interview, the defense will say: "well damn, they had a professional right up the street, did they wait so long because they needed time to coach the kid?")

So we have to send her back and watch helplessly as she gets abused for another two months and 'hope' that she brings it up again after she turns 3... what a great system we have.

Thank you for the honesty though.