Did Child Support Enforcement Help Drive this Innocent Father to His Death? (Part I)
December 17th, 2007 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & FamiliesThose who suffer from child support enforcement's abuses and errors lead difficult and stressful lives. Sadly, child support enforcement abuses may have contributed to the recent heart attack and death of an English father. All in the best interests of his child, of course.
From the Equal Parenting Alliance:
EPA Soldier dies in war on fathers
Sunday 9th December 2007
Last Thursday, 9th December, 36 year-old veteran soldier Lee Wilkins died while out running. He survived action in Northern Ireland, but those who knew him well believe it was the battles he had with Family Courts and the Child Support Agency which killed him.
His son lived with him, and in these circumstances, one wonders why the CSA were hounding him to pay them £650, instead of paying money to him. Lee could not understand this either, and we saw the increasing stress which this alleged debt, and the threat of bailiffs caused him. Now that he has died, the CSA will be
able to access the money from his estate, under draconian regulations proposed this year to pursue dead fathers beyond the grave.
Earlier this year, Lee asked the Equal Parenting Alliance to post this mini-biography of him and his fight with the CSA. Sadly, it was a fight which led was to lead to his death - a soldier who fought bravely for his country and survived, but could not survive this country's war on fathers. His son, whom he always wished should not be named in publicity, now has to face a future without him.
CSA Incompetence Harms Children
22nd March 2007
Sometimes it takes a single story to illustrate the flaws in a system.
Lee Wilkins is a veteran soldier who lives with his 9 year-old son in Coventry. He obtained a degree in photography after leaving the army, and many of his impressive pictures have been exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. He hopes one day to work as a photographer in war-zones and the like, but for now, he is happy to just be a dad to his boy.
Although separated, Lee and his ex-partner have supported their son financially without involving the Child Support Agency for many years now, and so it came as a bolt from the blue when Lee received a demand for £650 from the CSA, followed by the threat of bailiffs if he did not pay up.
" I couldn't understand it," said Lee. "My boy lives with me nearly all the time now, and the money they wanted from me wasn't for his mum, anyway. They were going to keep it themselves! I thought the CSA were supposed to give money to parents who are looking after children, not take it off them."
The CSA claimed the money had been owed to them for nearly 7 years. Lee obtained copies of CSA documents, under his data protection entitlement, and discovered that in 2000, the CSA had indeed gone through a process of assessing this amount as payable, but there was no record of them ever telling him about it, or asking him for payment! What is more, after 6 years, the CSA had lost any legal entitlement to pursue a claim against him.
"I am a proud man, and I refuse to claim Income Support, so we live on what I can earn from my photography," said Lee. "I try not to be a burden on the state, and this is the thanks I get - taking away what little we have! I was getting phone calls 3 times a day from a debt collection agency, threatening all sorts if I didn't pay up. They were aggressive and arrogant. My lad overheard some of these phone calls, and he is still worried that people are going to force their way into our home and take all his things away."
George Orwell predicted many things: by 1984 government agencies would have developed into the very opposite of their intended purpose: a Ministry of Truth which was responsible for creating lies and propaganda; a Ministry of Love, responsible for torture. Now, in 2007 we have a child fearing his home will be broken into and plundered by a government body called the Child Support Agency. It seems it was only the year that Orwell got wrong.
[Also, see Shock at death of Coventry dad lee, 35 (ic Coventry, UK, 12/14/07)--GS].
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December 17th, 2007 at 1:27 am
I think he had a bad heart.
But the other crap definitely made his life miserable.
And once again the only solution I see for many men is to not get married and not make babies. But given the way things are now I'm not sure that is enough.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:28 am
And it doesn't help those parents who have already made those mistakes (choices?).
December 17th, 2007 at 3:26 am
I wouldn't want to make too much of this. Sadly, fit 30-somethings do sometimes collpase and die suddenly. But, quite apart from his death, it shows the flaws in the system.
December 17th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I have a tendacy to believe that the stress played a bigger role than most would think. The threats from the State Dept of Revenue, (that is who enforces it here in Florida), they make against me drives me nuts. I get a couple of weeks behind, and they want to rip my balls off. The first thing the threaten is my drivers license. Then they FREEZE your bank accounts. I can only imagine if I kicked the bucket. I went ahead and made my ex-wife the benificiary on my life insurance. I figure she would get anything I have when I croak. I think it's funny that the State agency is the Dept Of REVENUE. Revenue, that is all it is about. Just thinking about this gives me chest pains!!!!
December 17th, 2007 at 9:46 am
This problem exists because "WE THE PEOPLE" have allowed it. Until the American people stand up and say enough is enough the abuses and arrgance of our governmenal system will not stop. Child Support enforcement is able to get away with the outright theft of property and assets because they have no oversight. There is NO body of regulators or legislators that they have to report too. They are a power unto themselves.
The States come after fathers because its politically correct to do so. Until we force the system to abide by the laws it supposedly enforces we will see no changes.
But remember "Everything we do is in the BEST interests of the child"
Im disgusted by the lot of them.
December 17th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
So, we have clearly that the system works extremely poorly the more dad plays a role.
We have my case, the middle of the road, where the system is about a 25% drain to nothing to the family unit as a whole. That's about the equivalent of me having one kid just die off at 18, economically speaking. ( I have 4 kids)
The we have the cases where the father is effectively excluded from the lives of the children and 2/3 of his income goes to making his children fatherless, ie lack motivation, ambition and responsibility. We can expect those kids to earn 33-50% what they would have with proper fathering.
When does the system work well? For psycho killers? What percent of children or mothers were killed by fathers before 1980? It cant be more than 1/thousand, 0.1%. I would guess closer to 50/million, .005 %
That is exceptionally poor performance, even by governmental standards.
December 17th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Not one minute passes, without a death somewhere in the world, directly attributable to the family courts in some way …not one. When you take into account all suicides, early death caused by stress and anxiety, murders of spouses and children going through divorce … the numbers are “staggering”.
Not one minute …
December 17th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Kevin,
Great point.
December 17th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Getting married and or fathering children makes juggling running chainsaws with freshly sharpened chains look like an intelligent thing to do. I experienced for myself the extreme stress and know people who have serious health problems from the psychological and financial stress their wives or ex-wives caused them. I'm not surprised that men are dying now the way this unfortunate fellow did. This is yet another example of the war both radical feminists and elements of the government declared on both men and marriage. Since fighting them head on is futile, the only way to beat them is not to fight an unwinnable battle and refrain from adding magnesium to an already very hot inferno.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:14 am
[...] GlennSacks.com » Blog Archive » Did Child Support Enforcement Help Drive this Innocent Father to H... [...]
December 18th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
The war which i fought in Iraq is nothing compared to the war in this Evil Empire called Family Court. I have never in my life been so stressed out from all the fabricated false stories leveled aginst me. I have had 4 hert attacks. All due to this sick system. THey took my son garnished my bank account and lied on the witness stand. These are sick people, judges, lawyers, psycholgosists, doctors, GALs, DSS
They all stink,
I pray for this man and his little child. The courts should be held for this and someone needs to be held accountable and given the death penalty.
armyrangerarmyranger@yahoo.com
December 29th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
[...] "His son lived with him, and in these circumstances, one wonders why the CSA were hounding him to pay them £650, instead of paying money to him. Lee could not understand this either, and we saw the increasing stress which this alleged debt, and the threat of bailiffs caused him." Lee is pictured with his son. To learn more, see my blog post Did Child Support Enforcement Help Drive this Innocent Father to His Death? (Part I). [...]