CAS IN COURT

Court appearance CAS subdued
From Dave Mielke

 Hi:

We went to the courthouse for our settlement conference this afternoon.  When we arrived, we went to the information desk to find out which courtroom it would be in. After giving her our last name, she asked "verses whom ...  same last name?". What a sad commentary this response was. She effectively told us that most of the cases there are probably related to divorce. I answered, "the children's aid society ... the children's destruction society ... or whatever you want to call it". My wife got a bit scared at this, telling me that I shouldn't say things like that around there.

When we entered the courtroom we noted that there was no judge on the bench. There was, instead, a court clerk supervising the signing of some documents (I don't know what they were). During this part of the process, our lawyer quickly reviewed the CAS's list of supervision conditions which he was given at the very last minute (just as he predicted weeks ago). While looking at one of the conditions related to follow-up for our 2-year-old son, he commented to the children's lawyer "they're the ones who wrecked him". Even though she was sitting right beside him, he said this so loudly that the CAS people couldn't help but overhear it.

After the judge entered, the court clerk told him who was present. When our lawyer was introduced, he forgot, and was reminded, to say "good afternoon, your honour". I don't quite understand this one because neither the children's lawyer nor the CAS lawyer seemed to give the judge any such greeting. I forgot to ask him about it later.

The court clerk then read out the names of the nine children whom the CAS took away from us. The judge, upon hearing this lengthy list of names, had an expression of amazement on his face. We, of course, can't be sure what motivated it. Was it that the CAS had broken up such a large family? Was it that he couldn't imagine a family that large? We just don't know.

The CAS lawyer began by telling the judge that the CAS no longer needed a "settlement conference", and then asked for the scheduling of a "to be spoken to" hearing. This means that the CAS now wants to settle out of court, and to use court time simply to formalize the settlement. Perhaps it's now scared of what our lawyer and/or I might say in a courtroom?  Whatever the case, my wife has now been spared the agony of having to speak. The "to be spoken to" hearing has been scheduled for 9:30am on December 7.

The CAS lawyer told the judge something that I thought I'd never ever hear out of a CAS mouth. Just what was that "unspeakable" declaration? She said, "We now believe that it's in the best interests of the children to be returned home."! When asked if the court delay until December 7 would delay our children's return, the CAS lawyer said "no". The judge echoed this in his final ruling, ordering that the returning of our children begin immediately. I couldn't help smiling and nodding. It's now official, therefore, that our 14- and 12-year-old daughters will be returning home tomorrow morning!

Our social worker, after we'd left the courtroom, told us that the in-take people have officially cleared our 2-year-old son's foster parents of any wrong doing, but that there was still one incident which required an explanation. Apparently, upon his return from the Sunday visit of October 8, his foster mother noticed blood in his diaper and traced it to a 3cm long laceration on his penis. Although we're not sure, this is probably the awful information contained within that CHEO report. Since his foster mother made it look as though it happened during a visit, CHEO probably jumped to the conclusion that we caused it.

Our social worker, right in front of our lawyer, acknowledged that all of the visit supervision reports have given no indication that we would be guilty of causing such an injury. She pressed us, however, to try to remember what might have caused it. Our lawyer told her that, since there's no evidence that we would do such a thing but that there's plenty of evidence that our child has sustained injuries while in his foster home, her time would be best spent looking in that direction. He also told her that it was ridiculous to ask us, on the spot, to accurately remember all of the events which occurred on a specific day a month and a half ago.  He promised to give her an answer in a few days.

As her final attempt to get us to tell her something, she told us that she's assuming that it must have been some kind of accident, and that she no longer suspected that we've ever abused our children. I think that she, after causing our family so much grief, was trying to get us to help her get her organization off the hook. We told her nothing. I'm glad I've been recording our visits, and shall check my report for any relevant data.

While discussing our 2-year-old son's facial bruising, our social worker mentioned that different people have said that our son has said conflicting things regarding what has happened to him. I, having learned a bit about how to deal with the CAS, answered this statement by saying that another possibility was that he may have been referring to several different incidents. She reluctantly admitted that what I said could be true.

I asked our social worker if our 5- and 4-year-old daughters' visit, currently being supervised by the parenting instructor, could become unsupervised so that, as the CAS wants, she could begin coming at an after school time so as to get to know our other children. She said that she has no problem with this request.

Our social worker told us that she believes that, just like last Sunday, next Sunday's visit will only be monitored by one supervisor who will leave at 3pm.

The children's lawyer asked us if she could drop by some time to see our children. We said "yes". She asked us what time would be convenient. We told her that, since they were her clients, we'd let her decide what time was best. She suggested that some time just after school in a couple of weeks would probably be most appropriate. This discussion took place right in front of our social worker, who was well able to observe how willing we were to have the children's lawyer visit our home.

If I had to summarize the attitude of all of the CAS people today, it'd be with adjectives like subdued, humbled, and cautious.

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