Most of you have probably read tons of articles about Western society’s war on fathers and families. How fathers are forcefully separated from their children against their will, falsely accused of despicable crimes, shamed, and discriminated against by the family courts. Well, Sweden is of course no exception to that rule; quite the contrary. Neither is my story particularly unique in that regard I, guess. I challenged the system and went public with proof of the corruption. Now they are prosecuting me for it. A court date has already been set.
My story is a long one, but I will try to give the short version. I swear that every word in it is absolutely true. It all started back in 2006 when I woke up one morning finding both my one year old daughter and her mother gone. Our relationship had been on the rocks since the child was born, and I guess we both felt pretty fed up. But you can´t just take a child from one of her custodians and move, both have to agree before the child can change address. That is the Swedish law. Back in those days I still lived under the assumption that the laws were protecting both men and women equally. Now, six years later and one daughter poorer, I know better.
My daughter was registered to a new secret address in another town, eventually enrolled into daycare there, and I was not even informed about it. Neither would the national registration office inform me of her address when I asked them. The school authorities also refused to tell me anything about the whereabouts of my child.
I have later learned the reason the mother got away with this. The prosecutors in Sweden are under orders from the state attorney not to press charges when it comes to domestic kidnappings. Only if a parent takes his or her kid out of the country does Sweden gives a shit about it, and they probably wouldn´t even do that if the US hadn´t pressured them after a case involving some American children that were taken to Sweden some years ago. The female state attorney that issued this order said that these crimes were not in the “public’s interest” to prosecute.
This strange exception to the law has created a bizarre situation in Sweden. On average three children are kidnapped from one their legal guardians every day. I have spoken to DA’s in Sweden who tell me they have boxes full of complaints, but that their hands are tied.
So, with assistance from the state, she got away with her first crime. Afterwards, years of sabotage and false accusations of domestic abuse and all the usual stuff followed. I was told that if I didn´t like it I was welcome to find a lawyer and go to court. The little smirk she had when she said this should have warned me, but following the usual path of all the fathers before me, I fell into all the same traps. The court allowed me only four hours of supervised visitation every other week pending trial. It took CPS almost three months finding someone they thought was suitable for the job. The visitation took place in a dull apartment owned by the social office in the new town of the mother. For me that meant another three hours in the car every time. After just three visitations this self appointed expert on children tried to tear my crying daughter from my arms. I refused to ever let her near my kid again. For that I was punished with another three months without seeing her at all.
Why would I need supervision at all spending time with my daughter? I was never convicted or even charged with any crime ever, and there were absolutely no evidence of abuse, simply because none had ever taken place. But in Sweden a mother’s word in a preliminary hearing is all it takes. It took over one and a half years of this ridiculous and humiliating arrangement before I was finally granted a court date. By that time my useless lawyer had pretty much emptied my savings account and I had lost my job because I couldn´t handle the stress. Before the matter of custody is decided in court the “family services” have to do a custody investigation and make a recommendation to the court. And since the feminist ridden parliament changed the custody laws in 2006, they are given a free hand to recommend single custody to whomever they want. All it takes nowadays are two words in a report: “Co-operation difficulties.” Guess what mothers that want single custody create? Yep, that´s right. In my case that´s exactly the term they used to recommend that I should lose custody.
When my day in court finally arrived I felt hopeful after all. For the first time since this farce started I would get a chance to be heard. I also was allowed to call a few witnesses. It all went well. The stories that the mother had cooked up all crumbled like a house of cards. Now I just had to wait two weeks for the verdict. I guess it was when I read it two weeks later I first realized that there is something seriously wrong with our Swedish justice system.
The courts in Sweden consist of one judge with legal expertise and three lay judges appointed by the different parties in the parliament (all feminists of course). Their conclusion after the court hearing was that, yes, the mother had falsely accused the father of crimes to the police. And yes, the mother had made a lot of false claims to the family services and the court about the father being dangerous, insane, an addict, socializing with criminals and yada yada. And yes, the mother had committed the crime of removing the child without the father’s consent. And yes, she had gotten herself a hidden identity in the public register on false grounds. And sure, the father is probably the best suited parent to ensure the child’s needs and rights to both mom and dad. And no, there was no evidence that the father was in any way unsuitable as a parent. HOWEVER…due to the “cooperation problems”, shared custody was not in the best interest of the child, and since she now had spent almost all her three years living close to her mother, and almost none with her dad, the court finds that the mother should get single custody of the child. The father would get visitation rights every other weekend.
I remember thinking “this is not happening.” I am in the twilight zone. A few months later I started my blog “Daddys”. Not because I planned for it to ever make a difference, but because I needed an outlet. Otherwise I would explode with all the anger that was starting to build up inside. First I wrote anonymously; it´s much safer that way when you want to write about stuff such as fathers and men’s rights in Sweden. That is considered “anti-feministic and misogynist.”
Having reached her first goal of stripping me of my parental rights, the mother now free to do whatever she damn well pleased. I couldn´t do shit about it. Whenever I tried to call anyone to ask or talk about my kid or her problems, they refused to tell me anything. “Are you a custodian?” “No.” “So what are you calling us for?” Meaning, “I know exactly your kind, you god damn woman and child abuser.” Not even if she had been dying in a hospital would they have told me. Instead they would have denied her even being admitted and sent me packing. I had lost all rights to call myself a father. Why? Simply because I had “co-operation problems” with her mom, that’s why.
A year passed and I mostly managed to get her to allow my girl to visit on my weekends. But when time came for me to have her two weeks on her summer holiday, new accusations were made to family services. This time I was said to have chased her and the child with my car for ten minutes while shouting and swearing. She had been sooooo scared. She refused to hand her over. Back to court, demanding that they would enforce the verdict. Faced with the risk of a fine, the mother eventually caved. Those were the best two weeks in my life, and probably in my daughter’s as well.
So next comes Christmas and another longer visitation. I had planned a trip north to the snow and mountains, and both my daughter and I had been looking forward to it. But two days before the handover my daughter suddenly got sick with high fever and would not be fit for a train ride. I said “OK, but can I come by then and leave her Christmas presents before I go?” She said “Sure.” “OK, fine. I´ll come tomorrow then, and while I am there we can take her temperature and check if she´s better?” She exploded and started cursing and swearing in the phone. I recorded the whole conversation. Her bluff was called, and my daughter was allowed to go on the trip. We had a wonderful time as always.
In March 2009, about a year after the verdict, the shit really hit the fan. My daughter was showing signs of not feeling well. She cried a lot and refused to tell me the reason. “I can never tell anyone” she said. She wanted to stay with me after our weekends were through and she could not understand why she was not allowed to. I tried to explain that the judge had decided this and that it was not up to me. She begged me to talk to the judge and ask him to let her stay. My heart was breaking and I promised her I would. Now I wish I hadn´t.
I contacted another lawyer that sent a letter to the mother about settling this out of court, demanding that the girl’s request to spend more time with her dad be respected. I wrote a letter to family services about my daughter and informed them that I was worried about her psychological health and begged them for help. I later found out that the female official in charge had colluded with the mother behind my back for about a year. She immediately made a copy of my letter and gave it to the mother and then she just threw it away, thus breaking a few more laws. She didn´t even bother reading it. During the next handover her mother threw a fit. She screamed “If you sue me for shared custody I will go to the family services and claim co-operation difficulties.” My daughter started to cry and I just left. Little did I know that this was the last time I would see my princess for over 10 months. Just seven days later I got a call from the same secretary from family services that I had sent my plea to, informing me that they had now started an investigation against me concerning sexual abuse against my daughter.
That´s when I went public on my blog, which by this time had become quite well read. I declared what I had been accused of. I published the custody verdict telling the truth about all her previous lies and false accusations. I started to call family services, the court, and the national register and record the calls. I recorded the police officer that was in charge of the interrogations of my girl; who was, among other things, forced to draw penises with a crayon. I called up the prosecutor and asked him why he didn´t follow the laws regarding interrogating children. I published it all. I basically pulled their pants down and hung them out to dry.
I reported the corrupt and lying family services to the parliament’s justice department, and the police and prosecutor to internal affairs. I published it all. I was a man on fire. Burning with a rage that grew with every day they kept me from my child.
They didn´t like that.
When the parliament’s justice department started to look into the family services after my complaint, they suddenly reorganized. The ones that had been responsible on our case suddenly all transferred to other departments, the bosses too. New ones came, and said that they would “check their routines”. And that was that. Case dismissed.
Internal affairs freed both the police and the prosecutor from all accusations. The investigation against me was dropped like a hot potato, and now my blog was officially declared a “work health issue” at social services.
When the visitations eventually got started again after ten months, my daughter was shy, but we soon found that old father daughter love again. But once again I was only allowed supervised visitations, so there we were again with the four hours every other week with some stranger guarding us. The mother refused to leave the girl out of her sight, even though she got her demanded supervisor. Pretty soon my daughter, now six years old, started to show more serious signs of psychological stress. She even started to get panic attacks before the scheduled visitations. A child psychiatrist was brought in to find out why. Her investigation ruled out any abuse from me, and stated that the girl enjoyed being with her father. The attacks were caused by her mother subjecting the girl to parental alienation.
The new officials at family services then decided it was time to investigate the mother so they placed both parents and the girl in what they call an “investigation home” with constant supervision. Once again I offered the mother a truce, but instead she took off with the child. They found her and forced her back, but that just lasted for a couple of days, and she was gone again. She also started to report all officials that didn´t buy into her lies to the police. By this time she had made at least 15 unfounded accusations against me for all sorts of crimes. All were dropped.
The investigators final report showed several serious evidence of psycho-social abuse against my daughter. Her grandmother had screamed and called her father an abuser in front of her and on another occasion my daughter had started to talk about how she hated her father and didn´t ever want to see him again. Then she grew silent, turned to her mother and asked “what more was it you wanted me to say?” This is all in the report.
After running off a second time with the girl, the court finally lost their patience and gave me back shared custody, but what good did that do? Family services just let them run off and hide in another city again claiming that they were powerless, probably eager to get rid of the now most famous custody case in Sweden and the risk of ending up on my blog. The national registration office kindly gave her renewed secrecy, even though I handed them all the evidence of her fraud.
I had to go from school to school in the city I knew they lived in and look for her personally. The principal later blamed her lie on the registration office. (If they approve a secret address, there must be a reason).
And there we pretty much stand today. I have not seen my daughter in over a year. It is being said she does not want to. She still lives with her mother at a secret address. The state social board has criticized the family services on five different counts regarding their handling of the case; among other things, not caring about the child and her best interest.
But guess what? The only one they will drag to court and prosecute after all this, is me. I am accused of violating my daughter’s and her mother’s integrity by publishing the custody verdict with their names in it on my website. A document anyone can call the court and ask to see at any time. They have made my seven year old daughter a plaintiff in a case against her father, who now faces conviction for trying to reveal the truth about the abuse and torture they have put us through.
The trial is set to take place on the 21st of February. I don´t have any doubt the verdict will be “guilty”. Knowing the courts in Sweden they probably have already written it.
That´s just a little tale about justice and treatment of children in the feminist state of Sweden.
I hope I have not bored you with this long piece, and that you have made it all the way here to the end. It takes a pretty perverted state to prosecute a victim of all these crimes and protect the perpetrator. How the hell can it be a crime against my daughter to expose the mistreatment of her to the public? And should it not be every man’s right to protection from being sent to jail for something he didn´t do? Well, it isn’t. Not here.
I called one of my former articles on A Voice for Men “Welcome to Absurdistan.” Now maybe you understand why. God help us all.
