One Woman Vs. The Entire Legal System Of A Country

0:04 My name is Grace. I was formally accused of abuse and gross neglect of my child by my ex husband and had to learn how to fight to restore my name. Grace is not her real name. Grace prefers to go by a pseudonym because of the name marrish experience she endured in the legal system, a system where all it took was an accusation for her child to potentially be taken away from her and for her to have to prove her innocence of any wrongdoing. So one Saturday morning, I had a knock at the door, which was pretty unusual at that time of day, and it was literally like your worst nightmare that you see in the movies. A man just asked my name and thrust a gigantic envelope at me and told me I'd been served. My reaction was to be completely stunned, but I knew that I had poked the bear and that my ex husband was coming after me.

1:03 There was a time when Greece's marriage, at least on the surface, seemed idyllic. We hadn't met many many years earlier, some fifteen years earlier, through work the usual early days. When I look back now, there were a lot of red flags that I chose to ignore, and I think, like many people, we tend to blame ourselves and say, this must be because of me, this must have been something I did. I'm expecting too much. But there were definitely red flags that I ignored when things were all about my ex, when life was all about my ex, when he was on top of the pedestal, we got along incredibly well, we were happy, there was harmony, but when I needed to be on top of the pedestal or I needed to be celebrated. And when I started running my own business, there were big changes in the relationship and how balanced it was. I was apologetic for being busy. There were starting to be some accusations of your gone all the time, little accusations of possibly me not being loyal anymore, and I kept ignoring those and thinking, if I just be more open, if I'd be happier, if I greet him at the door differently, if I rush home from work, that I can manage it and maintain it. I never stopped and thought I need a little bit of support. I did, really just ignore the way the relationship was changing. And then with the birth of our child, I very quickly became the mother who needed to do everything, but the child belonged

2:34 to my ex. It was almost like I was a visitor into that relationship. If we went to visit somebody, if were out with family, if we were at an occasion or had friends over, he would have the child on his hip, front and center, all loving daddy, looking for praise, looking for compliments of what a wonderful father. Behind closed doors, I was doing all of the cooking, all of the cleaning, everything to do with the child, pick ups, drop offs, very very little support, and almost shit anger if he needed to miss even half an hour of work to be able to help me with a drop off. When I was incredibly busy with trying to start this new business that i'd started, it felt very much like a front to everybody else, and I would hear comments constantly, he's such a great dad, he's such a nice guy. I was very conflicted on the inside because I was starting to feel more and more like just the housemaid. There were one or two incidents when there was an argument there I would flitch because of a raised arm. I didn't get hit straight across the face or the head, but I noticed my body language, starting to cower, the way I spoke, starting to be very apologetic, and those three incidents started to put fear into me. And then there was sadly a day the way it was posed was I'll never hurt her, but I will hurt you. And that was the day I thought I'm in jeopardy here. I'm actually going to be

4:07 hurt and if he can't hurt me, the way to hurt me most is to hurt the child. So there was this light bulb moment where I thought, I have to actually make sure I saved myself and my child from this situation. It's escalating to a point where nobody would believe me because everyone thought he was such a great guy and such a lovely dad. I had no ally, So I just decided that one day, I literally grabbed an eski, a blow up mattress and the child and fled. It was months in the planning, and a part of that was preparing myself for what I was about to do, and the other part was literally the planning of how am I going to survive because I know I'll have no support, no family, no friends, no money. I made sure I had my passport, any documents that I needed, and I made sure that I was ready the day I decided that I had a clear window that I could literally just pick up those few things, leave a well crafted note and flee and not be caught fleeing, because I wasn't convinced I was going to be safe if I was caught fleeing, So it was quite a planned event. My own family were not aware, because, as I said, there's this bravado on the outside of how loving and how wonderful. And I think when you hear that a lot, as somebody who's quite battered, you've got a conflict inside this. Surely this is still me. Everybody thinks he's amazing. He seems so wonderful. I'll constantly hear

5:38 affirmation from my family, from his family, from all our friends of how wonderful is So you're constantly conflicted on the inside. Is this me? Am I being over dramatic? Am I expecting too much? So I didn't tell anybody. I had an apartment that belonged to the business and it was vacant. It was a one bedroom apartment and it was vacant. And that's how I knew that if I had at least mattress and an eski. Because the child was still bottle feeding. I could survive for a small amount of time until I actually worked out what I was going to do. Grace's left behind communication attempted to de escalate the situation. When I fled, I left a note saying I'm not leaving you. I'm leaving the situation because it's unhealthy and I really want you to go and get some help.

6:24 I'll support you if you choose to go and get some help, but for now, I'm going to remove myself and the child. You'll still see her, I'll still bring her to visit you. You won't lose access or time with the child, but in the interest of us, we need to be in separate places. From that time on, he never questioned where I lived. He never wanted to know. He never asked because I would twice a week do all of the driving and all of the pickups to make sure that the visits happened and that he had quality time with the child. I'd never go in, and I'd never poke the beer. But she was delivered to him, she was picked up all his request, and he never paid a cent in any child support and it seemed to be that for quite a long time. Whilever I did everything that satisfied him, seeing his child and not having to pay any money or lose his house, his furniture, his cars, his business. We could survive that way.

7:16 While this arrangement seemingly worked for Greece's ex husband, it was slowly killing Greece psychologically, but. It took a toll on me that was catastrophic. This went on for it was probably seven seven and a half. During the middle of that, he filed for divorce in Australia, and I obviously happily signed that. But in Australia you can file for divorce and you don't have to finalize the custody arrangements of a child. It went completely under the radar. He never mentioned it, never brought up, because I was doing everything the way he wanted it done. I was a fair way away from my safety, but I was doing hundreds of kilometers of driving every week. But I had a friend who I'd moved toward small town.

7:58 Stayed very very for a long time until I what dad who I could trust and tell my story too. And eventually a friend said to me, you cannot continue you're going to kill yourself. You're exhausted, you can't keep up with the fuel bills, you can't raise this child on actually alone. You're going backwards. You've got to stand up and say you have to do some of the driving, and you have to start helping support this child. I remember clearly saying to her, you have no idea the retaliation. It was a year's conversation, and eventually, one day I plucked up the courage and send a message saying I can no longer do all of the driving. I can do fifty percent, and I am going to start applying for some child support. And that was the day that it all unleashed.

8:40 This shift, this attempt to meet in the middle, appeared to trigger the retaliation. The document the Grease received that Saturday. Morning, as I picked through, there would have been thirty forty fifty pages. As I read through it, the essence of it was that he was filing for full custody to take the child from me on the ground of neglect and gross abuse of a child. As I kept reading through and again you're still that battered person, I kept thinking, what did I do? Did I hit her? Did I what have I done, and as I read through the documentation, which took hours, I don't know how long I was on the floor. The examples that were popped into the documents were leaving the child alone before school for thirty minutes because I was trying to work then to support the child, and a friend would come past and collect her, or letting her walk home after school and have a key to let herself in. If I was ten or fifteen minutes late.

9:34 You might think that this accusation would have to be proven to have any real world impact. That's not the case. In Australia, and under Australian law, anybody can pin a notice of risk on another person and there is no evidence required. Because I kept looking through the documents, where's the evidence, Where is the proof for a judge to look and say, yes, this is abuse or not this is not. So there was an absolutely no evidence other than this was what they were pinning their whole case on. And from there it's probably months until you get in front of the judge. The system moves very very slowly, and of course I had to move even solwer because they did not want me self representing. But months down the track when it was finally in front of a judge, and that is probably one of the most daunting experiences is to walk into a federal court like that and have to address a judge. She literally picked up the document and she said, what are the reasons that you are trying to take this child and take full custody?

10:32 Because she said, I see nothing in these documents. For that moment, for me, I thought I was going to faint. I thought, finally, here's some sense of justice. The terrifying thing after that is I knew that I was not going to get done for abuse or neglect of my own child. But your name is never cleared. There's never any justice again to say you basically lied on federal circuit documents that are signed, tabled them in front of a high court judge, and they got away with that, but it was then dismissed and it's never bought up again. And the justice in me was like, so, who's going to clear my name? How are they going to be reprimanded for this? But that never happens. He had issued documents that said we need court orders that decide when the child is with each parent, so he tried to take her one hundred percent from me. I understand now how family law works. They start at the absolute most and they know they'll have to work their way backwards.

11:25 So we're now in this situation where the judge has dismissed the fact that there's any abuse or neglect, and there's now okay, let's find somewhere in the middle that we can get these parties to agree. And that's where that huge, long, eighteen month battle starts. Then the judge asks what their next intention is, and the next intention became, we want what they call family reporters involved and do a full interview of all the parties involved to get a document to give to the judge to then back up their case that they should still have custody. So they're still fighting all the way along now of custody, but I get visitation so to reverse how it is currently. So they bring in family reporters who basically go through you for hours and hours and hours, and it feels like you're being baited to say the wrong thing, and it feels like they're trying to trip you up constantly.

12:17 What I learned along the way is there are vast amounts of money changing hands. If you want that report to give you a specific outcome. You're locked into a day in time. You have no choice. You just absolutely have to turn up. So I had a two hour drive to turn up for this meeting. For three hours, I was not allowed to tell the child that she was going to be interviewed on her own. I was warned heavily not to put words in the child's mouth. So there's this constant battle inside. I would never send my child to speak to a stranger be in a room with a locked door. This is not a scenario I would do as a parent. But also my child would be so confused if I just pushed her through the door. So I tried to prepare her in a way that I told her she had to just have a chat to a man to find out the best way for her to live a happy life. Not to be concerned or worried. I'd be outside waiting for us.

13:06 So I did prepare her. But my interview with the reporter, when I left the room, I felt quite comfortable. He was quite empathetic. He recognized that I had been framed for something I didn't do. He said he didn't see me as a kind of a helicopter parent. He basically gave me a fairly great review. He told me afterwards he'd interviewed the child that he saw no concerns. He felt strongly that the child had a very mature voice for somebody so young, and he would take that into consideration. And then I get this seventeen page report into my email box because I was self representing, so I didn't have to go through a lawyer. Read it from front to back. I get to about page fifteen or sixteen, and I'm feeling incredibly confident and that, you know, I've trusted this man with my truth.

13:54 But now for the first time, Greece's idealistic hope in the system would be proven wrong. Almost the very last paragraph which then completely flipped and he said, however, I believe that in the best interest of the child, she must spend more time with the father and be at the father's house more. And it was a paragraph that did not fit with the report. It was mind blowing. He was paid a sizeable amount of money by husband. It was held over me in the court that if this reporter found anything against me, that I would then have to pay the invoice. They were going to pick it up in the beginning, but they were hoping that he would catch something in me that would mean then I had to pay for this report.

14:36 So along the way, while all of this is happening, Sain this is over months, there are interimortars. Those inter remortars were set down by the judge to say, until we actually have a final ruling, the child still visits the father, and she actually was starting to see through the cracks. The child must be allowed to go to sport on a Saturday. My ex was forced to have to pick her up from the car park so she could attend her sport. So those interim visits were happening hit and miss. There were times where he didn't turn up. But if I had an issuer, if the child refused to get into his car, I had almost a restraining order hit against me. I was not abiding by the conditions set down by the judge and I was slapped very hard when the report came in. You're all brought back in front of the judge again. Because you see the judge every few months, it's very difficult to get back to the judge in between any of these events.

15:30 And I remember the look on her face. She held up the rapport and she looked at the barrister and the lawyer for my exercide and said, there is absolutely nothing in here that I have to adopt. And she looked at me and she said, I do not have to do what this reporter has told me to do. And she just stared at me, and it was almost like an affirmation I see through this. I know what's happened, because it was the most insane tune in this document. I was following the interim orders by my judge to the absolute letter. There were times when it was incredibly stressful because my ex would meet me for the child for the weekend, drop her with a friend, and either be away for the weekend visiting a friend, playing golf, leaving her with babysitters, and she would come home visibly distressed.

16:20 And that was always a concern for me, because while I didn't want to look like I was trying to coerce the child, she needed a voice in all of this, and because she was young, the courts would not consider her to have a voice that held that much weight. But if I bought up, I'm dropping the child off. I'm doing everything that's required of me, but she's not spending time with my ex she's spending time with a babysitter. I was then considered a trouble maker, and I was told many times by his lawyers, you don't get to decide what he does on his weekends. They're his weekends, not yours. So my argument was always these are supposed to be the child's weekends. This is meant to be time with the child. If he doesn't want the time with the child, why is he fighting so hard to take the child off me.

17:02 It quickly became apparent that Grace's real foe in all of this, the single person she would do battle with the most was her ex husband's lawyer. Dear Registrar Assistant, I am the solicitor representing the father in this case. I'm writing to confirm this hearing does not need to take place. It can be postponed, and, if the mother continues to comply, may not be necessary at all. The father is spending good quality time with the child. Registrar, I am questioning mister solicitor's definition of good quality time. The most recent weekend that the child went to her father's she was given to a babysitter, not for a few hours but for the whole weekend the child slept at someone else's house. My request is that the hearing goes ahead as planned.

17:51 Warning warning, do not ignore. You will be in breach of a judge's order if you don't confirm your attendance at the agreed appointment with a forensic psychologist. Confirm your attendance. I caution you not to be slow in response to this email, or you will be subject to legal response. Mister barrister, I have already confirmed my attendance. You are eight hours lated, much like you were to Court Room three B on Monday. I look forward to seeing you again in front of Her Honor when the report is completed. I hope you can join us this time. I needed this to go smoothly. The court case was dragging out now past twelve months. She was getting older and stronger and growing quite tall, quite mature. She was thriving at school, but every second weekend and she would completely break down and say, please don't make me go.

18:41 I don't want to go. I don't like it when he yells. I don't like it when he tells me I've let him down, that I'm taking your side. So not only did I want to protect her from that, but I also there was a part of me that wanted her to just go happily so that we could get through the case, because every time she was miserable and I had to push her out the door anyway. I was so conflicted in trying to protect her but also wishing she could just happily go so that I could start to see light at the end of the tunnel. As at wore on, I was starting to be getting almost to a state of depression. I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping. It felt like there would never be an end to the argument. It hangs over your head like a weight when you've got a court case. It's every thought.

19:26 But I became more and more familiar with the law and what I was teaching myself and how I was watching it all unfold, and I started to realize that every time I received communication, and there are so many documents I have filing cabinets full of documents, I would receive it, read it, and then act on it. Because I was representing myself. When I would send an email to the other side, which always by law, must go through their representation, the lawyer would have to read it, essentially, download it, go through it, draft a reply, make sure the father had it. And I start to realize that this was starting to run up a significant bill. I had paid four hundred and fifty dollars and that was it.

20:07 It cost me no further than my four hundred fifty dollars. I started to, I guess, use the system to play against itself. I was starting to send multiple emails on a day. I'd forget to attach a document, sometimes on purpose, so that there would have to be a response. I just started seeing this pattern of, well, this is actually how you can financially drive somebody to get a decision you want, because that is that's how you are used in court in family law, the lawyer's bill, by the kind of the fifteen minute increment. So I cottoned on, and it may maybe took me a little bit longer than it should have, but that was actually going to be a weapon in my arsenal that I could start to financially bleed the other side dry and frustrate the other side in some ways. I started to get a little bit stronger because it seemed to buy me a little bit of power. And there were times when I send an email, and I'd sit in my chair and think I'm absolute going to regret that. But it was a way of striking back and saying, look, I'm here to fight. I'm not going away.

21:08 Urgent, I have inadvertently instructed my client to an alternative location. My client was not given a copy of the judge's order. This is my error, a simple mistake. Please respond to my prior three emails and two text messages that you have not responded to as soon as possible. Urgent, you will be held in contravention and put in front of the judge if you do not immediately hand over the child. I have advised my client to travel to your home to collect the child. Mister barrister, I have but one simple request, which is for your client to bring his child and apologize for what has happened. As a mother, I need some shred of proof of remorse of how much pain has been inflicted on this child. Awaiting your urgent reply.

21:56 Because they couldn't financially destroy me, all they could do was keep China attack me, But I learned to attack back. Your client has made no attempt to contact the child, not even to ask how she is. He is the one who has breached judge's orders. He is the one who came to my property screaming important, do not ignore. I am responsible for my client breaching the intervention order by advising him to physically attend your residence to pick up the child. Miss Aura, do not ignore my next call. I will bring the full weight of the law on you if you continue with the games. Your comments with the governing body about my client are defamatory urgent. The changeovers must continue at the present location.

22:40 Your client fails to show up at the present location. The child must be delivered and you must ensure the child enters her father's vehicle. So there was a significant appearance in court where the judge had said, Okay, we're not going to agree. Neither party is giving up on this. We can't meet in the middle, so I will have to post a date for a full court trial. So up until this point it's all interim meetings the entire way, but it's heading towards a full trial. She laid out the expectation that it would be in potentially eighteen months because the courts are so backlogged, and that by then the child would be of an age where she would be allowed to have some kind of a voice, and you felt the room from both sides. The weight of another eighteen months was really oppressive. The room became quite heavy. She made it quite obvious that this was not what she wanted, but she could see no way around it, so she was going to set a trial. When we left that meeting, I was very concerned about my health. I wasn't sure that I was going to last. I sent an email to the other side, and I cannot remember the contents of it, but it must have been a thought provoking email because I got back in response two days later.

23:56 Either give up custody and sign this document. And they sent me an aggressive document that said I only got visitation once a week, or we will be meeting you at trial. We will see this through. And I sat with that for forty eight hours, and what kept coming back to me is I am the child's voice right now. If I give up, I tell her that I am not prepared to fight for her. If I give up now, I completely let down myself, my child, and my family who are now around me and also suffering. I decided that day I have to take this fight on. I have to keep going no matter what, I have to find a way. And it was that night I went to bed and something made me get up, and there was an email in my inbox that was from the other side saying.

24:40 In the interest of resolving your matter on a final basis and reducing the cost of further litigation, my acclaim proposes final parenting orders in terms of the attached document, Please indicate whether you agree to such an arrangement. We've decided to discontinue. We're sending over orders effective immediately. If you sign them to say that the father has no custody, you have soul custody, and if the child ever wants to visit, then you need to just communicate with him and let her visit. But otherwise the father is completely walking away. The child shall spend time with the father as per the child's wishes.

25:21 I don't know if that was luck, It wasn't front of mind, but it must have been their very last kind of attempt to put their authority over me, their powerfulness over me. And a zero response I think looks like a sign that she's not even entertaining our email or our threats. And something I noticed because I work in the corporate world. You would never use capital letters to type an email or a letter to anyone because it's seen as very aggressive and very almost angry and yelling. But the amount of times I received aggressive communication, one sentence was all in capitals with exclamation. It was this constantly trying to exert their powerfulness over me and get me to trigger. And I think, if you can read it, park it, walk away, sleep on it. My dad always said to me, never respond to nating your stop and think and respond when you're in a calm place, and that probably saved me many times on my journey. Formerly.

26:22 It's an absolute anti climax. They had seen a document saying these are the final orders. Basically, she's yours. She or your custody. If she wants to see the father, great, but otherwise we're walking away. I sign it, I haven't ratified. It's lodged in the court. The judge then must read it and have a look at those final orders because she has the final say. But I think that process was done in approximately three to four days. It was a very very quick stamp, and you get a court order effectively saying you have full custody of your child. You would think that kind of and people called it a victory. You personally elated. I was quite devastated. It took me a long time to accept that I had been accused of abuse and neglect enough that somebody had to consider whether my child should be taken off me, and the end of the journey is, well, actually none of that was true. We haven't got any more money to fight, and we don't want to keep fighting you, so we'll just give up completely and we don't want to see the child at all. That was devastating for my child, but for me because I wanted her to have her father. My case had never been she didn't have a father or she couldn't see him. My argument was give her a voice, and let it be a fair voice. Where she's in the middle, she's not being used as a pawn. But for the father to just say, I don't care if I ever see her again took a long time for me to accept the child was comfortable because all the arguing and the stress had disappeared.

27:52 It was then four years before they were ever reunited. Not a birthday present, not a Christmas present, call to check on the welfare. Grace eventually got what she hoped for her child had a voice and used it. It had been explained we must keep an app between us with communication about the child and that must be updated. So for four years I kept this app between the two of us with photographs, awards she'd won, sports, appearances, captain of the school. I kept documentation and photos and updates going for four years. Not once did he ever log in and have a look at that. And that was painful for me because I saw this little person growing up who was incredible, and a father who wanted nothing to do with her unless it was all on his terms. She was an early to mid teens by then.

28:42 I guess she came to me one day and she said, I think I'm going to reach out to dad. I said, okay, and she said, is that going to upset you? And I said, that's absolutely not going to be upset me. The whole point of everything we went through was to give you a voice. So if your voice is now I want to reach out and I want to meet you and have a coffee with you, then I will support you. She thought about that for a long time, sent a message he agreed. They met at a middle point. They're now in touch it's all on her terms and she kind of handles that almost like an adult relationship now. But she said she wanted to know who he was and she wanted him to know about her. But she said, Mum, it's never been brought up. He's never acknowledged it. He's never acknowledged the pain he put me through, and he's never even thanked me for reaching out and building the bridge.

29:29 So whilst they're in touch, there's still pain there for her in that she knows how unjust it was. As for Grace, she took what she had learned and began to help others. After I wrote the book, many people reached out to me. And whilst I've helped many women, I've also helped men. And I've maintained that from the very beginning that a dispute like this is never about women against me, not in my eyes, and it was never you know, women are the victims and men are the perpetrators. It's literally creates an environment whereas the weakest versus the strongest, the powerful versus the powerless. And I met some incredible men that I helped and were really hard done by. But the strong feelings inside me was that this has to be decommissioned. This family court is not an environment that you can teach somebody to go in and fight in.

30:25 It's almost impossible. It was nearly the end of me, and I believe I am reasonably high functioning, But anybody who didn't have my tenacity, it would simply destroy somebody with it English is a second language, or you know, any kind of a difficulty, it would be impossible to self represent. So while people said teach me how to self represent, many said to me, could you actually just do it for me? And of course I couldn't because I was exhausted, but I also not a qualified lawyer. But they were like, we can't do it. It's too hard, it's too scary. All I could do was support them emotionally. But many times they said, we don't think we can do it, and I'd say, well, then it's not the right course for you. Don't self represent if you're not in this for the long haul and to fight like crazy for your child. So the book was to help people self represent and save money, but by the end of it, I was like, I don't want people to even have to fight out a children in court. It should not be a place where you dispute children. The laws have not changed. We're still following a legislation from nineteen seventy five. The book it's called Without Counsel, and it was meant for my journey as a journal to get me through and to keep me composed and keep me on track, and eventually became a self help guide because while I was looking for anything at all to help me get through this process, there was absolutely nothing.

31:48 So what went from more of a journal and a diary to I'll actually create the steps of how I'm going and how I'm succeeding and where I've made mistakes to the endpoint where there's actually a lift out. These are all the steps that you follow on. These are where the documents are, and these are the links. It was something that I did to help me start to heal. Then it was something that became how do I help others? And by the very end of it, it was a document or a book that I hope has an impact, and we completely changed the way custody of children is decided. Allegedly is a production of Voyage Media. The series is produced by Natmandel and Dan Benemore. This episode was executive produced by Grace Aura, based on her novel Without Counsel, available on Amazon. A link is in the show notes, starring Laura Balomo as Grace and Jonathan Ringere as Lawyer.

32:50 Edited sound designed and mixed by James Scully, original music by Derlus Gonzalez. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us a five star and Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you're listening, and subscribe now for future episodes