Mom heading to Australia with son aquitted of abduction

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This article was published 27/01/2015 (3996 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Westman mom who was arrested while about to board a plane to Australia with her young son has been acquitted of parental abduction.

Justice John Menzies ruled that the woman always intended to return with the boy to Manitoba, and didn’t intend to deprive the father of his ability to regain care and control of his son.

“I’m satisfied that it was always her intention to return,” Menzies said as he delivered the verdict in Brandon Court of Queen’s Bench on Monday.

The Brandon Sun isn’t naming the parties involved in order to protect the identity of the son who was seven years old at the time.

“It’s been a long three years,” the mother remarked after court closed, but declined further comment.

Smiling and wiping a tear from her eye, she hugged friends and her lawyer, Bob Harrison.

The woman stood trial in November, and court heard, with her marriage crumbling, in December 2011 she picked up her son from school and they flew from Minot, N.D., to Los Angeles.

She was arrested at the Los Angeles airport, just as she and her son were about to get on a plane headed for her home country of Australia.

Australia was where she and her Canadian husband had met in the mid-1990s, and where their son was born. In 2008, the family moved to Canada and settled in Westman.

The Crown argued that the mom intended to permanently deprive the father of his son.

The couple was in the process of filing a separation agreement, but no court proceedings had begun so they had joint custody of the boy at the time.

The mother testified that she always intended to return to her Westman community where her job was waiting and her son was enrolled in school.

She said she was trying to get space from her husband by following through on a previously planned trip to Australia with her son. There, she would have family support as she dealt with her broken marriage.

The trip was a snap decision — made after she’d learned that her husband was seeing another woman.

She admitted she didn’t tell her husband, but he’d previously known she wanted to travel to her home country. She intended to call her husband from there.

In his written decision, Menzies noted the couple had agreed the goal was to equally share care of their son if they separated.

Menzies stated there are numerous examples of a parent taking a child somewhere without telling the other.

In the case of parental abduction, Menzies said, it’s crucial to prove one parent intended to take a child to deprive the other parent of physical control or custody.

Menzies cited case law that states a temporary deprivation of a child — one parent’s refusal to co-operate with the return of a child to make the other parent come and get the child, or wait — isn’t enough to prove abduction.

It has to be shown one parent intended to deprive the other of regaining physical control or custody of the child.

In this case, Menzies wasn’t satisfied the Crown had proven that was the mother’s intent.

It doesn’t matter her intended destination was Australia, Menzies wrote.

“I am not satisfied that the destination alone is sufficient to satisfy proof of intent (to deprive). There was a real and significant connection for both parents and (their son) to Australia.”

Following court, the mother confirmed she and her husband remain separated, but equally share access and custody of their boy.

ihitchen@brandonsun.com

Twitter: @IanHitchen