Crazy Legal System
The Sunday Times provides further evidence that the UK's legal system is run by people who lack basic common sense whatever qualifications and impressive credentials they possess.
Because a man who has violently murdered his wife cannot possibly have the best interests of the woman's children at heart which has to be backed up by the fact that he is not on any of the birth certificates and refuses to take a paternity test.
Yet the systems provides a murderer with public money and legal aid to pursue this nonsense.
Wife killer gets legal aid for child custody battle
By Robert Verkaik - The Sunday Times
Photograph: plainpicture/Mueggenburg/plainpicture/Mueggenburg
A KILLER serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife has been granted thousands of pounds in legal aid to seek custody of her four children, provoking outrage among MPs and civil justice groups.
The husband, who claims he is the children’s father, is not named on any of the birth certificates and has refused to undergo a paternity test. His refusal to supply a DNA sample triggered an expensive court battle where social workers tried to settle the paternity issue by using DNA obtained from the crime scene at which he carried out what a judge described as the “particularly horrible” murder of his wife.
The wife’s family is understood to oppose the husband playing any part in bringing up the children, who are aged three to nine.
But in an extraordinary twist, the home secretary and Metropolitan police commissioner have come to the aid of the husband, only identified as X in the proceedings, and refused to release the crime scene DNA. Theresa May says DNA obtained in criminal investigations must not be used for non-crime related purposes and argues that releasing his profile would damage the “integrity” of the DNA database.
Three Court of Appeal judges have ruled in the home secretary’s favour — so the question of who should have access to the children will be decided without the man’s DNA.
The case began last year when the children’s guardian, who represents their legal interests, and the local council went to court to challenge the decision by the police and home secretary not to release X’s DNA.
When the case first came before Sir James Munby, president of the High Court’s family division, he upheld their application and ordered the release of the DNA profile.
Munby said in his judgment: “The question arises in the most appalling circumstances: X murdered the children’s mother, in particularly horrible circumstances.
“He is serving a sentence of life imprisonment, with a long minimum term.
“Whatever role it might be thought that X should have in these children’s lives — a matter with which I am not concerned — the issue of his paternity goes also to the question of what role his wider family should have.”
The judge added: ‘In the first place there are the interests of the children, to which both the guardian and the local authority draw attention and which, they say, should be preferred in the circumstances.
“In addition to all the usual arguments based on a child’s right to know their paternity, one cannot ignore the enormous implications for these children of what happened to their mother.
“Their futures will be indelibly marked by it. They need to know if the man who murdered their mother, the man who they believe to be their father, is in truth their father.”
But the Court of Appeal overturned that decision.
David Green, director of the civil society think tank Civitas, who has seen both court rulings, last night described the case as “extraordinary”.
He said: “If a man cruelly murders his wife in this way and is given a life sentence it would be reasonable to say that he should not be allowed to have any role in the long-term care of the wife’s children.
“When he refuses to provide his DNA to prove his paternity then you can say that he must have something to hide. For the sake of the long-term care of the children and the feelings of the wife’s family he should not be allowed any continuing role in their upbringing.
“Criminals spend an awful lot of time using the legal aid system from their prison cells. It seems to me there are very good grounds for this man not to be given legal aid.”
A KILLER serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife has been granted thousands of pounds in legal aid to seek custody of her four children, provoking outrage among MPs and civil justice groups.
The husband, who claims he is the children’s father, is not named on any of the birth certificates and has refused to undergo a paternity test. His refusal to supply a DNA sample triggered an expensive court battle where social workers tried to settle the paternity issue by using DNA obtained from the crime scene at which he carried out what a judge described as the “particularly horrible” murder of his wife.
The wife’s family is understood to oppose the husband playing any part in bringing up the children, who are aged three to nine.
But in an extraordinary twist, the home secretary and Metropolitan police commissioner have come to the aid of the husband, only identified as X in the proceedings, and refused to release the crime scene DNA. Theresa May says DNA obtained in criminal investigations must not be used for non-crime related purposes and argues that releasing his profile would damage the “integrity” of the DNA database.
Three Court of Appeal judges have ruled in the home secretary’s favour — so the question of who should have access to the children will be decided without the man’s DNA.
The case began last year when the children’s guardian, who represents their legal interests, and the local council went to court to challenge the decision by the police and home secretary not to release X’s DNA.
When the case first came before Sir James Munby, president of the High Court’s family division, he upheld their application and ordered the release of the DNA profile.
Munby said in his judgment: “The question arises in the most appalling circumstances: X murdered the children’s mother, in particularly horrible circumstances.
“He is serving a sentence of life imprisonment, with a long minimum term.
“Whatever role it might be thought that X should have in these children’s lives — a matter with which I am not concerned — the issue of his paternity goes also to the question of what role his wider family should have.”
The judge added: ‘In the first place there are the interests of the children, to which both the guardian and the local authority draw attention and which, they say, should be preferred in the circumstances.
“In addition to all the usual arguments based on a child’s right to know their paternity, one cannot ignore the enormous implications for these children of what happened to their mother.
“Their futures will be indelibly marked by it. They need to know if the man who murdered their mother, the man who they believe to be their father, is in truth their father.”
But the Court of Appeal overturned that decision.
David Green, director of the civil society think tank Civitas, who has seen both court rulings, last night described the case as “extraordinary”.
He said: “If a man cruelly murders his wife in this way and is given a life sentence it would be reasonable to say that he should not be allowed to have any role in the long-term care of the wife’s children.
“When he refuses to provide his DNA to prove his paternity then you can say that he must have something to hide. For the sake of the long-term care of the children and the feelings of the wife’s family he should not be allowed any continuing role in their upbringing.
“Criminals spend an awful lot of time using the legal aid system from their prison cells. It seems to me there are very good grounds for this man not to be given legal aid.”
