Expert Witness Malpractice and Fraud
When "mental health professionals" are a danger to child safety and welfare
This 85-year-old neuropsychiatrist is Dr Dubravka Kocijan Hercigonja. She is the owner of Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja in Zagreb. Its offering of mental health services for children and young people includes assessment and therapy for children with ADHD.
During her career, Dr Kocijan Hercigonja specialised in child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy, wrote a dissertation on psychiatric changes in people with epilepsy and founded the Centre for Autism in Zagreb. She is the first President of the Zagreb branch of the Croatian Catholic Medical Association.
Many Croatians take a dim view of the intermingling of religious conviction and medicine, as well as other areas of the state. More than 50 % of Croatian gynaecologists register conscientious objections to performing abortions, meaning women in Croatia have difficulty accessing their legal right to healthcare. Right wing religious fundamentalism plays an important role behind the scenes in family court in Croatia and globally, but there’s enough material in that for another post.
My children and I ended up at Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja in Spring 2022, after six years of child abduction and child custody proceedings in Croatia. In July 2019 Zagreb County Court had overturned a decision awarding joint custody of my children to me and their father. The County Court found that the children’s rights had been breached because the court had not established their wishes and feelings, nor had they been assessed by an expert witness.
“…the welfare of the child must be given priority, which means in the broadest sense making a decision in keeping with that which the child would decide for themselves (about themselves) if they were capable of that...”
In family law cases, expert witness reports are seen as the most compelling piece of evidence on which a judge will base their decision. What the expert witness says usually goes.
As recently as 2020, when I was seen by an expert witness psychiatrist in the UK, I still had the notion that these people must be rigorous professionals dedicated to child welfare.
Most families who have dealt with an expert witness will know that this is very rarely the case. A very experienced, distinguished lawyer told me that the question of psychiatrists and psychologists is a particularly problematic aspect of the secret family courts. Legal scholar Martha Albertson Fineman agrees.
“Parental Alienation” in Croatia
In 2021 a scandal broke out surrounding the Zagreb Child Protection Clinic, which had been seen as the gold standard in Croatia for work with abused children, and also in providing assessments in family law cases. An investigative journalist met tens of mothers who reported the most horrifying malpractice at the Clinic, including serious data breaches and children being ripped away from their mothers and placed in the care of convicted batterers and suspected paedophiles.
The “Poliklinika”, as it is popularly known, is a medical institute which I can demonstrate has a licence to print fraudulent, dangerous reports for family law cases. When I visited, it had an army of very young female staff, some of whom took the most extraordinary care of their physical appearance, like their mentor and former head, Gordana Buljan Flander.
I know that at least one of these young mental health practitioners is the daughter of an eminent Croatian psychiatrist. I believe that the Poliklinika is, like many (most?) Croatian public bodies, little more than a place where the Croatian “elite” can employ their offspring. As salaries in Croatia are not high, there is a tendency for people working in the public sector to find “creative” ways to supplement their earnings.
Bringing in very young employees is an excellent way to undermine professions. They can be trained up in ideology which they may accept without questioning, especially if they have been raised steeped in the mindset and enjoying its fruits.
One of Buljan Flander’s daughters is the deputy of the Croatian Children’s Ombudsman, the other is also “of the system”, as is one of Kocijan Hercigonja’s daughters. These identikit glamorous women have their tentacles throughout the entire system.
Mothers who have had their children taken on the back of the Poliklinika’s reports claim that the going rate for sorting out child custody cases for “VIP clients” is 10,000 Euro. I have heard from allegations from different sources that money is exchanging hands to “arrange” child custody cases. Two claim to have evidence.
The journalist who exposed the scandal at the Poliklinika, Jelena Jindra, revealed that the entire Croatian child protection system, including the courts and social services, had been trained in “parental alienation” ideology, which asserts that parents and children who try to protect themselves from domestic and sexual abuse in family law proceedings are lying and trying to maliciously prevent the other party having a relationship with the child. This is viewed by “PA” practitioners as being worse abuse of the child than suffering incest or being beaten. So the child is sent to the very person who is abusing them.
Jindra also reported that a pair of unregulated British psychotherapists, Karen and Nick Woodall, had been received with open arms by the Poliklinika, and were providing training to its staff. There were questions asked about how a conference held on “Parental Alienation” in Zagreb in 2020 and attended by the Woodalls was funded, and an investigation into financial irregularities began.
Poliklinika staff have taken part in conferences held by the Parental Alienation Study Group (PASG), a collection of professionals and amateurs, most of whom hold virulent anti single mother views.
“Parental alienation” (or “PA”) is a legal tactic originally developed to enable powerful men to suppress allegations of abuse and control their ex partners and children. It is not recognised in medical practice. PA was a key element in the court battle between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. Allen ended up marrying one the girls the couple adopted, while another alleges he molested her since the age of seven. A psychiatrist named Dr Richard Gardner was extensively consulted as a forensic expert during the court case. It turns out Gardner’s research methods, and his views on human sexual behaviour were abhorrent. He committed suicide in 2003 but his legacy is alive and well in family courts worldwide.
“I don’t believe you, and if you say that again I’m going to beat you.” Dr Richard Gardner’s advice on how mothers should treat disclosures of child sexual abuse.
Court ordered assessment
After extensive delays which have plagued our case, during a hearing in December 2021 Judge Neven Kucelj at Zlatar Municipal Court ordered an expert witness assessment of the family.
We had already had an terrible experience at the Zagreb Child Protection Clinic in 2020: my children and I were treated brusquely by psychiatrist Vlatka Boričević Maršanić, their “psychiatric assessment” lasted less than 5 minutes; and psychologist Ella Selak Bagarić failed to report crucial information my child disclosed. I reported the Clinic staff to multiple bodies and got nowhere, but my concerns were echoed by the journalist’s revelations. So I refused to let my family step inside the Zagreb Clinic. Instead, the judge ordered that we be assessed at Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja.
A mother warned me that others had been falsely accused of “parental alienation” at Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja. But my lawyer, Sanja Bezbradica Jelavić, told me that the results her clients had had at that clinic were less bad than elsewhere, and advised me to proceed with confidence.
However, I later learned that Kocijan Hercigonja had co-authored a book, aptly named “Abusing and Neglecting Children”, with Gordana Buljan Flander, the former head of the Zagreb Clinic who had been forced to resign. It is one of the Croatian bibles of “parental alienation”. The two women have worked so closely together that the two clinics are seen as sister institutions.
At Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja
I attended two sessions with Dubravka Kocijan Hercigonja. She asked me about the background to the relationship between me and my children’s father, Zvonimir Marinovic. I spoke at length about his abduction of my children in 2016 and the extraordinary domestic and post-separation abuse that my children and I had endured.
Dr Kocijan Hercigonja wasn’t very interested in this information. She gave me a test to complete: the Ackerman-Schoendorf Scales for Parent Evaluation of Custody (ASPECT). This concerned me as I could see that the questions were aimed at detecting PA while domestic abuse was completely absent. I have learned it is an obsolete and scientifically unreliable scale, just one bad tool in the toolbox of family court charlatans. In child custody cases, domestic abuse is by law a deciding factor. The European Parliament, UN and other bodies have strongly recommended that PA be banned.
I brought to the next session a folder of legal texts, including a brilliant analysis by Professor Nils Melzer, former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, identifying domestic violence and institutional failure to protect victims as a form of torture. This eminent child psychiatrist did not display any interest in the Special Rapporteur’s work.
I became further alarmed when my children spoke to me about their first visit to Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja. They were 8 years old at the time, and had only been learning Croatian intensively for a year and a half. They told me that they had had to complete written tests with almost a hundred questions written in Croatian, which they found very stressful. They were worried they had got some of the answers wrong.
I asked Dr Kocijan Hercigonja which tests were to be administered to my children and I, drawing on my right to informed consent as a patient and as a parent. She was not willing to give me details of the assessments, how they were to be administered, nor by whom they had already been administered. This made it impossible for me to give my informed consent, which is the legal right of every patient.
Consent is a highly problematic issue in family law, as assessments and treatments are always mandatory, and often coerced. Coerced healthcare has also been identified by the UN as a form of torture. The question perhaps should be, what are litigants in family law cases doing in mental health assessments at all?
Dr Kocijan Hercigonja claimed that the tests were administered to my children verbally, but this contradicts what my children told me and I do not believe her. She would not give me any of the completed test materials, so there is no way of knowing, or of seeing if her final report was even based on the answers my children gave. However, she read from an extensive report by a colleague which validated some concerns I had raised.
Dr Kocijan Hercigonja told me that it didn’t matter that my children had had difficulty understanding the questions. According to the eminent psychiatrist, it is absolutely fine if children answer the questions in psychiatric assessments randomly.
Fear of being sectioned
My next shock came when I received an email inviting me to attend the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital in Zagreb for my assessment with psychologist Sanja Maroević. Maroević is the Head of the Department for Clinical Psychology at the hospital. Until recently she was a member of its Ethics Committee, but I see her name has now disappeared from its list of members.
By this point I was well and truly weirded out. Why would a tiny private clinic be outsourcing work to the country’s leading psychiatric hospital? Why would a doctor sitting in a state-funded hospital be carrying out private assessments, which last at least a couple of hours per person? I find it extraordinary that I have documents in my electronic case file proving that the court didn’t see anything odd about paying Maroević directly into her personal bank account. An impacted Croatian father, Dominik Kovač, has told me that this practice is commonplace among expert witnesses, and that there has been a recent scandal exactly about hospital doctors carrying out private work in the Croatian press, with the Minister of Health threatening to sanction them. Dominik has extensive evidence of perjury, fraud and other criminal wrongdoing which is resulting in the institutional abuse of his children. I have spoken to other Croatian parents who say the same, and who have reported everything to the appropriate authorities who are covering it up.
I reached out to other parents going through family court proceedings in Croatia to see what their experiences were with Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja. Several other mothers warned me that I could not expect a good outcome at Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja, as they were routinely handing custody of children to abusive men through “parental alienation” allegations. They suspected that the outcomes of reports were influenced by money exchanging hands, and at least one was taking legal action. I have been advised by two lawyers that it is currently unlikely that you can sue an expert witness, as you would have to rely on the testimony of another expert witness who is unlikely to testify against a colleague in a small country like Croatia.
Ana’s story
I connected with Ana Saratlija, a mother who had already gone public in the media over the failure of the Croatian institutions to protect her children, both of whom have been diagnosed with early complex trauma, while her son has complex healthcare needs. What Ana told me shocked me deeply. Her children’s father had a conviction for domestic violence with a 6 month restraining order, and had been on trial for sexual abuse and other serious criminal offences against his children for years when they were assessed by Kocijan Hercigonja and Maroević.
The father’s psychometric tests came up with many issues, while Ana’s was normal. Kocijan Hercigonja and Maroević in their report tried to suppress all the issues concerning the childrens' father, not mentioning his violence or abuse, describing Ana as a “manipulative mother”. This term is a frequent label in “parental alienation” cases in Croatia, referencing a book authored by Kocijan Hercigonja and Buljan Flander.
Ana reports that Kocian Hercigonja tried to conceal that she was a co-author of the book she referenced in the expert witness report, and thereby referencing her own work. She attempted to avoid appearing as a witness in court and send another person from her private clinic to defend the report.
Ana, like me, considers that Kocijan Hercigonja and Maroević behaved unprofessionally and through obvious abuse of power tried to hide crucial facts about our children's fathers. It is possible that they also took revenge on Ana for the slight to their egos because she sought a second opinion and asked for the exemption of Kocijan Hercigonja and her colleagues. From this it follows that Kocijan Hercigonja and Maroević intentionally endangered Ana's children, and we know that there are others like us. Ana’s son and daughter still experience serious health impacts as a consequence of abuse by the father and secondary institutional abuse.
Dominik Kovač, a Croatian father who has, together with his children, also endured years of institutional abuse at the behest of his influential ex-wife told me that Kocijan Hercigonja is the mentor of Gordana Buljan Flander and responsible for importing the US-style family court business model into Croatia. The web of the network in the “child protection system” is complex and has been documented by the journalist Jelena Jindra.
As a result of what I learned, I was frightened to go to the Vrapče hospital. It was becoming clear I was heading towards “parental alienation” accusations which may be almost impossible to avoid if you advocate for the rights, safety and welfare of yourself and your children. After 6 years and 3 changes of country of residence and primary caregiver, it is impossible to avoid answering the questions of growing children.
The exhortations of the “professionals” not to discuss what is happening led me to conclude that I was being asked to participate in the psychological abuse and emotional neglect of my own children by failing to provide them with the support they needed to navigate our horrendous situation. Telling your child the truth is considered worse than child abuse by the “parental alienation” community, which is hellbent on silencing mothers, children and victims of abuse. However, leading child-care experts and studies show that children can feel very bad when they are left in the dark.
I was also increasingly concerned about the risk of labelling with fraudulent mental health diagnoses, which has been a means of psychiatric control over women since time immemorial, but is almost inescapable for mothers in family law.
Sectioning someone on mental health grounds is a convenient way of getting rid of whistleblowers, and the Vrapče Psychiatric Hospital has had a number of such cases in the public domain, including a family law case where a judge seeking a divorce had his wife wrongfully sectioned.
The story of B
A friend of mine, B.I., a highly intelligent woman, was falsely diagnosed with delusional disorder for “having a paranoid fear that the institutions were persecuting her”, and was forced to take anti-epileptic medication which she didn’t need and made her dizzy. She was also forced to attend “therapy” at a psychiatric hospital several miles away. She is almost blind and has no transport. She tried to get there by bike and fell off due to the dizziness. She could have been killed, and considers this attempted corporate manslaughter. When she refused to continue with the therapy, social services on the island of Rab punished her by taking her child away.
B has now had a complaint she wrote herself upheld at the Croatian Constitutional Court, which repealed all her judgments and expert witness reports. The Constitutional Court ruled that B could not have been delusional as she has represented herself in court for 2.5 years.
You can read the full, scathing Constitutional Court judgment (Croatian language) here.
However, social workers on the island of Rab are still trying to reduce B’s contact with her child to one hour a week under supervision. B reports that following a conversation with social services a doctor in a local Accident and Emergency unit labelled her child with Borderline Personality Disorder during a visit for a nosebleed. There is no end to the harassment and social services are completely ignoring the Constitutional Court judgment.
It is hard to comprehend that around the world lower courts and social services are behaving like a law unto themselves and tormenting families. It is total anarchy.
B notes similarities of the way the authorities are treating families with Nazi projects such as the Lebensborn programme, especially in the way they violate the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Not infrequently, mothers in family law cases are deprived of their liberty in secret proceedings with no chance of a fair trial, as I found when I ran a survey for the UN Special Rapporteur’s call for evidence for a report to be submitted to the Human Rights Council this year.
After writing several letters to Poliklinika Kocijan Hercigonja voicing my concerns, I cancelled my appointment at the hospital and withdrew from any further participation in the assessment, for my own safety.
The report
My first reaction when I received the report was hilarity. Having heard what I’d heard from so many mothers, it was not a surprise: I had finally been slandered with a fraudulent mental health diagnosis! It had taken 6 years. Why had it taken so long? It felt like a badge of honour.
This is what Kocijan Hercigonja had to say about me:
“Psychiatric profile: During the conversation focused on justice, the law and the proceedings she has lodged and which are in progress, all with the aim of the children living with her in England, because she does not consider the father to be an appropriate parent. It is difficult to divert her to other topics and she only sees her part of the problem and situation, and rejects the possibility of seeing the other side, such as the suggested joint discussion. She is tense, broad stream of thought, but on topics which she considers important, which are court and the proceedings until now. She is rigid, she does not listen to others' reasons and suggestions. She states numerous traumatic experiences in Croatia (mostly related to changes in employment and the reasons for them), she is extremely projective to the point of paranoid positioning both in relation to her ex husband, and to the entire justice system in Croatia, various institutions, and the expert witnesses themselves nominated for this report by the Court. It is possible to speak of characteristics of personality disorder. The mother wishes to terminate this assessment, which was initiated by the husband.”
What she had to say about the children was horrifying:
“He describes how he went to school in England for one year and it was better for him than in Croatia where he has been going for two years, because the food is better and the teacher "shouts less". He adds that he has more friends in England, but on the mobile phone,..”
“…says that he would like to live in England, but spontaneously adds that he would come to see dad...”
“He says, ‘When I have a real home in England I will have 6 dogs and 6 cats and 3 rabbits’ He wants to live in a house with a garden, and his grandma and grandad in England have that. ‘Dida and baba in Zadar hate animals, and dad only likes dogs’”
“Burdened by the family dynamics, and also the way of life and information that they have about England, which they idealise, while they criticise Croatia, describing their time in nursery school as negative, chaos, and the teacher in the school as strict.”
“‘…dad thinks that it's better and easier in Croatia, and I think it's better in England.’ The boy also says ‘In England the school is better, and mum can find work, but in Croatia when she finds work they throw her out of her job.’ If mum was working in England they would be with grandma and grandad.”
“The children verbalise that it is better in England, they list their friends, their preferred food, education: they speak "their mother's language".
“He returns to England where the ‘teachers are gentler’, but in Croatia in nursery school it is chaos. They ‘pushed his brother to eat meat and the teacher pushed meat into his mouth with her hands’.”
“In relation to school, he describes, like his brother, the school in Croatia where he has no friends apart from X while in England they have - over the mobile phone.”
“The mother meanwhile sent an email to the Clinic critical comments about the psychiatrist, his expertise and professionals entering into the private activities of the expert.”
“The mother was experienced during the assessment (in the part which was successfully carried out) as very rigid along with elements of personality disorder.”
“The father responded normally in all parts of the whole process of assessment with appropriate motivation and orderly cooperation (except for it was impossible to carry out the joint discussion with the mother because of her refusal). On the basis of the obtained results, we consider that he has appropriate parental competencies and there were no psychopathological deviations. The children are burdened by the way of life and parental relations, especially X, and it is necessary to secure a quality way of life for the children through the cooperation of the parents and putting in first place the interests of the children;...”
I have to point out how little tolerance Dubravka Kocijan Hercigonja for anyone criticising her country. My children and I are not allowed to have an opinion on which country they prefer. She has discriminated against us as British nationals, as a mother and as children. Family court is an arena where outrageous discrimination is de rigeur.
She mentioned very little of the results that she gave verbally to me about the children, which were matters of real concern relating to their health and development. They were absolutely relevant to the case as I had voiced these concerns, while the father ignored them.
The above notes illustrate how expert witnesses weaponise “alienation” ideology without mentioning the word.
If what the children say deviates from the preferred narrative, then it is “coaching” by the targeted parent.
If a parent complains about violations of the law or professional standards, they are labelled with mental health disorders.
The voice of the child, enshrined in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is silenced and their rights ripped up.
Article 12
1. States Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
2. For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.
My children have been voicing their wishes and feelings ever since they were taken by their father, in breach of our agreement, to Croatia and not returned.
In 2016 they became distressed when they saw me at home in England on a Skype call, and their father terminated the call.
In 2017 they wondered why they could not travel with their grandparents and friends to England.
In 2018 they started to become alive to the world around them, and wanted to be free to travel and visit my home country and other interesting parts of the world
In 2019 they settled happily in England when we escaped there seeking asylum from a campaign of years of coercive control, stalking and harassment.
In 2020, they told a UK Cafcass officer that they wished to remain in England. A UK High Court judge ignored them and sent them back to Croatia. Their father took them screaming and crying. They suffered months of depression, confusion and anxiety until I was able to travel to them once the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic was over. I had to work hard to rehabilitate them. They were neglected in every sense of the word. They spoke to a Croatian guardian ad litem who noted that they wished to return to England - and took 10 months to send the letter, then quibbled about social services’ desicion to grant custody to me due to the passage of time.
In 2022 Dubravka Kocijan Hercigonja had the opportunity to put this right, to uphold the wishes and feelings of two little boys whose childhoods have been cruelly taken away from them and to protect them, finally letting them return home with their mum. She failed them, and has exposed other vulnerable children to grave danger and tortured them and their mothers. How many? I am sure we will find out.
My children have been dragged through 11 meetings and assessments to ascertain their wishes and feelings over the last 3 years and ignored every time. They are royally fed up and no longer have any faith in “the system”.
Instead of dealing with the family’s problems, which are very simple - using the law to curtail the actions of a controlling, manipulative and psychologically abusive man - taxpayers’ money has been spent on messing up our lives, while social workers threaten to spend more on “therapy” (brainwashing) which my children neither want nor need.
Children need security. They need to live normal, healthy lives. Family court fanatics think it’s best to force mothers and children to stay with abusive men, while the rest of society can see that this is illegal, morally inverted, dangerous and repugnant.
To protect children, you need to protect them and their mothers from abuse. That is what the law says. If public officials cannot get that into their heads, they need to find another job: anything where they are not in contact with members of the public and can do no harm.
Socially desirable answers
Zvonimir’s psychometric test results showing an “extreme tendency to give socially desirable answers” first came up in 2017 when we were assessed by psychologist Dr Jasminka Horvatic. I was sure that the court would read between the lines and understand what that meant. I did not yet know that family court is an arena where perjury is warmly welcomed.
I spoke with a psychologist in the UK who does NOT work for the family courts. She was horrified. She said that if someone was attempting to falsify their tests, she would immediately see it as a red flag for manipulative behaviour and do depth work to look for dark tetrad personality disorders. These are not characteristics of people who should be entrusted with the care of children.
Oddly, Dr Jasminka Horvatic told my lawyer at the time, Eleonora Katic, that my ex husband was “a manipulator”, who repeated it to me. I was so naive at the time, and was disappointed that Horvatić did not put this in the expert witness report. Dr Horvatić enjoys the reputation of being the best expert witness in Zagreb.
In the family courts, a superficial psychometric test or an hour long conversation is considered sufficient to screen out serious personality disorders. At the same time, registered healthcare professionals are happy to slap a diagnosis on someone without conducting a single standard test.
A British friend of mine, a former NHS manager in mental health and corporate investigator, calls family court a “governance-free zone”.
I am not allowed to share any of this material because of dark threats that family courts are private proceedings. I am at risk of being in contempt of court, of being stopped from seeing my children or even imprisoned because I will be considered a danger to them for publishing this. But I am doing it because it is MY expert witness report. I have the right to freedom of speech. I have the right to a fair trial. The family courts are a topic that leading UK journalists recently called a matter of the most urgent public interest and I am a whistleblower. I am sharing Zvonimir’s information too because my right to a fair trial, and the rights and needs of myself and my children have been consistently, blatantly violated and this puts us all in danger if I do not speak out. The phrase “between a rock and a hard place” is particularly apt for family court victims, and I choose the rock of truth and justice as the best chance of defending my children.
I cannot stand by and let this happen any more. This is truly like living in a nightmare, for me and my children and for countless others like us. Who would have ever believed things like this could happen? Without putting the evidence out there, we are brushed off and truly look half-deranged because it our stories are so utterly unbelievable and unconscionable.
I am VERY far from being the only one. I have spoken with mothers and fathers in Croatia who told me things about “expert witnesses” and social services that chilled me to the bone. Nobody should be treated like this. No court should be admitting perjury or flouting the law. I am praying that all of this comes to light so that every single parent and child harmed by these people can secure protection and redress.
Social services – Zagreb Maksimir branch
I wrote in a previous post about the serious data breach at the Zagreb Maksimir branch of social services which led to an investigation by the Croatian Office for Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime. Zagreb Maksimir branch continually comes up as the epicentre of national scandals in Croatia.
Following the expert witness report, not unexpectedly, the report from social services was bad news.
“From the above one gains the impression that the mother burdens the children with problems which are not appropriate for their age, which have come about due to separated parenting. Also, the mother is not able to tell the difference between her feelings and needs and the children’s and does not see the existence of the problem of threatening the psychosocial welfare of the children related to her behaviour. The children reproduce the words of the mother, which indicates that their statements are not a reflection of the authentic needs and wishes of the children, rather that they are under the influence of the mother.
The very statements of the respondent in relation to the expert witness assessment are perfunctory and unprofessional. The respondent in no way proved that the named expert witnesses were biased or lacking in objectivity and professionalism. Her complaints about their work as well as their techniques show exactly what has been noticed before through working with the mother, and that is a general lack of trust in professionals and institutions. The mother objects to the working methods and tests used even though she does not possess the scientific or professional knowledge for that.
The mother seeks the recusal and replacement of the professionals who carried out the expert assessment, expressing an exceptional lack of trust in the professionals and systems and life in the Republic of Croatia in general, which creates a negative stance in the children towards life in Croatia. If the children would live with their mother, there is a risk of alienation from the father and the Croatian part of the family.
This branch is of the opinion that the conclusions of the expert witnesses are valid and that the expert witnesses have made a professional assessment of the observed facts. In accordance with the currently confirmed family circumstances, it is in the children’s interests that they continue to live with their father, and that they maintain regular contact with their mother, depending on the place of residence of the mother and the time that the mother will spend in the Republic of Croatia.
Bearing in mind the years-long high-conflict relationship between the parents and that the mother refuses to cooperate with the father in relation to the children’s needs and in keeping with expert instructions, and that expert support is necessary for the children due to the risk for their regular development as a result of the family circumstances, we suggest that the father exercises independent custody of the children with respect to their health and schooling, and in respect of other decisions which are important for the children the parents decide together.”
So, the Centre has directly accused me not only of “parental alienation”, which the European Parliament has urged Member States to ban: it is suggesting I may alienate the children from an entire country! I have heard from other mothers who have been accused of alienating children from inanimate objects.
It has claimed that I am not capable of making an assessment of the quality of the work of the expert witnesses as I am not a “professional”. Only they, the “professionals”, hold the magical power to know the wisdom of the mysterious work they do. Anyone who does not submit to their benevolent, unlawful brand of fascism is to be disapproved of. And clearly they share the view of the “experts” - that mothers should set aside their own rights and needs to live a healthy, safe life free of abuse, and that in so doing their children will be perfectly fine.
This directly contradicts the Centre’s own opinion from a year before:
The 2021 report reads:
“The marriage and the life of the children in an intact family was terminated in the manner that the father brought the children to Croatia and kept them here without agreeing on that with the mother or initiating proceedings in the institutions which arbitrate or make such decisions if the parents cannot reach agreement. He informed the mother of that only after taking the children, which is manipulative behaviour. Such actions of the father represent a risk to the children as it significantly limits the relations of the children with their mother and since then the cooperation of the parents has been significantly damaged, while for the development of children in a situation of separated parenting it is exactly the availability of both parents and their cooperation that is most important. After that the father continued living in the mother's flat right up to the end of 2017, even though he had initiated a divorce, the parents' relations were seriously damaged and there were court proceedings ongoing in child abduction and custod cases and the children were daily exposed to the conflict of the parents and living in an atmosphere of intolerance and conflict of the parents, which created emotional pressure on the children and cuased a significant development risk. Further, the father stated his readiness to reach agreement concerning parental care and equal parenting if the mother remained in Croatia, but he did not demonstrate that by his actions. He bought a flat in Zagreb and finally moved to Zagreb with the children and registered them in school because it suited him, which negatively impacted the ability of the children to have contact with their mother, who has a flat in D. Stubica....
Further, the father forced the registration of the children in school, against the opinion of experts and the mother, even though he did not prepare the children for that in any way. The children at that time did not communicate in Croatian and did not attend nursery school nor pre-school, for which reason it was difficult for them to integrate into the school, to follow the classes and become socialised. The father blames the mother for the children not speaking Croatian, even though the children spent most of their lives in Croatia where they were born and the father was only prevented from staying with and caring from them for a period of 6 months, and teaching them Croatian, which all points to failures in the parenting of the father, particularly taking into account that the father was on parental leave and states that he was dedicated to the children more than the mother was.
The mother also took the children to the UK and unlawfully retained them there without agreeing this with the father, but for the reason that after the termination of the marriage by the father and the way in which he did that carried out numerous court proceedings lasting years in child abduction and custody cases and the mother wasn't able to maintain reglar employment with adequate income. The mother also, following the breakup of the family, to a significant degree adapted to circumstances and spent the majority of her time in Croatia, despite her wish to return to the UK where she has better living circumstances, which she does not have here and so showed that she is capable of putting the children's needs before her own. From all available information one gets the impression that the mother better understands the children's needs, points out their difficulties and seeks expert help, which is also visible from the school report which states that the mother recognises the needs of the children and is particularly engaged in their upbringing, regularly cooperates with the teacher, also with the school social worker, and several times during the school year sought advice, expressed concern for the children and takes care of their potential difficulties.
On the basis of all this, we consider that it is in the interests of the children that they live with their mother and maintain contact with the father by agreement, and if there is no agreement: every first weekend in the month and half of school holidays, in the manner than both parents bear an equal cost of the costs of transport of the children. Owing to the years of conflict and that the mother showed a better understanding of the needs of the children than the father, we suggest that the mother exercises sole custody, apart from in the important right of the child to change their personal name.”
What made them make an complete about face and award custody of two vulnerable children to a father who had arbitrarily abducted them and consistently ridden roughshod over their needs?
At the time of drafting the 2022 report, the Centre staff were under investigation for corruption following a serious breach of my data privacy. I reported this to the Croatian Ministry of Social Policy, Prime Minister and others, and… silence. This opinion needs to be set aside as unsafe, and if no-one else will do it I will.
Hearing at Zlatar Municipal Court
Approaching a hearing in Zlatar Municipal Court on 11 October 2022, I was in absolute disbelief and very frightened. I was going to be sitting in a room with six people under suspicion of abuse of power: my ex husband, his lawyer Ines Bojić and four social workers. Plus two women with a track record of victimising mothers and trafficking children to violent criminals and paedophiles.
What I didn’t know was that within three months the court and its judges would also be under investigation for international child trafficking.
I calmed myself down because I knew that I had nothing to fear when I had the truth and the law on my side. I looked these people calmly in the eye and smiled.
The young lawyer who was with me did an excellent job. Only Kocijan Hercigonja and Maroević showed up; none of the social workers and no “special guardian”. We cross-examined the expert witnesses for two hours and I believe that the results were highly incriminating.
The minutes demonstrate the following facts:
the expert witness assessment did not include a thorough assessment for potential psychopathology based on the repeat results that my children’s father tries to falsify psychometric tests:
the expert witnesses ruled out suspected autism spectrum disorder in one of my children without carrying out screening for autism
the expert witnesses coerce victims of domestic abuse into covert mediation, and if they do not comply they punish them by taking their children. They do not know (or care?) that mediation is prohibited under international law for domestic abuse victims. Nor do they understand (or care?) that victims face an uphill struggle to secure a conviction. (And from what other mothers tell me, even if they do, the outcome is no different).
they do not make available the test materials on which the assessment is based, so it is impossible to see if the report correlates with the test findings; there is no scrutiny
they failed to prepare the children for the assessment in accordance with the guidelines, exposing them to stress.
“When asked by the Respondent whether if a parent who claims to be a victim of violence does not agree to a joint conversation I draw the conclusion that they are not cooperative, I answer that this is one of the elements that indicates cooperation, in the first place in the interests of children, and that parents should put themselves in second place.”
“Regarding the allegations of CZSS Zagreb, Maksimir Branch from June 2021, where it is described that the father "took the children to the Republic of Croatia and kept them without agreement with the mother, which poses a threat to the children because it significantly limits the relationship of children with the mother. Also, if the father enrolled the children in school, beyond the mother's opposition and without informing the mother, and forced enrolment despite the opinions of experts," I reply that the above-mentioned behaviour of the father is certainly not an expression of quality relationships that would put at the forefront the interests of children.”
It became clear throughout the cross-examination that these expert witnesses are hell-bent on forcing parents to reconcile, and I have learned that this is a policy which is baked into the structures of family court (and I will deal with in another post). In our situation, this translates as the children and I, even my parents, subordinating our needs to the fathers’ wishes. After child abduction and 6.5 years of divorce proceedings during which I have been crying out for someone to deal with domestic abuse they kept on saying “but the children are sad”. Yes, of course they are. But you cannot fix that by forcing parents together where one partner is riding roughshod over the rights and needs of everyone else and presents a danger to them.
If you want to protect children, you need to protect the mother and deal with the behaviour of the father. Nobody is doing that.
The judgment
I had lodged vigorous protests for months to Croatian, British and EU politicians about blatant violations of the legal and human rights of my children and myself and systemic miscarriages of justice in family law cases. Nobody has responded in any acceptable way to my appeals for help.
I called Judge Vinko Vladić, President of the Municipal Court in Zlatar to express my concerns. He stated his belief in the honesty of Judge Neven Kucelj and reiterated the need for judicial independence. I told him it was exactly judicial independence that I was worried about. He said that the blame lay with us, the parents, for not being able to sort these matters out. I reminded him that victims of domestic abuse may not be able to sort things out due to imbalance of power.
My children are unhappy with the situation, and this has been allowed to go on for far too long.
In the absence of any system which is able to uphold their rights I will do it myself.
I am these children’s mother. No corrupt, incompetent court or social worker has the right to take away from me my duty and my power to care for and protect the children I brought into the world and nurtured through their early years, and to ensure their legal and human rights are protected. They are not the property of any State and never will be. They are flesh and blood, living human beings.
As my children were complaining of stomach pains and sickness and crying, begging me not to make them leave me, I decided to cut this ghastly circus short. We have rights enshrined in law. If no-one will grant them to us, I will reclaim them myself. The children will stay with me and I will protect them.
At the time of writing this we are UK citizens under siege in Croatia, terrified of the police breaking down the door so that the children can be taken against their will for a third time, trapped with their father against their will and at the mercy of a child trafficking network. We are too scared to go out in case the children are snatched. Another mother who has lived through Hague Convention injustice, UK author Jan Ford, describes our situation as living like prisoners of war, but without the rights afforded by the Geneva Convention.
We need the UK and international community to speak out about the collapse of the rule of law in Croatia which is undermining the legal order in the EU and beyond and leading to the judicial trafficking and torture of children.
We need the children’s British passports so they can go back to the school in England that they remember so fondly and be reunited with friends and family. Their father is welcome to play a full and active part in their lives so long as he respects our rights, our needs and our autonomy.
If anyone has a problem with that they will have to deal with me, and they will torment my children over my dead body.
Brilliantly written Nataly, you are a collosus! I hope for an end to this for all our sakes, but when that will be ... is an unanswered question :-(