Boy Loses Father

February 19, 2007 permalink

Chris McCallum's six-year-old son Steven lives with his step-family in Sudbury, subject to regular visits with his dad. Chris has noticed a pattern of injuries to Steven which he believes to be the result of abuse by the step-family.

This has developed as one of the most common kinds of CAS case, a string of complaints by one separated parent against the other. It makes no difference to CAS whether the complaints are justified. In this case a part of the boy's scalp was torn off last year by a Rottweiler. The usual CAS action is total removal of the child from the complaining parent, ending the source of complaints. The McCallum case has now reached that point. On Friday the police prevented dad from visiting his son. You can read an account of the separation in the words of the father (td) on Sarnia's Smoking Gun.

The current moral panic regarding child abuse leaves the police and child protectors obligated to investigate every complaint. When the complaints become burdensome, they separate parent and child to cut their workload. If there was less of a moral panic, or more police discretion in treating complaints, it would not be necessary in these cases to harm a child by separating him permanently from one parent.

For parents not yet involved, we renew our suggestion never to call CAS to get the upper hand in a squabble with the other parent.

Addendum: Some of the complaints can be viewed on Chris McCallum's website.