Judge won't order more jail time for mom of 10-year-old who refuses weekend visit with dad

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect developments on Friday in which a judge declined to order further jail time for a mother whose child refuses weekend visits with her father. Lawyers for the parents plan to seek other means to resolve the dispute.

A Jefferson County Family Court judge on Monday jailed a mother whose daughter refuses to go on weekend visits with her father, saying she fears her dad and doesn't feel safe with him.

Finding the mother in contempt of court, Judge Denise Brown ordered the mother to spend two days in jail and had threatened to return her to jail Friday if the 10-year-old refused to go to her father's home for a visit this weekend.

"If there’s any interruption to parenting time, you will spend those weekends in Metro Corrections from Friday to Monday," Brown told the sobbing woman as a sheriff's deputy handcuffed her and took her into custody. "I need you to comply with the court's order."

But on Friday, after the child again refused to visit her father, Brown backed off the threat to jail the mother for the weekend, saying she never intended that the child be forced to make such visits, according to the mother's lawyer, Thomas Clay.

Rather, he said, he and a lawyer for the father are discussing ways to resolve the dispute in the best interests of the girl and a teenage sister through means such as counseling or mediation.

The apparent breakthough came Friday just a few hours after Courier Journal posted this story online, noting the dispute had landed the mother in jail for two days.

“There’s been a whole change of atmosphere,” Clay said.

Courier Journal, which viewed a video of Monday's court hearing, is not identifying the mother or father to protect the identity of the girl and the older sister, who is not subject to the visitation order but also claims to be afraid of their dad.

The decision to jail the mother over the girl's refusal was questioned by two local child abuse experts.

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Pam Darnall, president of Family & Children's Place, a treatment center in Louisville, said in an interview she didn't know details about this case but in general, jailing the parent sends the wrong message to the child involved.

"Can you imagine being responsible for that as a 10-year-old?" Darnall said. "That's traumatizing in and of itself, feeling like you're responsible for a parent going to jail."

Dr. Melissa Currie, a pediatric forensic physician called as a witness by the mother's lawyer, also questioned the move in testimony she provided in the case, saying it forces the child to comply or risk putting her mom in jail.

"That puts a child in an unfathomable position," Currie said. "I can't imagine putting that on a child on any age."

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Both girls complained that the judge doesn't listen to them and does not appear to believe their concerns about their father, court records show.

Brown, in an order in December, said she found the children "unreliable" and said an independent custody evaluation indicated that the mom "coached" or attempted to influence their testimony.

The 10-year-old has cited past instances of her father's anger, yelling, and one occasion on a 2016 visit when he slammed her hand in a car door during a visit, injuring it, according to court records. The father has said it was an accident; the girl and her sister have said he was angry, the records show.

The older girl alleged that on one visit, her dad shoved her off a bed and held a pillow over her face at his house after he became angry at her. She currently is not required to visit her father following health problems related to anxiety that put her in the hospital for five days in 2016, according to court records.

But Brown has ordered the younger girl to have weekend visits with the father.

A staff member for the judge said Brown was not able to comment on a pending case.

Brown's decision to jail the mother outraged Clay, who says that the mother had complied with the visitation order by ensuring the girl was taken to the St. Matthews police station, a neutral site where the father was supposed to pick up the girl for the weekend visits.

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But on the last four of those occasions, the 10-year-old refused to leave the police station with her father, according to testimony at the hearing. Police declined to intervene, saying it was a civil dispute that didn't involve them.

The father testified at the hearing Monday that he spent about five hours at the police station on one occasion unsuccessfully trying to convince the girl to come home with him for a visit.

The mother testified that the girl is terrified of such visits and becomes physically ill, suffering from vomiting and diarrhea so severe she is unable to attend school on days she is supposed to go to her father's house.

Currie testified that her review of records in the case indicated there appeared to be some basis for the girls' fear.

However, Brown didn't hear Currie's testimony because she refused to allow it, after the father's lawyer objected, saying Currie had never met or examined the girls. Brown left the courtroom while Currie testified on avowal, meaning her testimony is included in the record for a possible appeal but not considered by the judge.

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Currie said she had reviewed a transcript of a 2017 telephone conversation the father had with the two girls in which he appears to acknowledge problems with his behavior, including being unable to control anger. In the conversation, he was attempting to persuade both girls to come for a court-ordered visit and both girls repeatedly refused, saying they were afraid of him.

The older sister recorded the conversation, and a transcript was filed in the court record.

"It certainly provided evidence to me that there was some basis for their assertions that they didn't feel safe with him," Currie said.

Currie said it would be better to permit only supervised visits to be evaluated by a mental health professional as the family works toward establishing unsupervised visits.

"That's just standard best practice in cases like this, having supervised visits by an objective third party," she said.

Brown's decision to jail the mother Monday came amid a long-running, highly contentious divorce and custody case that involves allegations of domestic violence and abuse against the father, according to court records. The couple divorced in 2013.

In 2014, the father was found by state social services officials to have put the girls at risk during an incident in which he accosted their mother in front of them at a birthday party, grabbing, threatening and cursing her, according to a domestic violence petition the mother took out. But the father got the state finding overturned and, based on that reversal, Brown granted the father additional visits with the girls.

In an order last year, Brown said she had interviewed the girls privately in her chambers and said she believed the girls may have been "coached" by their mother and that some of their fears were a result of untreated anxiety by the mother.

Darnall, head of the child abuse center, said that's possible. But she said in general, officials need to evaluate such cases carefully.

"We need to listen to kids," Darnall said. "It doesn't mean every time a child says something it's truthful, but we need to listen to them and figure out what’s in their best interest."

Darnall said such cases often become so acrimonious it's difficult for the adults involved to reach an objective decision.

"Everyone in that situation should be adult enough to agree," she said. "If we all care about these kids, it's not about right or wrong or winning but how can we find out what's best for these kids."

Deborah Yetter: 502-582-4228; dyetter@courier-journal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/deborahy.

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