Saved from CAS and Cops

September 12, 2008 permalink

Here is a rare story of a CAS victim who had competent legal representation.

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Chalk one up for the good guys!!!

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:51 pm

So, my obstructing a peace officer trial was yesterday. The cop that brutally assaulted me got his ass handed to him soundly by the judge, the city police force was severely reprimanded for an extreme waste of taxpayers' money by having the SWAT team at the apprehension with absolutely no justification, and the charges were completely withdrawn and the judge stated that if he were the judge in the family case our grandson would be returned to us and the CAS would be facing criminal charges! He also stated he was going to be filing a report with the local CAS director and also with the family court.

My new lawyer informed me that the crown was calling the CAS worker to the stand (who I knew was going to lie through her teeth and portray me as some kind of scary monster). This troubled me. Until I watched my lawyer in action while questioning her. It was like watching a very elegant and graceful ballet in which a nuclear bomb dropped and exploded in the end. My lawyer danced around her with ease, causing her to change her stories several times on the stand, and making her look like some incompetent clown. She stated I was very aggressive with her and all the other CAS workers who were involved with us. My lawyer asked her if workers are to report such activity in their files. She stated that yes they were, it was CAS policy and the law to do so. He then asked her besides herself which other workers I was aggressive and violent with and she gave him three other names. My lawyer then produced ALL CAS files relating to our family right back to our very first involvement with them, including the files of the three other workers she said I was aggressive and violent with and her own files. He then asked her to go through the files and point out in each one the notes about me being aggressive and violent. She just stared at him for a few moments and then slowly opened the files and glanced through them. My lawyer casually leaned on the railing to the prisoner dock waiting for her to reveal the damning evidence.... After several minutes she closed the final file and just sat there looking down at her feet. My lawyer strolled up to her and said "Well?" She said nothing. My lawyer asked her if there was something wrong and again she sat silent. My lawyer asked "Is there something you wish to tell the court?" She looked up and quietly said "No." My lawyer said "No? You just sat here and gave this court testimony on many incidents of my client being aggressive and violent with you and three other CAS workers and you have nothing to tell this court after looking through those files searching for the reports to support your accusations?" Again she said no. My lawyer said "You just told this court that it is CAS policy and the law that such incidents are to be reported in the files yet not a single incident of my client being aggressive or violent is in all of these files?" She sat silent. My lawyer then asked "On what basis did you obtain the apprehension warrant?" She said on the basis that the child was in need of protection. My lawyer asked "In need of protection from what?" She said of me and my aggressive and violent behavior. My lawyer asked "What aggressive and violent behavior? There is absolutely no report whatsoever in any of these CAS files that indicates any aggressive or violent behavior on the part of my client or anyone else." Again my lawyer asked on what basis the worker requested the warrant. She said she felt the child was in danger in our home. My lawyer asked in danger from what or whom? She said me. My lawyer asked if she had ever seen me with the child and she said yes. He asked what my behavior was like with the child. She sat silent for a moment. The judge told her to answer the question. She said I was very caring and loving and the child seemed very attached to me. My lawyer asked "And you felt that this man being caring and loving to the child and the child being attached to him somehow endangered the child?" She sat silent. He then asked if she performed an investigation and she said yes. He asked who was involved in the investigation and who was interviewed and what the results were. She stated she spoke to the child's mother and her family. He asked when she did this and she replied five months after she apprehended the child. He asked what the results of the investigation were and she said that the mother and her family all stated I was very close to the child and that the child was more like a son to me than a grandson and that I was very good with him and that the child and I were very much bonded to each other. My lawyer said "And what did the investigation prior to the apprehension reveal?" She sat silent. He asked again and she quietly said "There was no investigation prior to the apprehension." My lawyer said "So, you requested an apprehension warrant without an investigation, and without any evidence at all of the child being in need of protection. Yet you performed an investigation five months after the apprehension and discovered there was no need for an apprehension. Is that correct?" She sat silent. My lawyer sat down and told the judge he had no more questions. The crown then called the officer who assaulted me and two other officers who were there at the scene. The assaulting officer describe a scene in which he knocked on the door and when my son answered it he showed us the warrant and then I aggressively jumped from our couch and ran down the hall and got in his face screaming obscenities and telling him to get the fuck out of my house and then tried to shove him, at which time he took me down and handcuffed me and arrested me. The other two officers told totally different stories in which our son opened the front door (no knock taking place) and the assaulting officer shoved our son back inside the house and then verbally abused him. They then described how I "slowly raised" from the couch seemingly in pain and limped toward the front door stopping halfway down the hallway before the assaulting officer began walking at me aggressively. They stated that the assaulting officer told me he was taking the baby and that I asked to see the warrant and was told it was none of my business. They then stated that I began to limp backwards away from the officer down the hall and I replied that I had a legal right to see a warrant to which the officer stepped forward onto my foot and pressed himself against me and threatened to arrest me if I interfered. They then stated that I leaned back and asked the officer to back away from me at which point the officer brutally shoved me backwards and then lunged at me with great force and slammed me into the patio doors and took me to the ground. They then described how the officer cuffed me and picked me up by the cuffs off of my feet and carried me out of the house and dropped me into a mud puddle and then picked me back up and took me to a police car and placed me inside. They then stated the officer returned to the house and produced the warrant to my wife and said "If the child isn't in my hands in 10 seconds he (pointing to my oldest son, the child's father) gets a dose of his fathers medicine." The child was brought downstairs and given over to the CAS worker and they all left.

My lawyer didn't call a single witness. He rested the case after the crown witnesses were done testifying. He didn't even give a closing argument. When the judge asked for his closing argument he stood and simply said "Your honor, I'll simply let the testimonies today speak for themselves." Based solely on the testimony of the crown witnesses the judge withdrew the charges. He stated that he is personally filing a report with the city police service's internal investigation department with a recommendation that the assaulting officer be severely disciplined and instructed my lawyer to inform me of the process for filing a law suit and also to inform me of the process to file a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. He then gave this long, but very interesting, speech about how police and the CAS are supposed to be agencies that people, especially children, can look to for support and help when in need. He said that what he heard in court that day greatly dismayed him and he fears that our children, who witnessed the entire fiasco, will be forever damaged and traumatized and and that he would not be surprised if they grew up hating and fearing the police and CAS because of what they witnessed and that he found that to be extremely troubling. He stated that he has limited capacity with regard to the family court case but that he would be doing everything in his power to ensure that the CAS aspect of it is fully investigated and that the proper steps are taken to rectify the situation.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off me right now. But prior to the trial. I was very pessimistic, because I knew who the judge was and what he used to do. He used to be a lawyer for CAS!

Source: Canada Court Watch public forum