THIS IS HOW THE JUSTICE SYSTEM WORKS IN THE REAL WORLD. IT’S NOT WHAT THEY SHOWED US IN DEPP V HEARD.
BACKGROUND: The mother of my children who witnessed the abuse I suffered at the hands of the court system in the divorce from my first partner utilizes the same lawyer as my ex, for independent legal advice on our separation agreement when our relationship collapses, largely as a result of the mental health and financial devastation from the legal abuse. Mediation is proposed and attended but in obvious bad faith in order to comply with the “legal” requirement to mediate prior to bringing the matter to court where she then changes her dispute from the one mediated upon to a claim for a massive increase in child support and of course the start of an assault on the custody of the children. The children were removed from my custody for 3 months when the children were younger in an attempt to “break my spirit”. It took a solid year of work with the children to bring them to a point approaching normal behavior after that abuse. After a few minor attempts of gaslighting by the mother we have settled back to a resumption of 50-50 shared parenting but the child support hustle is being enforced by the FMEP, the administrators of the child support system in British Columbia, Canada. But since I’m broke from the first divorce and income is zero it’s a hard battle to collect, but try they must, because the higher court ordered it to be so. But there is a much larger story, I served the AG of Canada with the enforcement procedure of our Charter requesting the MOJ have Parliament review the conduct of judges and lawyers due to allegations of fraud and obstruction of justice however the AG refuses to respond, creating a constitutional crisis as lawyers and ultimately judges refuse to be subject to the law, a claim to be above the law and refuse for their decision to be reviewed by Parliament in a claim of undemocratic, absolute and unreviewable power. You can read that story at www.fundamentaljustice.com.
IN THE PROVINCIAL COURT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
(BEFORE THE HONOURABLE JUDGE C. SICOTTE)
NAKUSP, B.C. JULY 14, 2022
IN THE MATTER OF THE FAMILY LAW ACT
SARA RAINFORD
AND
TREVOR HOLSWORTH
Crown Prosecutor FMEP TINA WILLIAMS: if the debtor is before the court and the court finds that the debtor is capable of complying with the order, order the debtor to be imprisoned for a term [of] not longer than 30 days…So my position would be that Mr. Holsworth is currently required to pay $2,502 per month child support for the two children pursuant to the Supreme Court order. Then based on the fact that he hasn’t proven otherwise, he is in a position to pay a payment over and above that towards the arrears of support…You can find that Mr. Holsworth is capable of complying with the disclosure order, but just has decided that he’s not going to, and incarcerate Mr. Holsworth for a period of up to 30 days…If Mr. Holsworth had any appetite to change the order, certainly the Director would wait until that application came before the court, but it doesn’t appear that that’s going to happen.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: I just wanted to bring up the idea of recusal. There’s two matters that I can think of that might come into that. In our previous hearings, I’ve brought up issues that are going to come up here again.
1. The problem with the Minister of Justice not complying with the Charter, and the Attorney General, and which you ignored in a previous trial, which is conduct that I’m alleging that the FMEP is also in breach of. I’ve been communicating with FMEP through Tina, through their case worker, through Chris Beresford and through the Provincial Attorney General David Eby and they are all aware of the facts in this matter. However, no argument has been presented to dispute the facts that I present.
2. in…my previous experience with FMEP when confronted with fraud by lawyers, their decision was to delay collection of child support for five years, which was the same decision that you came to when you heard my matter about the income tax issue.
I made the same sort of arguments about failures in the rule of law at that time and your decision was to delay collection activities for five years, rather than addressing —
THE COURT: Oh, I see…Are you then suggesting that I recuse myself because of a perception of bias from yourself with respect to my ability to hear this?
CROWN CNSL T. WILLIAMS: Your Honour, I don’t understand that just for the simple fact that…this hearing has nothing to do with any of the constitutional arguments. It’s very narrow.
COURT: I’m not going to grant your application that I recuse myself. I frankly didn’t follow it particularly clearly…I agree with Ms. Williams, this is a very narrow proceeding under the Family Maintenance Enforcement Act
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: I’m talking about the problems of the administration of justice not being in compliance with the law…
COURT: Justice Lyster, I presume — I’m not privy to what happened there, but I presume she heard your arguments as well and did not give credence to them.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: No. She just refused to rule…she refused to even address the issue. I made a request for writ of mandamus. She refused to…act judicially. She refused to say yes or no, and she has refused to provide written decisions, reasons for her decisions…so it appears that Crown Counsel is aware of the arguments that I presented. Chris Beresford and the Attorney General of B.C. and the Attorney General of Canada are all aware of the arguments that I’ve made. There’s been a constitutional question presented to the court regarding the constitutionality of the Attorney General failing to respond to the enforcement procedure of the Charter…Not one single argument has been presented against it, not one…In trial with you…Crown Counsel said, ‘no comment’
So that’s a problem. I’m going to be alleging an abuse of prosecutorial discretion and requesting the court examine that as a possibility here…So going back to the previous disclosure…when I reported fraud by lawyers including failing to comply with court orders regarding trust account statements, altering and removal of court documents to conceal those facts from the court resulted in no referral to Crown prosecution or the RCMP, but FMEP granted me a five-year delay before they started collection activities. So they admitted that there was a problem. That’s why they gave a five-year delay on the collection, but there was nothing else done. That is a problem for the rule of law…I have been in contact with the Prime Minister’s office and they forwarded it back to the Minister of Justice who…gave false and misleading statements back to me. He said he had no duty…which as you know is incorrect…the PM’s office who forwarded the issue back to the Minister of Public Safety…who has not responded to me at all…
The reason why this case is here is my ex, the mother of my children, is attempting to abuse the…powers of the state to subjugate and extort me due to a perception of vulnerability as the Canadian Judicial Council claim that a woman’s word was of more weight than my evidence as a man with the transcript, which I…used to legitimately check a lawyer who created a fraudulent court order…
The separation agreement specifies a requirement for mediation in multiple places in that document. She did take it to mediation, but she mediated that the equalization payment in the separation agreement included debts plus equalization payments. Effectively, she was asking for twice as much, and that’s what we mediated on. There was nothing for me to mediate on because it was obviously bad faith mediation. The mediation failed, she took it to court in Kelowna and none of the items that were in the [mediation] — none of that was brought to court. She did not bring…[to] court the idea the equalization payment being a debt plus equalization payment. She brought up the matters of increasing my child support and she brought up matters of taking custody from me. She got primary care of the children and she increased my child support payments from $200 to $2800…I was not served…So there’s a problem with abuse of the powers of the state.
…the separation agreement that is filed with the court is a fraudulent one. I have two copies of it here. The one that she’s filed with the court has Greg Stacey, a lawyer in Nelson, who was the lawyer that did not comply with the court order to have the trust account statements presented to the Law Society, and the Law Society subsequently not providing those to me after they completed an investigation on the matter. I communicated the problems that I’ve disclosed to this court to both lawyers. I communicated the problem to my ex’s lawyer and I also hired a lawyer and I communicated the problems to him. My lawyer refused to represent me as — to the best of his abilities based on facts of my case. And I offered to mediate with her lawyer on…the outstanding issues. Got it in writing. She refused to mediate. She did not mediate prior to bringing it to court, which I believe is a problem for her as far as…conduct…with the Law Society.
If I’m going to trust the court with the best interests of my children, then the conduct of its officers and lawyers need a great deal of upgrading. There’s a very large [difference] between trust and being coerced to accept the decision of a court…I’m here trying to get justice. I’m trying to do everything in my powers to do that in a reasonable manner according to the law…
Crown here is saying, ‘We want to audit you.’ Here’s the last audit that I had with Crown. CRA — I presented a lawyer’s trust account statement on a purchase of a property detailing GST…paid to the lawyer’s trust account for the purchase of a property. The CRA comes back to me.
[As read in]:
‘Based on the information currently available, it is our view that the assessment of 15,900 in respect to the acquisition of taxable real property is correct. However, should the partnership receive evidence in the form of a cancelled cheque showing its payment of 15,900 to the Receiver General of Canada for the tax payable, we would then be able to trace the payment and ensure it is credited to the partnership account’
…paid it to the lawyer’s trust account…but Crown wouldn’t accept that as sufficient evidence
…the Law Society audited the trust account statement of lawyer Greg Stacey…But they refused to provide the results to me and ultimately did not punish either lawyer even though Greg Stacey wrote a letter admitting he failed to respond to a court order and begged for mercy. I requested written reasons from the Law Society and was refused. I went to the Ombudsman and they gave up after a year…what the Law Society did was remove all the evidence that implicated the lawyer, they wrote a letter showing the evidence that they did present. They didn’t present it to the discipline committee. They presented it to the Benchers who rejected it before it got to the Discipline Committee and that was their reason for not providing the written reasons, ’cause it didn’t go to the next level, because they denied it going to the next level. I requested written reasons how the Law Society was complying with their statutory duty to protect the public, but I’ve received no response. There is a substantive and procedural problem here that there is zero protection of my Charter rights.
If [Court is] not going to answer a constitutional question, not going to accept… the transcript of trial as being the best evidence that I can provide and can accept a woman’s voice then I don’t have any rights whatsoever in this tribunal. And as you know, I attempted to get lawyers to represent me and some of the responses were, ‘I have no experience with the matter, good luck’ or one…defence lawyer said, ‘I will not represent you now or ever’
…the CRA seized both my personal and business bank accounts. When I reported the problem of the Minister of Justice not complying with the Charter to the RCMP national intake division who’s mandated to investigate MP’s, they responded to me, ‘We will not investigate. We will destroy evidence’ The FMEP removed both my driver’s licence and my passport…when my ex took the matter to court, the judge made the payment retroactive for 12 months, so I was immediately 10 or $20,000 overdue, so…my driver’s licence and passport were removed because there was over $2,000. I had no bank account. I had no nothing. I couldn’t even get to court or to any work for a year and a half
…last time I did ask you to help me get my passport returned, and I’m going to ask you again, Justice. My father is 87 years old. I don’t know how long he’s got to live. He lives in Australia. He’s no longer safe to travel. I want to have my passport back so that I can go see my father. I have forwarded..the problem onto the passport office two years ago. I wrote to them detailing the problem of judges claiming that they can ignore the transcript of trial. I have never received a response to that letter. It is simply wrong to extort me and use my aging father as a tool of leverage.
I did…mention…concern about prosecutorial abuse of discretion…when the B.C. Law Society’s refusing to discipline lawyers and the Attorney General of B.C. And Canada know about the Minister of Justice refusing to respond to the enforcement procedure of the Charter and have produced no argument. The purpose behind the prosecution is compromised because of the abuse of process of the Crown. Combine that with the unresolved request before the B.C. Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus means that the constitutionality of the court has not been checked legitimately by Parliament and the active steps of the court and Parliament have taken to attempt to deny that process is an abuse of process… We have a constitutional crisis here along with denial with no argument and pretending we can just ignore it and everything will be fine. I’m going to refer you to Roncarelli v. Duplessis which I believe has a lot of similarities to this problem…
I’m not going to comply with their requests when the Attorney General…is not complying with the Charter
COURT: Have you been back to Supreme Court to challenge that order
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: Why would I put myself into that system of abuse? I’m only here because if I’m not here, a warrant will be brought for my arrest. I’m not voluntarily going to Kelowna to be abused. And I’ve made that point to the Minister of Justice and he is very well aware of that and the reasons why. I’ve not received a response back. How can I safely go back and have my children abused in that court? I will not do it. When I was in court back in 2005, I was a father figure to a child from the age of two to the age of 10 when that mother decided that she wanted to take everything that she possibly could steal from me. I never saw the child again…I was broke and completely mentally devastated. I was essentially incapacitated for any function for four or five years due to PTSD. I could barely change sheets at the…motel where I…work.
Landreville. [As read in]:
‘Hearsay evidence of what one has heard rather than what one knows from firsthand knowledge to be true is generally inadmissible in civil proceedings on the basis that its probative value is limited. There are a number of exceptions to the hearsay rule and one of these exceptions permit the introduction of such evidence not for the purpose of establishing the truth of that evidence but for establishing the hearer’s state of mind.’
The question remains when Judge Shaw asked my ex-wife, the plaintiff, for hearsay evidence to counter my evidence…transcript, what did he establish about her state of mind? That she could lie no matter what the evidence against her. The problem is we also learned a great deal about the judge’s mind, that he even asked the question. A judge using hearsay evidence against the transcript to protect a lawyer committing fraud and using that hearsay evidence for the purposes of establishing truth is of course appalling.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: I will comply…if the Crown complies…But the Crown is not complying.
THE COURT: — it doesn’t work that way.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: It does work that way.
THE COURT: You’ve made multiple arguments and allegations, but provided no evidence, sir, that your Charter rights have been violated. I appreciate that you believe that, sir…I’m convinced that you sincerely believe that. But sir, we’re dealing with a very narrow issue here…but you’ve said you don’t trust lawyers because the Law Society didn’t adequately investigate fraud on a trust account…you don’t trust the justice system, you don’t trust FMEP, you don’t trust Crown Counsel, you don’t trust lawyers, you’ve appealed to Parliament and the Prime Minister’s office and multiple ministers and got no satisfaction in any of these places.”
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: …I have not received an answer. Not an answer, not a response, and there is a duty that they have to respond. Crown has a duty to respond first.
…if you think that I’m going to trust my children, my finances, my life to judges that cannot determine right and wrong between the transcript about what they say a court order should be and a lawyer’s claim that the court order should be this and their decision is to call the plaintiff and ask her what she has to say about it, yes, I don’t trust the system. You’re right. But I am trying to work with it. I am trying to resolve the issue. I did try to mediate with the lawyers. I did try to get a lawyer to represent the argument. I am still here willing to do that. But I am not going to be abused. I want my fairness. I want impartiality and it is my right. I don’t know how to resolve it either. And the Minister of Justice is the proper person to do so.
THE COURT: Not today, Mr. Holsworth. Today it’s me.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: Sure. Today it’s you.
THE COURT: And I have a request by the Ministry to incarcerate you.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: that’s why I asked you to recuse yourself because you cannot do your job today correctly. the Judicial Council is saying, ‘We have the right to ignore everything’ and that’s what the court system has done with me is they ignored everything that I’ve said, all my evidence, and there is no way that you can claim that you can give me a fair and impartial trial based on the evidence before you. But I’m still here trying to work with you. I’m not disappearing off into the wilderness, which is what many people have said for me to do is, ‘You should just leave and abandon your children.’
Roncarelli v. Duplessis.
‘All official acts must be authorized by law’
…you don’t have legal authorization because you’re in conflict with the Charter…in order to resolve a breach in the Charter, it requires the repair of the breach. You cannot continue breaching the Charter and enforcing the law.
[Reference Re Provincial Judges]…the one about judges not having their wages reduced.
‘The exercise of all public power must find its ultimate source in a legal rule. It must be procedurally correct and substantively correct’
I don’t think you can say that…we’re following fundamental tenets of justice here…
Nate v The Attorney General, also B.C.G.E.U. and Reclamation Systems:
‘unimpeded and…uninhibited access to the court.’
And I would also say that that should apply to access to Parliament. I should be given unimpeded and uninhibited access to the court. I don’t have that.
Chief Justice McLachlin
[As read in]:
‘We expect our administrative tribunals to be bound by the law, to render decisions in an equal and predictive way and to act in accordance with law and social values, justified to citizens in rationality and fairness, the ability to call for such justification as a precondition to the legitimate exercise of public power is regarded by citizens as their right. Every person dealing with the state is treated fairly and with respect.’
Manitoba Language Rights case:
‘The vexing question, however, is what will be the legal situation . . . for the duration of this period . . . all of the rights, obligations and other effects . . . open to challenge, since the laws under which they purportedly arise are invalid and of no force or effect; and . . . invalid and therefore ineffectual legal system’
…one last one, from Dicey.
[As read in]:
‘…every official…from the Prime Minister down to a constable or collector of taxes, is under the same responsibility for every act done without legal justification as any other citizen . . . officials have been brought before courts, and made, in their personal capacity, liable [for] punishment..[and] damages, for acts done in their official [capacity] but in excess of their lawful authority. Frequent use of unbridled judicial power contains the seeds of its own destruction because it will erode the perceived legitimacy of the judiciary.’
I very much admire the legal system. I want it to work. It’s not working. I’m here trying to fix it…
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: You’re threatening me with jail?
THE COURT: I’m not threatening you with jail, sir. I’m promising you, I’m sentencing you to jail if you don’t comply with my order
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: And you’re refusing all my Charter rights?
THE COURT: I’m refusing all of your Charter arguments, sir, that from my perspective look like they’re Swiss cheese…They are full of incredibly large holes, sir.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: Then tell me the argument against them. ‘Cause I have not heard a single one…why isn’t there a constitutional question answered?
THE COURT: The only issue before me today is whether you could and did comply with the financial disclosure and you raised many Charter arguments that you’ve raised in every legal proceeding that you claim to respect, sir. But you’re the one who’s breaking it. You’re breaking the justice system, sir, by taking up multiple, multiple court days to make the same arguments over and over again that nobody gives any credence to. You believe them, I accept that sir, but you’re not complying with court orders.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: you’re obviously biased…
THE COURT: Sir, because I don’t accept your argument doesn’t make me biased. It means I don’t accept your argument.
TREVOR HOLSWORTH: For sure, but then why is there not a response to the constitutional question that’s been presented?
——————————————————————————————————————-
So the hearing ended with a promise from the judge that if I do not comply with his orders within two weeks that he would jail me for two weeks but he also ensured that he is not hearing the matter next time, and someone, other than myself, also ordered the transcript.
I first presented my charter defence argument to Judge Sicotte, THE COURT in this case. From that transcript of july 14, 2021 in Nakusp, which is not the right legal answer but I’ve heard the law is driven to hierarchies.
“THE ACCUSED: what was the basis for the dismissal? Of the —
THE COURT: It has no reasonable prospect of success, sir, before this court.
THE ACCUSED: Right. So they’re saying it’s a frivolous and vexatious argument? Is that what
the —
THE COURT: I’m not saying —
THE ACCUSED: — dismissal of it?
THE COURT: — it’s frivolous or vexatious. It may — it’s a very large argument and it may be very serious but it’s not one I can address in Provincial Court with respect to the charges that are before you today.”
Seems like Justice just doesnt know how to handle the matter of reporting fraud or breaches of public duty. But I do very much appreciate the difficult position the judge is in and he showed me a great deal of compassion in my first court appearance as he learnt of my prior experience in the legal system. At the same time much of what I say reflects very poorly on aspects of trust that lawyers attempt to project so much because it is integral to our relationship with them.
But that is how the justice system works when you are a father. Father’s that have been through this system know it, but the government, lawyers, judges and women tell mother’s that the Courts are fair and impartial and evidence-based to smooth out any feeling of guilt they may be experiencing about attacking someone they claim they used to love. I’m here to tell you the deeper truth. Lawyers have set up a system of profit where they play both sides against each other with the child as the spoils of war, but primarily helping the mother who is generally the plaintiff because without the plaintiff there wouldnt be a defendant and then, who would pay the lawyers. After all, everyone feels a little better about themselves for rescuing a maiden in distress…but, best not to examine that too deeply as the case of Depp v Heard unveiled and www.respondent.com documents in his book about the Family Law Cartel, as in criminal network. Because family law is certainly are not in compliance with the law and certainly not in the best interest of the child…
Those participating in the legal system as lawyers also know there is a massive problem and they’ve known for years but because there is so much money involved there is a disincentive by all those in power to actually do anything to change. Nothing that I present is a particular surprise to anyone, except that a member of the public would have the audacity to actually stand up against their system of abuse.
JP Boyd “Time to mobilize family law litigants” from The Lawyer’s Daily
Report on Family Law in 2013 by Canadian Forum on Civil Justice
Jordan Furlong a lawyer at law21.ca has written a free book detailing the problem.
Governor General Johnston offered Canadian lawyers a challenge: to craft a new definition of the lawyer as professional. “We enjoy a monopoly to practice law. In return, we are duty bound to serve our clients competently, to improve justice and to continuously create the good. That’s the deal.” He continued: “What happens if we fail to meet our obligations under the social contract? Society will change the social contract, and redefine professionalism for us. Regulation and change will be forced upon us – quite possibly in forms which diminish or remove our self-regulatory privilege.”
I also highly recommend his book “Trust” which I quoted from liberally in my Appeal at the Supreme Court in Nelson on Dec 3rd 2022 where I outlined a complete failure in the rule of law throughout the system.
For the sake of the children – 1998 Parliamentary study
I submitted a brief to the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Justice but a public servant deleted it so I sent it directly to every committee member. Never received a response. But the public servant defended his deletion as a right he had because I was only an individual. So I submitted a brief to the Parliamentary Committee on Women’s Issues and in contrast to the Justice Committee they published my perspective although did not address the issues raised.
FMEP sometimes makes public reports which makes interesting reading. According to the report – “FMEP continues to focus on successful outcomes for BC families. Some of the best measures for this can be seen in the total funds collected by the FMEP.” I believe this is a very problematic basis to make a claim for the “best interests of the child”. I refer to an excellent book, “The seven signs of ethical collapse” by Marianne Jennings #1 “Pressure to maintain those numbers” leads to ethical breaches which lead to legal abuse. The Fraser Institute put together this report on the child support system. This report from Florida in the U.S. examines the history and current situation of the family law system. Of course, the classic “The Myth of the Deadbeat Dad” is a worthwhile read. For the purposes of further detail I also enclose my communications with FMEP case workers but not the case worker who told me on the phone “I dont care about your Charter of Rights” and this is my communications with the head of FMEP, Chris Beresford through AG David Eby.
There certainly are lots more details on these issues online whether it’s studies on parental alienation, assumption of 50-50 shared parenting, studies on outcomes for children of so called “single mothers”, false accusations, the benefits of mediation and other issues of importance to our society.
A global report on the access to justice gap.
Lawyers know very well the criticisms against them, having wrote many of them.
WOE UNTO YOU, LAWYERS was written years ago.
If you have heard about the NSRLP ( National Self Represented Litigants Project ) it is a feel-good inspiration of a law school, to promote the concept of non-lawyers receiving equality in the courtroom from a judge who used to be a lawyer but tries to pretend to be impartial at the same time trying to protect the concept that you must pay a lawyer to really protect your rights. I applied to be their director but not being the right gender and of course not being a lawyer were two strikes against me, and actually promoting the reality of the SRL that’s three strikes – you’re out!
Our society has lived through these problems before. We face the problem of ideology ruling over evidence. We saw it in the Salem witch trials in the US in 1692, In the persecution of the Jews in the mid 1900’s, McCarthyism representing anti-communism ideology, and of course the current rise of the feminist inspired “Me-too movement” where we must “believe all women”. The courts and politics are not evidence based but sociologically based representing the bias’s of our age. We must be vigilant and return to a middle road where all people are respected equally. It is the only path forward. I have more suggestions for solutions coming soon. I have proposed to PM Trudeau that I can help craft solutions and am waiting for a response…
My initial thought was to protest abuse of power by Lawyers and the Judiciary and leave the sex of the Plaintiff and Defendant as irrelevant until I received this backlash from an editor who I had asked for support not knowing she was a Feminist writer. So I delved into the male/female divide created by the Masters of War – lawyers in the divorce industry promoting women as the Plaintiff and requiring men to defend themselves against all odds.
For the sake of full disclosure here is the actual full text of the hearing transcript.
You can see the main page with more of this story at www.fundamentaljustice.com