Leyland and Leyland: A Child Runs Away from Home During Family Law Proceedings

In this matter‭, ‬the judge had recently made orders during the interim hearing for the child of interest‭ (‬X‭) ‬was to live with his‭ ‬Father with the rest of his siblings‭. ‬

Prior Knowledge

Prior to this order being made, Child X was living with the Mother while the rest of his 3 siblings were living the Father. Following Child X moving in with the Father, there was three incidents that led to the child running away. During these three incidents, the parties and the child X had different perspectives and allegations as to what occurred during them.

Mother and Father Perspectives

The Father’s perspective was that Child X was constantly in contact with the Mother and her extended family and was doing as they told him to. The Mother’s perspective was that both herself and her extended family were not constantly in contact the child, instead the child was calling them for help. Child X allegedly provided a letter to the Mother with his perspective on certain incidents stating that the Father allegedly threatened him, denigrated him and he grabbed and dragged him out of the shopping centre.

Following the third incident, Child X ran away from the Father’s residence to the Mother’s sister, Ms E place of residence.

The Result

As a result both the Father and the Independent Children Lawyer for the matter sought for recovery order for Child X to be return to the care of the Father, while the Mother sought for Child X to live with her again.  Judge Blake review the applications made the parties and the evidence provided to him and ruled that Child X to be returned to the Father’s care.

The reasoning for his judgment was that the evidence and the police investigation supported the perspective submitted to the Court in relation to the 3 incidents in question. Additionally, there was no evidence to support the Mother’s perspective or the Child’s allegation abuse by the Father. The Judge also considered that the Mother has a history of failing to comply with the orders made by the Court previously.

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