Mum ordered to pay over false fatherhood claim

A MUM on a pension has been ordered to pay her wealthy former partner thousands of dollars after claiming he willingly paid for another man’s child to spare himself embarrassment.

Ms Fielder claimed her partner agreed to act as her baby’s father “because it suited him,” to spare him embarrassment and avoid upsetting his family’s feelings.

A SINGLE mother has been ordered to repay her wealthy former partner thousands of dollars in child support after claiming he had knowingly paid for a child that was not his to spare him embarrassment.

“Ms Fielder” — a court given pseudonym — portrayed herself as the victim of her ex-partner’s “aggressive and intimidating behaviour”.

Ms Fielder claimed “Mr Hallis”, her partner of two years, was aware he was not child “X”’s father and concocted a deception about the circumstances surrounding the two year-old’s conception “because it suited him,” to spare himself embarrassment and avoid upsetting his family’s feelings.

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Although Ms Fielder knew this was wrong, she said she was too frightened to say no to Mr Hallis.

“(Mr Hallis) would ask me ‘I am X’s father?’ If I responded with ‘No’ I was physically abused,” she claimed. “From then on I just agreed with (Mr Hallis) that he was the father because I was frightened for my safety.

“I was extremely frightened to put into my court documents that (Mr Hallis) was not the biological father of X because of the physical and verbal abuse I have suffered previously.”

Mr Hallis says he reunited with his ex partly because he felt guilty at how hard she was taking their breakup, not knowing that around the same time she also had sex with Mr L. Picture: iStock

Mr Hallis vehemently denied he was violent and Federal Circuit Court Judge Stewart Brown said Ms Fielder’s evidence, including that she never told Mr Hallis he was the father, did not sit comfortably with her affectionate text messages to him, particularly one in which she draws similarities between X’s “chubby cheeks” and those of Mr Hallis.

Judge Brown said the proceedings had a more poignant and emblematic significance than the money alone.

Mr Hallis said the revelation he was not the girl’s father was a “bombshell” first conveyed to him during a family dispute conference when he sought the court’s permission to spend more time with X.

Mr Hallis had been limited to three hour supervised visits in an earlier custody battle, which he said was sparked when Ms Fielder stopped him seeing X, around the time she instructed a solicitor to seek a property settlement, which she later abandoned.

When Ms Fielder claimed X was conceived during a period when she and Mr Hallis were separated the court ordered a parentage test which established that a person identified only as “Mr L” was X’s father.

Mr Hallis then applied for a declaration of parentage in a bid to force Ms Fielder to repay the child support he had provided since their separation.

He alleged he separated from Ms Fielder because of her reactive and manipulative personality and told the court that in an attempt to persuade him to return, Ms Fielder texted him a photo of her wrist with a hospital admission tag on it, claiming she had attempted suicide by ingesting Panadol.

Ms Hallis said they spent the night together on her release partly because he felt guilty that she had apparently become emotionally distraught at the end of their relationship. It is on this occasion that Mr Hallis believed X was conceived.

Unbeknown to Mr Hallis, around this time, Ms Fielder also had sex with Mr L.

Judge Brown found Ms Fielder had, at least, a moral obligation to inform Mr Hallis of the possibility that he was not X’s father but had instead decided to deceive him.

“Sad to say, I consider that she has raised allegations of family violence to protect herself from the implications of her own falsehoods. This is not to her credit.”

Ms Fielder lives on a single mother’s pension, has $4000 in credit card debts and owes $16,000 in legal fees. Mr Hallis earns about $172,000 a year, and owns his own home.

Despite Ms Fielder’s “straitened circumstances” Judge Brown said given her conduct she should repay the $4,142.73 in child support, along with $5000 in legal costs.

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