CHILD WASN'T COMFORTABLE LEAVING MOTHER FOR EXTENDED PERIODS
After the Bronx Count Family Court determined that a child should visit with his father, once every six months, at whatever facility he was incarcerated, an appeal ensued.
On its review of the dispute, the Appellate Division, First Department, took issue with that outcome. It thought the record rebutted any presumption that visitation would be in the child’s best interests.
Apparently, the father was in prison for robbing and stabbing the mother while she was holding the child in her arms. Given that he had been incarcerated for most of the kid’s life, and had no “meaning relationship” with the younger, the AD1 thought it was error to direct visitation.
Interestingly, even the father initially thought the child shouldn’t be exposed to a prison setting, but later recanted his position. And given the several hours of travel by car to the prison and that the youngster expressed discomfort being in a vehicle or being away from his mother for an extended period, the AD1 thought those were additional factors the Family Court should have considered.
It didn’t help the father’s case that he used his permitted phone calls with the child to “harass the mother,” in violation of an order of protection.
Given that backdrop, the underlying order was “unanimously modified,” and the directive that the child visit the father, twice annually, was vacated.
I guess there's no revisiting that ....
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DECISION