Minori: “I lost my daughter, deaf bureaucracy to Justice”, the story of a father

“I lost my daughter. There is still a thread that binds us but it is tied to the soul. I don’t know anything about her anymore.” These are the words of AM, a father accused by his ex-partner of abusing his minor daughter, acquitted of the infamous accusations already during the investigations and even today far from his child and only against a hostile province, “deaf to Justice”, “anarchist” who denies him to exercise his parental rights and duties “still stalled”. Victim of “a deafening silence”, AM has for years suffered the reluctance of social services and municipal leaders to execute the decisions of the Courts. “As if there was something stronger than Justice; as if we were in an anarchist state”. Today in Lecce at the Hotel 8+ at 3 pm his lawyers will denounce in a press conference the failure to execute the judgments of the Courts and the bureaucratic obstruction suffered by AM “They kidnapped my daughter – reports the father to Adnkronos – every day that passes is more and more devastating, because I lost three years of life with her. I feel helpless but I want to remain in a legal context to protect her. There is no more time to waste. Either someone intervenes or I will never see her again ” . AM recounts the thousand days of silence in which “no one tells me anything, they tell me anything”. In which to share a moment of the little girl’s life routine, albeit at a distance, “I had to hire detectives. At least – almost justified – to find out what school she was going to”. Slight consolation given that “in the meantime our relationship is completely destroying”. Why? “My daughter is a really abused child – she replies – but not from me. Her right to have a father has been deprived of her”. The story of AM and her little girl somehow recalls Solomon’s dilemma in a modern key. The drama begins in July 2018. The girl is 4 years old. AM and his partner decide to separate by proceeding with the joint custody of the daughter. On July 25, the mother without the authorization of her ex-partner takes the child to Puglia. Following a private agreement, AM gets to spend a week’s vacation with the baby at the end of her trip abroad before resuming the process established in September. But on the eve of his return to Italy, he receives a communication from the former partner’s lawyers: “they stated that my daughter had made statements of sexual harassment suffered by me and that therefore I would not have been able to see her – he reports – that the mother did not believe what was stated. from the child and that she should have accepted the truth. “What did she feel? “It bounced back to be unjustly accused – he replies – I didn’t feel a shred of shame. It didn’t scratch me. What mattered is that he had taken it away from me and that I had to protect it”, recalls the man. AM goes to Lecce in spite of everything, but fails to meet his daughter. He makes a complaint in the Apulian town for child abduction. In Rome he filed a complaint with the Tivoli Public Prosecutor’s Office In parallel for the civil part, between December 2018 and January 2019, the court of Tivoli appoints a Ctu. In February, the girl is subjected to a probative accident. “Listened to for over 45 minutes, she dismisses her mother’s complaint and says ‘I’m sick, I miss my dad’. From every encounter the mother’s constant manipulation of our daughter emerged.” , AM remarks that at that time she met the child in neutral space for an hour a week traveling between Rome and Lecce. Then on the basis of the Ctu appraisal and also of the manipulation that emerged during the probative incident in Lecce, in April 2020 the court of Tivoli decided to entrust the child to the social services of the municipality of residence of San Cesareo, in the province of Rome, with exclusive placement at the paternal home starting from September 2020, preceded by progressive meetings with the parent to prevent the passage from being traumatic, but the mother of the child prevents the ex-partner from meeting her despite the complaints. Only in August 2020, thanks to the mediation of a social worker from the municipality of Di Lequile (Lecce) “I get closer to her – recalls the father – But September 1 is the apocalypse: The little girl locks herself in a bedroom refusing to leave with me. The mayor intervenes with the social workers who invites me to leave the house. My ex-partner turns to another prestigious lawyer who asks for the intervention of the Juvenile Court of Lecce, who in turn , after having listened to my daughter without the presence of a psychologist, overturns the ordinary provision of Tivoli; it forbids me to meet the child and asks for the intervention of the Court of Appeal of Rome “. Rome in November 2020 suspends the sentence of the Lecce court considering it completely incompetent and orders the immediate resumption of meetings between father and daughter for one hour a week, setting the hearing in January 2021. “But my daughter did not want to more to see me, he rarely spoke to me hiding behind a corner and turning his back on me “, recalls his father. In March 2021 the Court of Appeal decided with immediate effect the transfer of the child to the family home, entrusting her to the social services of Lecce and appointing the mayor her tutor. It also instructs the social services to execute the provision using the public force if the mother does not cooperate. But silence looms. Broken a few days ago by the mayor of Lecce who “asks the Court of Appeal of Rome to suspend the provision”. In the document sent, the mayor claimed that not even the Police Headquarters would be available to intervene. A fact which has been confirmed by the documentation received by the Court of Appeal: “The Police Headquarters has communicated to the social services to define the day and place of the intervention but the answer never arrived”. Last but not least, the latest discovery: “the child’s grandmother did the same thing with her husband, distancing him from her daughter in the 1990s. We found the document that will be transferred to the Court of Appeal”. Courses and appeals of life that to date not even justice has been able to block. (by Roberta Lanzara)