Beth Schlesinger (Custody of Children)

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to have the opportunity of this Adjournment debate to bring the case of Beth Schlesinger to the attention of the House and, hopefully beyond this House, to the whole country. I believe the injustice that has happened to Beth Schlesinger deserves a wider audience and wider understanding than has been the case so far, although the case has already attracted international attention if my inbox is anything to go by. I have had e-mails from the United States, Italy and Israel as well as Austria, thanking me for bringing the case of Beth Schlesinger to this House’s attention.

I request that the Government take some action on this case, although I am under no illusion that that is very difficult for the Government, even with the best will in the world. Austria is a modern European country with a judicial system that follows the rules of natural justice and it is very difficult for any Minister from that country, let alone this country, to comment on, or interfere in, the process. However, such is the scale of the injustice that has happened to Beth Schlesinger that I hope the Minister can in some way approach the Austrian ambassador to the United Kingdom or the Austrian Government to express the concerns that many of my constituents have on this matter. Beth Schlesinger lives in Vienna at present, but her parents are my constituents.

This case is Kafkaesque. That is an overused word, but what has happened to Beth Schlesinger defies normal understanding. Authorities have taken decisions about her life and her children’s lives which are inexplicable and certainly unjust.

The best way to explain to the House what has happened is to go through the chronology of the events. Beth Schlesinger—her maiden name was Alexander—married Mr Schlesinger in October 2006. On 24 May 2009 the twins Samuel and Benjamin were born to the couple. Unfortunately the marriage then deteriorated and Mr Schlesinger, became violent and abusive towards Beth Schlesinger, and on 15 February 2010 Mr Schlesinger tried to have Beth committed to a mental hospital in Austria. Because there had been violence against Beth, however, the police were called and they removed Mr Schlesinger from the family home. He was given five minutes to pack his bags, and a restraining order was placed on him. He was subsequently given limited access to the children. Full custody was given to Beth Schlesinger; he was given two hours’ supervised access, three times a week.

So far, so understandable, unfortunately. It is not an uncommon arrangement for married couples, in this country and elsewhere in Europe, for the mother to end up with custody and for the father to have supervised access because of his violent activities. Mr Schlesinger had been violent and abusive not only towards Beth but towards her father and her father-in-law.

Then, things took a turn for the worse. Mr Schlesinger requested a friend of his, Konstanze Thau, a high court judge in Austria, to contact Susanne Göttlicher, the judge in charge of the case. It is highly irregular for a high court judge to intervene in another court on behalf of a father who has shown himself to be violent. However, after that meeting, Beth’s custody rights were reduced. The judge also ordered that the children were not to leave Austria.

In January 2011, the father was given further, unsupervised, access to the children. I am told that that happened through a legal technicality. Let us remember that, after the violent episode, Mr Schlesinger had tried to have Beth committed. I suppose we would call it “sectioned” in this country. A doctor, Ulrike Willinger, then produced a psychiatric report on Beth, in which she recommended, without having fully examined all the people involved in the case, that the children should be returned to Mr Schlesinger’s control. That report was considered by the judge on 17 June 2011.

A further report was produced by Dr Sinko-Sanz, a qualified psychiatrist, which informed the court that there was nothing wrong with Beth and that the children were developing normally. Social services put in a similar report. Unfortunately, however, Judge Susanne Göttlicher —who had previously been visited by the friend of Mr Schlesinger—decided to give full custody to the father. That was an extraordinary decision, and no details were given in the order of how the handover should happen.

In October 2011—this is a crucial point, because these decisions were never carried out—Beth brought an appeal and the father’s rights were reduced; he was granted only temporary custody. Crucially, the higher court asked for a further investigation, and that reports should be drawn up on the children, the father and the mother. That instruction from the higher court was never carried out, however, and the only reports that were ever produced for Judge Göttlicher’s court were those relating to Beth. The father was told by the courts—there is a specific word for this, as is often the case with the German language—to give as much information to the children’s mother as he could so that she could understand all the needs—

--- Later in debate ---

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Karen Bradley.)

[Graham Stringer]

The father was basically asked to tell the mother what the children’s needs were and what was happening, but what actually happened was that he cancelled 50 of Beth’s visits. Rather than him looking after the children, Filipino nannies were hired to do that for 12 hours a day and at weekends, and to take them to and from the nursery. Beth became more and more worried about the children; Samuel had four teeth taken out without any medical reasons given and Benjamin had two teeth removed. Beth was not only worried about what was happening, as the visits were cancelled and the children were upset, but it became clear that in the court’s previous decision Judge Göttlicher had suppressed a report from the nursery which had shown, and expressed the view, that when the children were seeing the father they had been crying and screaming, and had been extremely distressed. Clearly, Judge Göttlicher had had that report but it was not used. Things went from bad to worse, in terms not only of access to the children, but finance. Mr Schlesinger stopped paying maintenance and, indeed, tried to demand that Beth paid maintenance. She was now given access only on two afternoons a week and three hours every second Sunday, which represents an extraordinary turnaround from the original situation.

In July 2013, the judge awarded full custody to the father. At this time, crucially, no assessment of the father, or of the father with the children, had taken place. Beth had been examined in German for the psychiatrist’s report that had recommended against her. She is not fluent in the language, and so her answers had been slow, which was counted as a mark towards her being considered mentally unstable. Some of the relationships involving Judge Konstanze Thau became clear, and not only the one with Mr Schlesinger; her husband worked in the same hospital as Dr Willinger. I do not usually believe in conspiracies, but in this case the decisions that were taken were so strange that one has to suspect that undue influence and conspiracy were taking place.

Beth has asked me to draw to the House’s attention a case of a similar custody issue, although much more extreme in many ways, that has been before the higher Austrian courts in the past week or so. It involved a neglected and filthy child—not the same as in the Schlesinger family’s case—that had been taken away from the mother, who was deemed to be inadequate. The higher courts in Austria said, in giving the child back to the mother, that a loving child’s bond is of “paramount consideration”. I agree with that, and that Austrian court got it right in a much more difficult case than this one. Court cases are always difficult to compare because they involve details that one does not know, but I think that that case highlights what has gone wrong in Beth’s case.

I want to thank a few people before I come to my conclusion on this case. I have been to see the Austrian ambassador about this matter. He was courteous and listened carefully before explaining the situation to me. The Minister has received a delegation consisting of me and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis), and I am grateful to him for that. I know that he is familiar with the case and sympathetic, and I hope that he will listen to what are outrageous decisions from the Austrian courts and, even with all the difficulties that I have explained, take action on them.

I have great respect for the Austrian state. As a Minister I had regular meetings with Austrian Ministers. I like Austria, but the decision in Beth Alexander’s case is a blight on the Austrian judicial system and I hope that it will be put right. Brought to its bare bones, this case is about a violent father who has been violent towards the mother of his children and other members of the family and who has been given custody of two children. The children are clearly unhappy. They do not speak very well, and they are still in nappies beyond the age of four. He was given custody after exerting undue influence on the courts over a mother who is completely blameless. As a Member of this House for 16 years and a councillor for many years before, I have rarely come across a case of such injustice. Despite all those difficulties, I hope that the Minister, who has shown that he is interested and sympathetic, can be of help.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I want to put it formally on the record that I thank the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) for bringing this case to the House’s attention. I also speak on behalf of my constituent, Adrian Alexander, who is the brother of Beth Schlesinger. Adrian and I had cause to visit the ambassador at the Austrian embassy and we discussed the case with him. I came away with the feeling that even the ambassador was confused about some of the details, particularly about the recent judgment in which there was no recitation of the facts of the case. If we could at least establish what we are dealing with, we could seek some kind of resolution. As I have said, I want to place it formally on the record, on behalf of Beth’s family, that we thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this matter to the House tonight.

[Graham Stringer]

As I explained to the House, we are not just talking about Beth’s family. There has been concern throughout the world. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his thanks.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

This case has caused considerable concern among my constituents. At the start of the hon. Gentleman’s very fine comments, he talked about the Austrian judicial system following the rules of natural justice. Is he aware that in the judgments handed down by the judges there has been no explanation as to why Mr Schlesinger was favoured over Mrs Schlesinger? They simply issued a judgment with no explanation. That surely cannot be in line with natural justice.

[Graham Stringer]

I am grateful for that intervention. I am aware that justice was denied in that last judgment without any explanation. There is a great deal that mystifies me about the case—how a higher court’s decisions are not carried through, and the inadequate decision of the lower court. Even though we have slightly longer than the normal half-hour Adjournment debate, one could have taken an hour going through the technical details of the case, but I wanted to get to the heart of the subject and show the basic injustice that has happened in this case. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention.