Dr. Elizabeth Hersey is the latest guest on the podcast.
Dr. Hersey has a custody case which has left her barely seeing her two children for the last six plus year.
Her custody case has two twists which make it unusual.
Her case started in England, before moving to the US.
Secondly, the man currently raising her two children is neither their biological father nor were they ever married.
Dr. Hersey called her relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Dr. Andre Du Plessis, “ad hoc”
It was on and off, she told me, for about a decade, but “he never spent one Christmas with my children.”
She had her children with an anonymous sperm donor.
So, how did Dr. Du Plessis get custody of her two children?
I asked him that by email, but he did not respond.
Her nightmare started in February 2016 when she received a coercive order from a British High Court.
Dr. Hersey was required to show up to court the next day, and she was not allowed to remove her children from the country.
Dr. Du Plessis had convinced this British High Court, without Dr. Hersey there to rebut, that he was the children’s father.
“Permission is hereby granted to the applicant to apply under s8 of the Children Act of 1989 in respect of the child {Dr. Hersey’s son},” the order continued.
“The respondent, Dr. Elizabeth Hersey, is forbidden from removing the child.” The order also stated.
The order was dated February 16, 2016, and it required Dr. Hersey to come to court the next day.
If Dr. Hersey and I lived in England, none of what you are reading would likely see the light of day.
That’s because British law forbids the mention of the details of any child custody case without the permission of the presiding judge who was Michael Keehan.
Here is part of a news article explaining how frustrating this process can be.
I’ve been reporting on family courts for six years now – or trying to. It has been the hardest, most frustrating work I’ve ever attempted, because journalists are not actually allowed to report on what happens inside these courtrooms. This has to change, which is why I am launching the Open Justice Family Court Reporting Pilot, with the support of the Bureau.
Current UK law forbids anything that happens in a family court from being reported, unless a judge explicitly makes an order allowing it. Hundreds of thousands of people – parents, children, siblings, grandparents, adoptive parents, adopted children – are affected by the decisions made by family courts every year. And yet the process of arriving at decisions that utterly transform their futures happens effectively in secret.
Journalists do have the right to attend most family court hearings, but the media may not publish any of the details of what happens in front of the judge. If they do, they risk being held in contempt of court. Anonymising the details of a case does not protect the media from that risk, which can result in a fine or jail. This situation means media outlets simply do not send their reporters to these courts, and so there is very rarely anyone there to observe what is happening on the public’s behalf.
There are similar laws in Australia.
Dr. Hersey is no longer in the UK, but in the US.
That’s because she ignored the order granted to her in February 2016 and quickly got on a plane to the US.
She settled near Syracuse, but Dr. Du Plessis was not done chasing her.
He seamlessly hired American lawyers to enforce his British order, which now granted him custody.
He could do this because all his lawyers on this case came from the same firm: Cordell & Cordell.
Cordell & Cordell is a name which should be familiar to avid readers; it’s the same firm which employs William Halaz- who may have a crush on me.
Cordell & Cordell has offices throughout the US and an office in England.
As such, Dr. Du Plessis could quickly find another lawyer in the US.
In England, he was represented by a barrister named Pete Wilkinson, who boasts of Dr. Du Plessis case on his website.
Mr. Wilkinson did not respond to my email for comment; he has since left Cordell & Cordell and is now at a new firm.
In the US, he was represented by Rochelle Cavanaugh.
Ms. Cavanaugh acknowledged that her client was not the biological father.
None of that mattered, Ms. Cavanaugh argued that Dr. Hersey had absconded with her son- her daughter was in school and would join her son she told me- and this made her a flight risk so extreme action needed to be taken.
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So, less than two months after arriving in the US, State Troopers arrived at her door and took Dr. Hersey’s son who was then transported back to England to live with a man who is not his biological father, had never been married to his mother, and barely knew him.
The judge who issued the order is Judge Richard Rivera.
Ms. Cavanaugh provided this statement to me, “If you are a legal journalist as you claim, I am sure you understand I would be prohibited from discussing any case I may have worked on through attorney-client confidentiality.”
Her statement is not accurate. Recently, I interviewed California attorney Angel Camino about a case he was on; at times, he refused to answer questions because he deemed the answers attorney/client confidentiality, but he did discuss details of the case.
Ms. Cavanaugh also left Cordell & Cordell since this case and is now a partner at Whiteman, Osterman and Hanna.
No one has yet explained how a non-biological former boyfriend could pull this off.
I do know that one of the arguments Ms. Cavanaugh made was under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a treaty which the US a signatory.
The Hague Convention was supposed to prevent international parental abductions, but it has become a rubber stamp which often forces children into abusive situations.
I previously covered the case of Narkis Golan, whose story made it to the US Supreme Court.
Despite overwhelming evidence her ex-husband was abusive, Narkis was still being forced to return to Italy to share custody of her son with him.
In this case, the Hague Convention was being used to justify sending a child back to a man who is not his biological father, never married his mother, and barely spent any time with him prior to this.
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