Bipolar Mum wobbled giving evidence, and this was a bad thing apparently

DIGG This
So in the summing up. The Judge referred to moments, whilst I was being cross examined, of “wobbling” using her words. She used this in her summing up as an example of my emotional instability. I cried momentarily twice during the 10 day proceedings, 3 of which was me being cross-examined by an extremely, and unnecessarily, aggressive barrister. During the first week of the trial, I had to sit through 5 days of other people giving their views on me – only on me, not anyone else. 5 days of being scrutinised, criticised, analysed, mostly by people who barely knew me. Yet these people felt they were in a position to tell the Judge what I thought about things, how I felt about things, how I reacted, what motivated me to do certain things.

As my psychologist repeatedly told me during my sessions with him: “The only person who knows what you are thinking and feeling is YOU, not anyone else. All anyone else can do is guess.”

Yet this is what these witnesses were doing – guessing. Statements such as “The reason she behaved in that way was because she felt that…….” “It was clear that she thought………..” “I know that she felt [x] because she thought that………”

It was extraordinary to sit and listen to it all. Some of these people had only met me on a handful of ocasions, some of them only for a few hours. Yet they were all allowed to pontificate on how I am as a person. Extraordinary….

Firstly there were my husband’s 7 witnesses (2 of whom were neighbours whose sum total of experience of me amounted to around a week at most, but whose views were still sought and given consideration). One was a 17 year old babysitter, 2 were girls in their mid twenties who had no children of their own. These girls have no concept of what it is like to be a mother, yet they were permitted to give their views on my abilities as a mother! Two of them had no child care training yet they were permitted to give their view on how I was raising my children!

These witnesses were saying that I was unstable, selfish, inconsiderate, untidy, a bad housewife, a bad cook, screwed up, hysterical etc, etc. I was the worst possible wife and mother that you could possibly think of. J.K.Rowling couldn’t have come up with a nastier character if Harry’s life depended on it………..Dementors/Death Eaters/Me – we’re all in the same category……!

Then there were 2 psychiatrists and 1 psychologist. They went through my entire medical notes including all my psychology sessions where I had revealed my innermost thoughts and fears thinking, at the time, that these notes were wholly confidential and that I could say anything in those sessions without the fear of anyone else ever seeing them. Wrong: the entire court heard them, read them, scrutinised them and twisted them. I had to sit and listen to all this for 5 days being unable to defend myself, explain myself or to put any of these accusations, assertions or interpretations of my thoughts into context. Indeed, the pyschologist who took these notes wasn’t even there to be questioned on the sessions!

The only two people who knew what was said in those psychology sessions were me and my psychologist – and yet, we were the only two people who weren’t being asked to analyse and explain these notes. Everyone else had a field day! Woody Allen could have some great material in there for a hysterically funny/sad movie……I’m on the couch but everyone else is putting words into my mouth and taking thoughts out of my head…….

And, guess what: I cried – momentarily. This was evidence, according to the Judge, that I was “not a well woman”. How many people could have gone through that kind of scrutiny, criticism and blame without crying?

Most people would suffer greatly under cross examination in the High Court in these circumstances; a mother’s children are the centre of her world and therefore the thought of having them taken away would be distressing. Did the Judge really expect me not to show any emotion? If I hadn’t, would that then have been interpreted as me being “out of touch with reality”? Or how about “unable to comprehend the enormity of the allegations?” etc, etc.

My ex husband also cried, yet this was not a fact which was then used as evidence of him “wobbling” or being unstable. Quite the contrary: it caused the Judge to feel sorry for him and to consider that he had “done all that he could to keep his marriage together….”. How can one person’s tears be construed in a negative way whilst construing the other person’s tears in a postive way??

I personally think it is evident that the Judge was attributing various pieces of evidence to confirm that I had a serious mental illness and any sign whatsoever of weakness or unstability was due to being ill and not to normal human reactions to stress.

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