A legal system that was designed to protect against Mr. Ginyard recently received an $852,000 judgment for his ex-wife’s false allegations of sexual abuse to their daughters.
Throughout the process of repeated false accusations from his ex-wife, the police repeatedly questioned Darryl. Child Welfare Services denied the Darryl access to his daughters every time an allegation was made. Over time and in the course of several allegations, the police investigators questioned Mr. Ginyard in relentless two- or three-hour interrogation sessions.
After one of his ex-wife’s false allegations, Darryl was prohibited from seeing his children for nine months. This was after several other shorter periods of time in which he was denied access to his daughters until after the police and the child welfare worker had determined that the abuse allegations were groundless.
You can imagine the effect the disruption, questioning, and the absence of their father had on Darryl’s daughters. Mr. Ginyard also lost his job when the human resources department for the bank where he worked received an anonymous call regarding the sexual assault charges that were being investigated.
After six years of doing all that he could to defend himself, Darryl was granted full custody of his children with reasonable visitation awarded to his ex-wife.
She isn’t exercising her visitation rights, however, because right now she is serving the first year of a 14-year sentence behind bars for being convicted of filing false reports on her ex-husband.
What A Father Can Do
If a father is accused of abusing his children, he should immediately contact an attorney experienced in family law.
Even though he has done nothing wrong, the laws, and particularly the application of those laws, are not in his favor.
"Time and time again, I have seen orders of protection treat the man like a criminal when there is no basis for the endangerment claims,” Cordell & Cordell CEO Joseph Cordell wrote on HuffingtonPost.com. "These men are law-abiding citizens and great fathers who see their rights challenged or completely vanish in court. Even if the allegations of abuse are found to be false and the protective order is dismissed at the full hearing, these men are still victimized by the stigma that they are abusers."
Columnist and fathers rights activist Jake Morphonios makes the following observation:
“In most court districts throughout the United States, judges run for office as any other politician. If a judge takes, or fails to take, an action that leads to the abuse of a child by an alleged child abuser, his political career may be over. Political expediency is a strong, yet unspoken, factor in emotionally charged cases such as with child sexual abuse.
When a father has been falsely accused of molesting his child, even when no evidence substantiates the claim, he often loses custody of his children because the court decides to ‘play it safe.’ The father may not go to jail, but the temporary order preventing his access to his children is frequently made permanent. By no fault of his own, the father has lost his children, all because a mother chose to fight dirty in court."
When an ex-wife alleges that her ex-husband is abusing their children and files a report with the Department of Children & Family Services – or any other child protection or law enforcement agency – the father should immediately seek legal counsel with fathers rights lawyer, such as the ones at Cordell & Cordell. The attorney will work with the father to develop a strategy to help protect him from unfounded allegations.
Yes, there are laws to protect the victim of a false report, but no, they are not applied when the report alleges that a father has abused his children.
Without an attorney, a dad accused of these charges is unequivocally outnumbered and outplayed by the children’s mother, the law, and the social welfare system.
Related Article: How Your Ex-Wife Can Legally Keep Your Kids From You
Author Julie Garrison has been writing articles and short stories for the past 10 years and has appeared in several magazines and e-zines.
