By: Thomas Fidler
The Father’s Rights Movement

March 2, 2012

We, the undersigned, are writing in hopes of bringing to your attention a dire injustice that is occurring in our state as well as many others across the US. Laws enacted to protect the victims of the vile crime of domestic violence are being misused by both citizens as well as law enforcement, and in this process innocent men’s lives are being destroyed.

In most states, including Alaska, the burden of proof is being thrown out and the simple word of the accuser is being taken without question, many times without the accused even being allowed to speak.

True victims of domestic violence, some of whose names you will find below, find this to be deplorable.
Not only can someone falsely accuse another of domestic violence without fear of consequence, but the accused has no voice against the accuser. The accuser can be a mentally disturbed individual using such laws to exact her revenge against a man who simply does not want to be in a relationship anymore, and their word is automatically taken, even when no evidence is in place.

The accused in such cases is automatically arrested, injunctions are automatically set in place, and even if he is able to prove his innocence in court he has lost months of his life due to the fact that she cried wolf. Worse yet are the cases of these innocents who are poor and have no means to hire private attorneys. Their public defenders assume they are guilty and therefore do only the bare necessities to be their legal voice.

We are not in any way asking for a revocation of the laws that protect true victims of domestic violence. Our wish is that these laws be revisited and indications made to allow for criminal and civil prosecution when someone, whether male or female, has misused these laws in a vindictive and cunning way. We also would ask that law enforcement officers, public attorneys, and judges be forced to recognize the precept that the accused is innocent until proven guilty.

I have lived in Alaska my entire 41 years and have been a lifeguard, a volunteer firefighter and EMT, a member of the MSB Local Emergency Planning Committee and a local business owner. I love my community and I love my children, but I too have been falsely accused of Domestic Violence. I have seen my children only 3 days since before Christmas 2011.

I am forced to listen to my daughter call me on the phone leaving messages where she is crying for me to please call her back and let her know I am OK. I can hear my soon to be ex-wife in the background chit chatting with her new friend unconcerned about her daughter crying to know where her daddy is.

I suspect she know our daughter calls me and thinks the tears and crying of our daughter might provoke me into violating the restraining order and call her back. She could then have me thrown into jail and lose any chance of future custody. She may end up being right as with each call I feel my resolve slipping. She moved out of our marital home with all of the family money, leaving me penniless only to find the checks I signed over to her to pay the bills had not been used for that purpose and the utilities are now all subject to immediate disconnect.

She filed the DV charge because I discovered my son posted on Facebook thoughts of suicide and not being able to get in touch with her so we could speak to him drove to her house where she had custody of them for the week. I found her absent from the new home and at her boyfriend’s house in the middle of the night.

I couldn’t care less about that, but I learned the next morning, she had left my two 11 year old children alone in the night sleeping in their beds and no idea she had even left. To make it worse she had turned her phone off so if they had woke up they would have been unable to reach her. We were sharing custody at the time and I told her if she did it again I would call the police and take the children into my custody. She did it again two night later.

I brought the children home with me and decided I would not call the police on her. That was a mistake. I filed divorce the following Monday and after my wife was served the paperwork I was immediately served with a restraining order for domestic violence and I am now unable to even go near the new townhouse to ensure the behavior is not continuing.

This law is entirely out of control.

There needs to be penalties to these people who abuse the system for their own selfish gain. The law was enacted to protect innocent powerless victims not create new ones, which is what it is doing at a ratio of creating 4 new victims to every 1 it actually helps protect.

Before this happened to me I was clueless to the injustices of this law, nor did I realize just how common of a divorce tactic it has become.

I am aware now and I can tell you, this is something I will be watching with great interest to determine just which constituent will gain my vote from now. If I am not entirely alienated from my children during this whole proceeding and I have a chance to see and hug them again and hopefully raise them, I will teach them the importance of watching our legislature elected and the way they vote in the interests of those they serve to determine their own votes someday.

Respectfully,

Thomas Fidler
556 Deshka Ridge Drive
Palmer, Alaska 99645 907-746-6535
The Father’s Rights Movement
http://www.facebook.com/fathers4kids

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