He's Disputing the OCL Report

[Patiently Waiting]

I have finally managed to divorce my ex husband, and now we are going through the custody battle from hell. In a nutshell, we were married 5 years, have a 6 year old son, who I have financially and emotionally supported all 6 years of his life. In the marriage the ex was verbally, emotionally and physically abusive to me, which was witnessed by our son. I left him with our son and since then he has threatened me constantly and is currently trying to break up my new relationship. We were divorced Dec 2008. In October 2008 I needed to have him changed with assault, mischief, uttering death threats and numerous breaches of his undertakings and release conditions. I will be a witness in trial for those charges in August 2009. We are also in the family court, because I got a restraining order against him and after 6 months, a judge gave him supervised access for 4 hours by his family. Needless to say, his family never supervised the access visits, and the ex has been emotionally abusing my son and threatening me through him. It got to a point where the ex's entire family would spend virtually all of the time with my son talking negatively about me and our court case. Obviously this is not acceptable for a 6 year old. I got an immediate motion to take away the ex's access as our son is now talking suicide if he has to be around his father and is depressed. Counsellors have confirmed this. The judge ordered the OCL come in and investigate. The OCL recommended sole custody to me, no access unless he has a complete mental health evaluation, attends anger management and parenting classes. They also recommended an on-going restraining order between myself and him.

The ex is now disputing the OCL report and is refusing to adhere to the recommendations. he has been paying for his lawyer through legal aid, and I of course do not qualify. My question is will legal aid cut him off eventually, and at what point will they cut him off? We have a case conference on April 30th and it looks as though it will be very nasty. If a judge feels that he will not win if he wants to take it to trial, will leagl aid still cover him?

...and lastly what do you think my chances are of having sole custody with no access allowed to my ex?

[2boys]

I went through the same thing, although I was married for a shorter period and I am not divorced yet. I got sole custody and he will have weekly visits at an access center every week for 2 hours. Like you, I was not convinced that he had anyone to supervise his visits who could keep him under control on the outside. He is an alcoholic and his family members are enablers so I requested access center visits. At the centre, there is nothing your husband can do to the kids. Try to file a motion for this. Also, all visits are entirely documented. They actually stand there and write down everything that is being done and said between the child and parent. If anything goes wrong, these documents are forwarded to the courts and then the chances of him ever having unsupervised access will be nil.

[AtALoss]

Like 2boys suggests document everything that you can. Do you have any witnesses to the abusive incidents? If so have them make a statement and you would need to have all of this entered as evidence. This would be done by affidavit. The OCL can be great help but you also have the resources of CAS at your disposal as well. Both agencies are supposed to be there to protect the interests of the child. Are there any reports with you local police? dig tose up too. If you have a lawyer they may be able to make that happen easier.

[dadtotheend]

It's not uncommon for the parent who has been recommended against to dispute the OCL report. This is a reaction that is both knee jerk and strategic. The OCL recommendations are followed 80% of the time by judges. You have to (continue to) be firm and patient and wait for him to digest the report.

Like others above, my ex is an alcoholic/drug addict with attendant mental health issues. This alone of course inhibits him/her from seeing the light. We went down the same OCL road as you.

There are standard amounts of time that legal aid will budget for a case. It's not a bottomless well. I don't know all the details on the legal aid, but the best advice I can give you there is to push push push forward towards trial rather than go through endless conferences and court appearances that are emotionally, financially draining, to say nothing of the effect on your child until things get resolved.

You will prevail. Your son needs some counselling. I'm guessing you have already considered/dealt with that. If you're in the Toronto area PM me and I'll recommend a good one.

[singledad99]

My ex too is suffering from mental illness. She was physically and emotionally abusive towards our son when we were together. After we got separated she got seriously ill and went through chemotherapy. I did not want to cut on access because I didn't know at that time that she want still emotionally exploiting him, using her sickness as an excuse to her behaviour. Finally, when we got OCL report the recommendations were obvious. Her doctor, who previously had told OCL that she needed help, flipped and said she had never said that. She is now all pumped up and is disputing the report. She thinks just because she's been a cancer patient the judges will favour her out of sympathy.

I have been taking my son to counselling and boy, am I glad I did that. So I ditto what dadtotheend said, take your son to counselling. There are lot of free resources available through family services offices everywhere so it won't cost you anything.

If you have medical plan from your work chances are you have access to EAP (employees assistance program). EAP provides all sorts of advice/support free of charge and their services are confidential.

Focus on your son. No matter how difficult it is, try not to speak negative about your ex in front of your son otherwise its going to bite you back. Take care of your health and stay away from anything that makes you lose your focus.

My ex too is on legal aid. I don't know how she gets it because she just got a huge settlement payment from me and she has several thousands of dollars in RSP. Looks like to me her lawyer has a blank cheque from the legal aid from the way she put hours on this case. I don't think legal aid bets on the outcome of the case, they only help anyone who can qualify their required criteria.

[mominont]

I'm tired of the legal aid system too. My ex has mental health issues, refuses to seek treatment, yet can still get that "free" lawyer cause he doesn't work.

He has a legal aid lawyer. We've been to court 3 times, he has now had 3 different lawyers representing him. I wish that legal aid didn't automatically believe every thing that came out of the persons mouth.

I think legal aid should be reviewing court files before proceeding to allow a client anymore legal aid hours.

If my ex keeps it up, my lawyer is requesting a meeting with the legal aid director here in my city.

mominont