A provincial court judge has ordered two children returned to their father after they were taken from his custody when their mother disappeared, a crime the father is suspected in.
Despite the ruling, the Vancouver Police Department says it is sticking to its suspicions.
“Our investigators have previously expressed concern about the father having custody of the children. Our concerns stand, but we respect the family court’s decision,” Sergeant Steve Addison said in an e-mailed statement.
However, Justice Wilson Lee says he favours the return of the children, aged 14 and 12 and listed by initials in the ruling, to their father.
“The only concern weighing against the return of the children is a concern for the children’s safety, if the father was involved in the mother’s disappearance,” he wrote.
“However, given that the police have not laid charges for three years now, those concerns verge on speculation rather than even a strong suspicion.”
The father, also unnamed, has yet to be charged in the disappearance of the mother – his wife – but the judge ruled that if he was, the provincial director of child, family and community service, a party to the court action, can act to protect the children.
He said the children’s emotional needs are being met by their father, and by being with him they will best be able to maintain their relationship with him and their heritage. “The views of the children are to return to their father,” Justice Lee noted.
On Jan. 8, 2018, the mother of the children disappeared, and on Jan. 22, the Vancouver police detained and questioned the father regarding that disappearance, leading to the provincial director taking the children into care.
The father had a previous relationship with his first wife from 1994 to 2000, and the couple had one child. His relationship with the mother of the two children central to the new ruling began in either 2005 or 2006 and lasted until 2017, according to the ruling.
Justice Lee’s ruling lists various incidents of domestic conflict that led to police intervention including a 2006 incident in which the father struck his son with a wooden spoon to toilet train the child. A family violence risk assessment prepared on the father said he had a history of domestic family violence in the form of intimate partner violence, and child abuse or neglect over 15 years. It recommended the children remain in the director’s care, and the father have supervised visits.
The report cited two incidents in June, 2017, in which the father and mother of the children both called police to say each was threatening the other and a second incident involving a dispute over some property. “[The incidents] did not seem to involve any actual physical violence. In light of this, I do not agree with the report’s conclusions that the father’s involvement in family violence is ‘chronic’ or recurring,’” Justice Lee wrote.
The director sought continuing custody of the two children, an action the father, who had supervised access to the children, opposed.
Justice Lee was ruling on that application by the director, filed in February, 2020.
According to the ruling, social worker Jennifer Donnelly testified the children were “quite attached” to their father and that they “light up” when they see him.
But the VPD had a different view. According to the ruling, a detective constable from the force testified at a June, 2019, hearing that the father was suspected of being involved in his wife’s disappearance, and that, as a result, he was likely to be charged.
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Ian Bailey