Toddler, 2, left in washing machine, court hears in parenting case
A MOTHER left her son in a washing machine and hid in a bedroom to escape his screaming, a court has heard.
A MOTHER left her son, then aged two, in a washing machine in a dark laundry and hid in a bedroom to get away from his screaming, a court has heard in a parenting case.
The mother also inflicted “cruel, physical violence’’ on her ex-husband’s teenage children, and stole and tried to sell the prized boat he and his older children had built at home over 10 years.
The divorced parents were in a bitter parenting fight in Federal Circuit Court in Cairns.
After an 11-day hearing, a judge decided the boy would continue to live with his father, who would have sole parental responsibility, and spend weekends and holidays with the mother.
The mother, an “extremely intelligent woman’’ who is fluent in seven languages, has been barred from taking the boy overseas.
His name has been put on an airports watchlists.
The couple separated in 2012 when the mother went overseas on a working holiday without telling the father who was left with their son, then aged almost three. Judge Josephine Willis said she was “extremely alarmed’’ by the mother later “grooming or coaching’’ her son in what to say about the father, in hundreds of recordings.
“It is overwhelmingly clear that the mother is attempting to run a major smear campaign against the father and that she has used the child in these efforts in a direct way,’’ she said.
Judge Willis said it was most harmful to the boy.
“Most of the mother’s evidence has been exaggerated, distorted, manufactured or otherwise tailored to suit her case,’’ she said.
In a mid-trial break, the mother took the boy to a hotel where the father’s teenage children were staying and “deliberately provoked’’ them, “to make trouble’’, Judge Willis said.
After the mother told the daughter she was “a psycho like her father’’ and the girl hit her in the face, the mother kicked, scratched and grabbed the girl by the hair, pulling her down.
The court heard that once when the mother was looking after two of the father’s other children, she chased his son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, with a stick with toilet paper and faeces on it.
The mother admitted while the father was away she went to his home, towed away his “prize possession’’ boat, hid it for months and tried to sell it.
The father refused to give her access to the boy while she refused to hand over the boy’s passport. He feared she would take him overseas.
Originally published as Toddler, 2, left in washing machine, court hears in parenting case