ONE MORE CAS CASE

One more CAS case

I forgot that somebody on my email list has also been ruthlessly assaulted by the CAS and had their case written up by HSLDA. I'm not going to reveal their name but if any of you want to contact them, let me know and I will forward your contact info to them. They sent me this summary of their experience …TB

---- Tim, in 1999, our family was subjected to an intrusion by the CAS because a girl who was mad at her parents and had moved out of her home was angry with the world and out to get everyone. She wrote an anonymous letter to the CAS, accusing us of having broken windows, no food in the house, feces on the floor, and sick children. Hogwash! The CAS worker came to the home within an hour, and my husband allowed her to see the entire house, look in the fridge and the freezer, and ask any questions she wanted to ask. I, at the time, was in the hospital ..., and my hubby had sent all the children to a friend's house before the CAS worker arrived. He did have the presence of mind to call my eldest (married) daughter, who came immediately as a witness.

The worker said that from what she could see, none of the accusations were true. She then proceeded to ask a lot of questions. When my husband left the room to wait on a customer (our computer business is in our home), she asked our daughter what religion we were, what form of discipline we used, and if she would feel comfortable leaving her baby son with us. My daughter was wise in her answers, yet very angry inside.

When my husband came back into the room, she accused him of "setting her up"! She was angry that none of the children were in the home. He told her that the letter did not mention the children, and she had no need of seeing them. The "problems" were with the home, and she could see that they were non-existent.

This began months of persecution by the CAS. They wanted a supervision order, they wanted access to our children for individual and private interviews, and they wanted to dig up some dirt on our family. She called our doctor, was given a clean bill of health, and still put in her affadavit that she was concerned about the health of our children. She insisted that there was a concern about malnourishment, and it was really funny when she delivered a subpoena to our door and our 6'5", 300 lb son answered the door.

Thankfully, we were members of HSLDA, and my husband is intelligent enough and knowledgeable enough to know how to resist these people. He took the kids to the doctor and got checkups for each one. He contacted many of our friends and acquaintances for affadavits as to our character, our family life, our home, etc. One of the biggest benefits in our case was an affadavit from a friend who has known us since 1972, and happens to be a psychiatric nurse who works in the community, going into homes and assisting mentally ill people in their daily living. Her affadavit had the greatest impact, because the judge respected her qualifications, and said that she would not jeopardize her job to lie for her friends, so her opinion carried a lot of weight.

What we learned in dealing with the CAS: they lie. They constantly manipulate and lie and exaggerate because they believe the end justifies the means. Our children MUST have had something wrong with them, so they were determined to find it out. It didn't matter that the doctor said they were healthy. It didn't matter that the fridge was full. (What she noticed about the fridge was the lettuce and jam bits on the floor of the fridge ... THAT was reported as a concern. Our lawyer said she went home that night and cleaned her fridge!)

The judge said that they have to take every complaint seriously. We had no recourse when everything was said and done, to hold the girl accountable. There was NOTHING we could do.

The CAS never got to interview our children. The judge ruled in our favour, but our family experienced months of stress, financial hardship (HSLDA was wonderful and paid the lawyer's fees, but there were many other expenses involved.), and emotional agony. Our children worried that they were going to be taken away. They had trouble sleeping. Some of them were particularly clingy. And they never had contact with the CAS workers, and we did our best to reassure them that the Lord was in control, and that we were doing whatever we could to fight them righteously. Imagine what those poor children in Aylmer are going through, if our kids were impacted so terribly by the little we experienced in comparison?