Missing mother and son: Rebecca Minnock says she has 'lost all faith and trust in the system'

The mother at the centre of a custody battle who is on the run with her three-year-old son has broken her silence to explain why the pair are in hiding. Rebecca Minnock, 35, fled her home in Highbridge, Somerset, with son Ethan two weeks ago following a court order that he should live with father Roger Williams. Miss Minnock said she felt "trapped" after the judge's ruling. She said in a telephone interview with the Sun newspaper: "I just lost all trust and faith in the system completely. "I just couldn't bear to leave my son. I just felt trapped. "I know I'm going to be in a huge, huge amount of trouble. "I've even got family members into trouble but it's my son and I need to put him first over myself or anybody else."
Miss Minnock's comments came after members of her family were arrested in connection with the disappearance.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11666683/Missing-mother-and-son-Rebecca-Minnock-insists-they-are-safe-and-well.html

can't open the link to read it . Why was the father given custody it is unusual for this to happen .

Vicar of Dibley wrote:can't open the link to read it . Why was the father given custody it is unusual for this to happen .

At the Bristol hearing, a district judge found Ethan had been exposed to "emotional harm" by his mother and should live with his father, with Miss Minnock allowed only supervised contact.

It doesn't specify what kind of harm.

I think that the father had initially applied for contact rather than actual custody.

The only info I can find is that the woman made allegations against the father, and that she tried to deny him contact. A judge found those allegations to be untrue. It's not clear if that's what the emotional harm referred to - ie, denying the boy contact with his father.

She will be in a lot of trouble now, and she might find herself with no contact. I think it's a pity that these things can't be sorted better. Joint custody seems a good way to go to me, unless there are really good reasons not to.

Raggamuffin wrote:The only info I can find is that the woman made allegations against the father, and that she tried to deny him contact. A judge found those allegations to be untrue. It's not clear if that's what the emotional harm referred to - ie, denying the boy contact with his father.

She will be in a lot of trouble now, and she might find herself with no contact. I think it's a pity that these things can't be sorted better. Joint custody seems a good way to go to me, unless there are really good reasons not to.

i agree, i couldn't bare the thought of not seeing my kids and my grandson it would break my heart .

Vicar of Dibley wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:The only info I can find is that the woman made allegations against the father, and that she tried to deny him contact. A judge found those allegations to be untrue. It's not clear if that's what the emotional harm referred to - ie, denying the boy contact with his father.

She will be in a lot of trouble now, and she might find herself with no contact. I think it's a pity that these things can't be sorted better. Joint custody seems a good way to go to me, unless there are really good reasons not to.

i agree, i couldn't bare the thought of not seeing my kids and my grandson it would break my heart .

The trouble is that this situation is going from one extreme to another. She denied contact to the boy's father, and now she will have contact denied - unless it's supervised.

This business of awarding custody to one parent or the other is so adversarial IMO. Obviously, people have to be practical, but if the two parents live close to each other, I really don't see why they can't share custody - if they both want custody of course.

Well, having seen how useless the family courts are, I'm not in the least surprised. My youngest's ex was beating the crap out of my eldest grandaughter and giving my youngest grandaughter alcohol to get her to sleep, at the time she was on really strong medication for epilepsy which combined with alcohol could have killed her. The judge decided that it was being said to stir up trouble for the father. It was only years later after we had managed to get my eldest grandaughter back that she went to the police and told them what had been happening. However, because my daughter was ill, the Judge still let him keep my youngest grandaughter, who had luckily come off the elipepsy medication. The social workers still think the sun shines out of his arse. Family courts are a law unto themselves and answer to no-one. You can't call family members as witnesses and you can't question their decisions. It would not surprise if the woman had told the truth and is trying to keep her son safe. If that's the case, good luck to her and I hope she gets to Ireland, where social workers seem to have a lot more sense.

risingsun wrote:Well, having seen how useless the family courts are, I'm not in the least surprised.   My youngest's ex was beating the crap out of my eldest grandaughter and giving my youngest grandaughter alcohol to get her to sleep, at the time she was on really strong medication for epilepsy which combined with alcohol could have killed her.   The judge decided that it was being said to stir up trouble for the father.  It was only years later after we had managed to get my eldest grandaughter back that she went to the police and told them what had been happening.   However, because my daughter was ill, the Judge still let him keep my youngest grandaughter, who had luckily come off the elipepsy medication.  The social workers still think the sun shines out of his arse.  Family courts are a law unto themselves and answer to no-one.  You can't call family members as witnesses and you can't question their decisions.   It would not surprise if the woman had told the truth and is trying to keep her son safe.  If that's the case, good luck to her and I hope she gets to Ireland, where social workers seem to have a lot more sense.

Hang on though - you seem to be automatically siding with her. There's no evidence that her ex was mistreating the child. In fact, there's not enough info to go on at all because there's no detail. It's possible she was denying him access for her own reasons to do with him and her.