Reporter Nick Humphreys discusses a Shrewsbury Crown Court case involving a mother who made 21 false crime reports to try and stop her ex-partner from having access to their children.
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00:00A mother was described as wicked and vindictive by a judge who jailed her for telling lies to stop her children from seeing their dad.
00:09She made 21 false crime reports, including one about a fake gun threat which forced a school into lockdown,
00:18and she also painted RIP on her own front door in black paint and blamed it on her ex.
00:25She said that he made numerous threats on her life as well.
00:29All of the claims were false, purely designed to stop the father from seeing his children.
00:35The judge said that sadly, mothers telling lies to stop children from seeing their father is not uncommon.
00:43The story provoked a lot of reaction on our Facebook page. Here's what some people had to say.
00:48This comment is from a mother. She said,
00:51This makes me so angry. When I had to go through the family court process, it was clear that they assume most mothers are lying because of scum mothers like this.
01:01Luckily, I was able to prove my case, but it's a horrific system to go through as a genuine mother or father.
01:08Another commenter said,
01:10Keeping a father from their child is just cruel and bitter, especially when he is the innocent party.
01:16Women who do this should definitely face repercussions.
01:20Those views were shared by a lot of people.
01:23And this one from a guy said,
01:25I love how they don't name the woman in these cases, stating it's to protect the children's identity.
01:31Yet a man does it and he's named and shamed.
01:35If I find out who it is, I won't hesitate to post it.
01:39Trust me, I'm equally frustrated about not being able to name and shame on this occasion.
01:44I think most people would probably agree that she deserves it.
01:48However, the judge ordered me not to publish anything that would result in the identification of the children involved.
01:55That left me with two choices.
01:57Basically, I could either name and shame, but includes basically zero detail and zero context about what actually happened or anonymize her and be able to write chapter and verse.
02:08The judge really made quite an example of her.
02:11It's not often that judges will use quite such emotive language as wicked and vindictive to describe a defendant.
02:19The story we published did provoke quite a lot of reaction and debate.
02:23So hopefully we did the right thing to read the story in full.
02:27If you haven't already, check out ShropshireStar.com.
02:30Thanks very much for watching.