As time went on I spent my entire life savings, some £30,000, on trying to get access to my daughter. I even had to take Lucifer to family court to find out the name, sex and birthday of Miss T. Lucifer knew how to play the system. Not only did she qualify for legal aid, unlike me, but she would make it worse by sending in sick notes to the court to exasperate my expenses. Eventually I started to defend myself due to lack of funds and by the end I was a skilled orator and knew much of family law myself.
But it didn’t do me much good. Because of Miss T’s young age I was eventually granted 1 hour of supervised access every 2 weeks. It killed me. I couldn’t cope with that. I hated taking her out of my arms and handing her back every time. Sometimes even those visits would be cancelled at the last minute too due to ‘illness’ again. It resulted in me taking off to India for the first of many trips to try and repair my soul. I didn’t return to Australia for 5 years because I knew I’d always want to see Miss T and by then I had already broken the order twice asking why visits were cancelled etc. I knew Lucifer wouldn’t stop hurting me with this ultimate weapon until I was locked up.
Miss T is now 20 years old and of late we have struck up the basis of a solid relationship over social media. I knew even back in the 90s I would have to wait for her to grow up before I could form any sort of bond with her. Lucifer constantly slagged me off to her I know now and did all she could to turn her hatred of me into a classic ‘desertion’ play. The exact opposite of the truth. But when has the truth ever mattered when you hold all the cards in the sick game mothers play against estranged fathers?
I’ve now found out Miss T suffers with much the same afflictions as I do when it comes to addictions and low self- esteem. Bless her. I’m sorry darling girl. Like you I had no choice in this and inherited it from my father like you did from me. It’s not out fault. It’s life testing us when we really need not be tested any more. This culminated in her driving a friend one night to see her ex on the dark, kangeroo-laden roads of the bush in New South Wales. She was in a unfamiliar car and being stressed with unhelpful directions when quite suddenly,the vehicle blew a tyre and eventually rolled killing her best friend and seriously injuring my daughter too.
She’s now facing a lengthy jail sentence for ‘Causing death by culpable driving’ or something like that. And as close to her as I now am, emotionally and physically, being here in Thailand, I cannot get to her. I was eventually excluded for life from Australia thanks to Lucifer. It’s funny, 200 years ago we used to send our convicts there for lifetime exclusion.. the irony. That’s another chapter too.
I don’t know how she is facing this with only her warped mother by her side. Many friends in their nievity of youth have blamed and blanked her for the death of her friend. I’m sure no one feels worse than my daughter does. She is an extremely brave young lady. And it is my hope that the courts will go as lightly on her as possible. And that when her life is her own again, the period of reflection and self-growth she will discover inside will give her a new outlook. A fresh start. She will still be only in her mid twenties by the time she is released. She is already planning to study and better herself and make good use of her time. I also hope the period away from the ‘mates’ that led her astray will help her with her own monster in the wardrobe.
It’s funny (that’s not the word I was looking for), I feel I have let her down as much as I feel there was nothing I ever could have done to help her before. When you are excluded from a country so far away and you cannot go back there ever what can anyone really do? I’ve asked her to come and visit me here in South East Asia but it seems her bail conditions will not even allow that. I’ve not seen her in person since she was 6 years old.
But I don’t give up hope. And I have been never given up hope that one day we will again be together.
If you give up on bope, what else is there?
