Dad jailed, son missing after dispute over custody

THE father of a 12-year-old boy has been jailed after last month telling a federal magistrate in South Australia his son did not want to live with his mother and he would not force him to return.

The father, 40, an optometrist of Christies Beach in South Australia, told the court his son -- who has been missing since his father brought him to the February 10 court hearing -- had been staying with him since December 25, as part of the normal Christmas custody arrangement.

He said his son had told him several times last year he did not want to live with his mother, so he had enrolled him in a local school.

He took his son with him to court on February 10, telling the judge the boy was willing to explain why he didn't want to move back to his mother's house.

The judge was fiercely critical of the father, saying the boy should not be brought into court to give evidence, and had to be handed over to his mother at Adelaide police station at 3pm that day. The man did not show up to hand over the boy, who has not been seen since.

The court brought the matter to the public's attention on March 10, when it lifted the normal ban on publicising the matter.

Newspaper articles in Adelaide's The Sunday Mail and in Victoria's Herald-Sun newspaper said the boy had been abducted by his father. Family Court Deputy Chief Justice John Faulks was quoted as saying the court was "very concerned".

"The court understands that people are sometimes upset with the court process, however the solution is not to run away with the children but rather to use the courts to work through the issue,"Justice Faulks said.

The father saw the coverage and believed it was an invitation to deal with the matter through legal channels.

He appeared in court again last Friday, and when he again refused to hand over his son, he was sent to the Adelaide Remand Centre, where he remained last night. The boy's whereabouts are unnown.

The judge said the father had acted in an "entirely inappropriate and reprehensible way" by removing the boy without telling the mother, with whom he has lived since he was a year old. He said the father had been "plotting" to move the boy for months.

"Given the way the father has behaved, I place utterly no weight at all upon the father's own assessment of the child's wishes," the judge said.

The mother's counsel argued that the boy "must be in a confused state, having left his home, being forced to live with his father in Adelaide, not attending his school".

Critical:

This is another social news that is quite weird for me. It is about a father who brought his son away from his mother with the reason that his son refuse to stay with his mother. However the father failed to hand over his son after the Family Court Deputy give an order to him. Hence the father was brought to jail for the abduction criminal charges. This new indirectly show us that child sometimes become the victim of the broken relationship between an couple. Therefore supervision should be carried out to investigate the real truth behind this mad cases. May be the child is not longer safe or the father may be cooperate with other to get money from the family members. These are just some of the possibilities. Perhaps my guessing is wrong and the child is safe....