Gareth Ward
Minister for Families, Communities
and Disability Services &
Michael Coutts-Trotter
Secretary , Professional Conduct, Ethics and Performance Unit
Families, Communities
and Disability Services 24th Nov. 2020
Dear Minister and Mr Coutts-Trotter
re John Smith
In his role as Guardian ad Litem, Dr Ainsworth damns himself with his own words. (See email exchange below) He has demonstrablynot represented Sally Smith in accordance with his legal obligations:
A GAL is responsible and authorised to make decisions in the best interests of the client only in relation to the legal proceedings in which he/she has been appointed.
A GAL when making decisions shall:
· promote the autonomy of the client;
· safeguard and represent the interests of the client;
· take into account views, opinions, wishes and feelings as expressed by the client...
Mr Ainsworth made no attempt to enquire after Sally what she felt her best interests, " views, opinions, wishes and feelings" to be. He made no effort to discuss these with her or represent them in court.
Dr Ainsworth is not fit for purpose as a Guardian ad Litem.
It will be interesting and instructive to learn whether the Guardian ad Litem Panel agrees with this assessment, or if the Panel finds Dr Ainsworth's failure to consult with his client acceptable. The same applies for yourselves, Gareth and Michael.
If Mr Ainsworth had bothered to have even one 3 minutes conversation with Sally, as opposed to 8 words shouted at her over the phone (witnessed and heard by myself) he would have realised that she was more than capable of instructing a lawyer herself, and did not need a Guardian ad Litem.
The same applies for Robert McLachlan. In a brief conversation with Sally over the phone, Mr McLachlan would have been led to wonder why on earth FACS had felt the need to force a Guardian on her.
A little delving on their part, the asking of questions, reading Sally's emails to them, would have led both Mr Ainsworth and Mr MC Lachlan to learn that FACS was relying, in its assessment of Sally's mental state, on a 20 month old clinical report; that FACS was not just ignoring more recent clinical reports, but deliberately (and, it seems, with malice aforethought) refusing to allow them to be considered by the court.
These more recent reports are, by inference, a damning indictment of the way in which FACS has handled this case, in that they make clear that Sally is suffering from severe depression as a result of her children being taken away from her.
In addition to having known Sally for close to 20 years, I have now had several weeks of very close contact with her, and two weeks of filming with her. Given my experience, I am now in a very good position to advise what I think to be in the best interests of John. I will address this question in subsequent letter. I should add here that the filming I have done with Sally is not for public consumption. If anyone senior within DCJ is interested in viewing this footage, uncut, they too will, I have no doubt, wonder why (redacted) FACS decided she could not instruct her own lawyer and why Magistrate (redacted) agreed with this assessment.
Wearing my investigative journalist's hat I have begun to post online what will, eventually, be a detailed account of how this one particular FACS case has unfolded:
http://jamesricketson.blogspot.com/2020/11/dr-frank-ainsworth-many-will-agree-with.html
As I have indicated twice now, I will redact all the relevant names and any details that could lead to the identification of members of the family involved. If my redactions, deletions and changing of names is not, in the opinion of the DCJ legal department, sufficient, please advise me.
yours sincerely
James Ricketson
25th Nov. 2020
Dear Minister and Mr Coutts-Trotter
re John Smith
I learned many years ago that when dealing with FACS that it is important to put everything in writing, because eventually a spin doctor will appear on the scene and attempt, with weasel words, to misrepresent the facts; to turn a pig's ear into a silk purse.
The spin doctor in this instance is Dr Frank Ainsworth.
Please take note of Sally's email to you both of 5th Nov 2020 (see below), copied to both Dr Ainsworth and to Sally's lawyer, Mr Robert Mc Lachlan. As Dr Ainsworth's client, Sally makes her wishes very clear in this email.
Not only did Dr Ainsworth ignore her wishes, he never once discussed them with Sally. Upon reading the affidavit he received on 13th Nov, he sent it to Sally on 15th Nov, did not inform her of the decision he had arrived at in the previous 48 hours, (no possibility of restoration), did not inform Sally that she was expected to attend court on 16th Nov. Instead, in contravention of his duties as Guardian, (see GAL Code of Conduct) he made the unilateral decision that John was better off being denied any meaningful access to his mother for the next six years, despite John's clearly expressed wish to be with his mother.
I will leave it to others, including yourselves, Gareth and Michael, to judge Dr Ainsworth's competence as a Guardian ad Litem.
In the interests of transparency, accountability and truth, let's go back to the beginning of my involvement in this matter, as far as FACS is concerned, with my email to JK of 15th September.
Dear JK
....
Last Saturday, as Sally, Julie and I sat in the sun by the water at Palm Beach, Julie expressed her wish to be with her brother, John, just five or so minutes away in Avalon, and was disappointed that she could not share the day, the sun, with her brother. This needs to change.
I...am in a position to supervise visits between Sally and John, as a first step towards making it possible for this family to spend quality time together, without stranger present taking notes.
....
I trust that any future case management plan makes it possible for Sally, John and Julie to spend quality time together with a supervisor they trust and who is, of course, competent to play that role. I am offering my services.
cheers
My objective was simple. I wished merely to assist in making it possible for John and his mother to spend time together in situations that more closely approximate normal family life than in a library with a FACS note-taker present.
The day beforehand, 14th Sept., Sally had sent JK the following:
J,
I hereby authorise James Ricketson to communicate about the matter of my son John Smith with Department of FACS.
Sincerely,
Sally Smith
And I had sent JK the following on 14th Sept:
Further to my three emails of last week.
Is this email from Sally (see below) sufficient for me to be able to advocate on her behalf? Or are there some other formalities that must be attended to?
I spent a good deal of the weekend with Sally and her daughter, Julie. Sally was a different woman to the one I had spoken with on the day she attended court - full of laughter and love. She and Julie were very relaxed together. Julie (as I call her) expressed a wish to be with her brother, John, who was only a five minute drive from where we were...This was not possible. A great pity for Julie. And for John.
I am a semi-retired filmmaker, have 34 years of experience working with complicated family matters and am in a position to supervise visits between John and Sally in the three bedroom home in Newport where she currently resides.
I will forward to you, in a separate email, my Working With Children credentials.
Sally will be meeting with John this afternoon in (redacted). I would like to join them but would prefer not to do so if I am unclear about what my rights as a friend or advocate to Sally are.
best wishes
My half a dozen or so requests of FACS over the following weeks, asking how I could officially advocate on Sally's behalf, were ignored by FACS. The argument that Sally's Guardian ad Litem could and would advocate on her behalf has been revealed, in Dr Ainsworth's treatment of Sally, to be nonsense. His role has been to place a tick in a box; to create the illusion, on paper, that Sally's interests have been considered; that due process has occurred. A host of obvious questions arise.
This is not, of course, about Sally. It is about John. His interests are paramount here.
Some indisputable facts:
John loves his mum.
John wants to be with his mum.
John cannot be restored to the fulltime care of his mum just now, for a variety of reasons.
If JK had not rejected my offer to supervise visits here is what could have happened, the objective being to maximise the amount of genuine family time John got to spend with his mother.
- I could have picked John up from his aunt's place and delivered him back there without Sally and (redacted) needing to meet each other.
- John and his mother, with me supervising, could have gone to the zoo, to the beach, for a walk to the lighthouse, played chess and engaged in the kinds of normal activities mums and their sons engage in.
- If the first few of these visits had been without incident of the kind FACS fears, John could, after a few weeks, have stayed overnight with his mother in my house.
- All the indications are that spending more time with his mother would have made John happy, and I think that all reading this will agree that John's happiness, his relationship with his mother, must be at the top of FACS' list of priorities.
- By now, late November, if FACS had allowed this sequence of events to occur, discussion could have been underway to determine in whose care John was to be placed.
One possibility would have been as follows:
- John and Sally stay in my house over Christmas, with FACS monitoring this in any way it chose.
- FACS talking with S about her offer to have John and Sally live in her new house, in the neighbourhood, when she has bought it.
- John enrolling in (local school)...
- At any point in this scenario, that it seemed not to be working in John's best interests, it could be terminated by FACS, and Plan B implemented; Plan B being John going to live with his sister in (Father # 2's home)...
- FACS has never had a Plan A or a Plan B. The only plan that has been considered is John going to live with his sister and Father # 2.
- One of the advantages of the scenario that was possible in September, and a version of which is possible today, is that John would be able to stay within the community of which he is a part, close to his...mother. Then, when he turns (redacted), just a few months away, he would be in a position to have his own young adult's voice heard when it comes to the question of whether he wishes to live with his mother, at S's, attending (local school), or with his sister and Father # 2.
yours sincerely
James Ricketson
