– Insanity in Britain: Secret Court Jails Father for Birthday Message to Son (Liberty Blitzkrieg, June 2, 2013):
The following story is another example of a situation that you might expect to read about in a novel of dystopian fiction, rather than a real life situation happening on the island that brought the world the Magna Carta.
Garry Johnson simply sent his son Sam a happy birthday message on his 21st via Facebook and for this crime was sentenced to jail by Britain’s secret family court system. The most amazing part of this story is that after the divorce from his wife, both of their children choose to live with Garry rather than their mother. Seemingly out of spite, his ex-wife started to make accusations against Garry, all of which were investigated and shown to be untrue. Not that this mattered, as Garry was still punished with a gag order that forbid him to ever mention his children publicly for the rest of his life. I think it’s safe to say secret courts should never, ever be permitted.
From the Daily Mail:
A father has been jailed at a secret court hearing for sending a Facebook message to his grown-up son on his 21st birthday.
Garry Johnson, 46, breached a draconian gagging order which stops him publicly naming his son, Sam, whom he has brought up and who still lives with him.
The order silencing Mr Johnson – which follows an acrimonious divorce eight years ago – means he cannot mention either of his boys, 21-year-old Sam and Adam, 18, in public, even by congratulating them in a local newspaper announcement when they get engaged, married or have children in the future.
The extraordinary gag is set to last until the end of his life, although his boys are now adults. Last night they condemned their father’s jailing as ‘cruel and ludicrous’.
After their parents’ divorce, the two boys chose to live with their father, following a series of rows with their mother over her new boyfriend.
But within a year of the divorce, Mr Johnson’s ex-wife made allegations to Essex social workers that he was neglecting the children and not feeding them properly at his smart family home.
An investigation by social workers cleared him of any wrongdoing and said the boys were fine.
Mr Johnson received a letter in late April from Chelmsford County Court officials ordering him to go to Basildon Magistrates’ Court building on May 2 for a hearing regarding his children.
He was not warned he might face imprisonment or that the hearing was about his Facebook message, posted on Sam’s birthday a few days earlier on April 23.
On arrival, he was escorted by court security guards to a private room in the building for a half hour hearing under family court rules before His Honour Judge Damien Lochrane.
He was not warned that he might need a lawyer.
He informed the judge that he had had four heart attacks and was awaiting a triple by-pass operation. But he was sentenced to 28 days’ jail and sent down to a court cell to await transport to Chelmsford prison.
In the court cell, he had a heart attack caused by the shock. Rushed to a local hospital by ambulance, he was then shackled and handcuffed to a bed while on oxygen and receiving morphine.
Incredible. This is how “justice” is served in Britain to a man who obviously loves his children and raised them to adulthood and who love him back dearly. They can do this to him within a secret court system, yet no one in the Western World seems capable of jailing a single banker.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Mike
Pure insanity. We have to revise our laws to work in a Internet system. This is beyond stupid. Ruining people’s lives because of archaic rulings that don’t take the today’s technical world into consideration.
Insane. And, if we don’t find some way to make things adapt, it will fall apart before we build anything of value.
I don’t mind that the rule does not include our technical world. What I don’t understand is how can someone tell you that you can’t mention your children publicly. Seriously it’s time to change the whole system and start thinking with a clear head.