Latest father suicide

VANCOUVER COURT WATCH – February 4, 2003.

Court Watch Report has learned that yet another loving Canadian father has fallen victim to the death machine of Canadian fathers – that institution referred to as the family court system, which is well-known for its ability to drive loving parents to the breaking point, including the taking of their own lives.

The latest tragic family law related suicide occurred in British Columbia, where, on Thursday January 23, 2003, 42-year-old Mark Edward Dexal died from hanging himself after giving up with his battle against Canada’s biased and morally corrupt family court system.

All who knew Mark described him as an affable man with a strong sense of justice and who frequently showed up in court to support others.

Officers with the RCMP discovered his body the day following his death in a small motel room that he had rented just outside of Kamloops, B.C.

This latest tragedy has shocked many non-custodial parents among the local support group Parents of Broken Families and other non-custodial parents’ groups across the nation.

This latest death served as yet another grim reminder of the similar tragedy involving Darren White, another loving British Columbia father, who also took his life back in early 2000 because of the same family court system injustices. Mark left a handwritten suicide note in which he severely criticized the family court system. It was clear that he was driven to the point of hopelessness and despair where, to him, only death could be his only escape from his pain and anguish.

The day before Mark took his life was the one-year anniversary of when he had last seen his now almost 3-year old son.

Friends reported that he had been denied seeing his young son for over a year and that his relationship with his son was being destroyed through a process referred to as parental alienation. The process of parental alienation begins when the custodial parent (usually the mother) denies the child’s access to the father with the support of the family court system.

Mark’s attempts to have access to his son were quashed by an irresponsible judge, who in a previous proceeding, told Mark that any access was up to his ex-wife and her lawyer, an unscrupulous solicitor who had managed up to that time to have all of Mark’s access suspended.

Even though the judge may have been right and legally allowed to make such a comment, it is a reflection of how out of control and out of touch with the needs of children and parents the morally corrupt family court system is. Access denial to children through courtroom skullduggery is common today in family courts with the children being used as pawns by the court system to keep the parents in endless court battles.

Mark had been scheduled to appear in court on January the 29th, in yet another appearance in a series of proceedings that began over a year before and which up till then had yielded no relief to his quest to see his small son.

The stresses of the adversarial system of justice, the harassment and repression of the courts and the absence of his child, combined to form a lethal mixture of depression that enticed him to take the quick exit to the torture that many fathers experience as a result of the family court system.

Prior to his death, Mark had hoped that changes to the Divorce Act, promised to be introduced by Canada’s Justice Department this year might bring hope to himself and other fathers.

Unfortunately, the amendments to the Divorce Act proposed through Bill C-22 in December of 2002, only appeared to make the family court system even more adversarial and less fair for non-custodial parents, such as Mark.

Bill C-22 offers no hope for the future and dashed any hopes that Mark might have had that the government would help. Bill C-22 actually removes from the law, a previous clause that promoted maximum contact between children and both parents.

Some of Mark’s friends felt that Mark may have given his life as a form of protest to bring attention to Bill C-22, labeled a miserable failure by Canadians affected by the family court system.

Prior to his death, Mark talked about the need for something “drastic” to be done to bring attention to the injustice of the family courts and in light of his planned suicide, many believe that Mark gave his life hoping that his death could be used to help other fathers facing the same plight of being denied access to their children by the court system.

Parents, grandparents and children rights advocates are blaming the government for all those deaths by suicide that have occurred as a result of the inaction to terminate the present system.

Canadian courts generally, give the children to the mothers and turn a blind eye to the need of children’s relationships with their fathers.

The family courts have turned into a huge money-making machine where children and families are destroyed by judges and lawyers who reap huge financial rewards in the process.

Friends of Mark’s family said that if changes had been implemented back in 1998, when they were recommended in the Joint Senate Committee’s report titled “for Sake Of The Children”, Mark’s life would have been spared and his children would still be enjoying the love and care of their father.

But it seems that the government is not truly committed to bringing relief to Canada’s children. It appears that dark and evil forces, opposed to justice for families, seem to have a firm grip of Canada’s justice department.

For Mark Dexel, the failure of the family court system to deliver justice and fairness for him and his child has resulted in yet another needless tragedy for yet another Canadian family.

Let’s hope that with his death, some of the politicians in Ottawa will finally listen to Canadians and not to those in the Justice Department who seem less interested in justice that they are in filling the pocket books of those in the legal industry.