I thought by ME seeking legal assistance for my 2 children in once again another battle my ex put us through, that the Children's Lawyers Office would be fair,kind,honest and would respectfully represent my boys wishes to the court.ages 12 &14,clearly old enough to make their own decisions & know right from wrong & have the ability to speak for themselves to convey their wishes to their own lawyer.
This was the worst experience, i regret ever involving the Ontario Children's Lawyer, Mr.David Elliot, i had to endure as a single mother.To have to be unjustly treated in a sexist manner and the lies that were told in front of the judge by Mr.Elliot falsely representing himself as their lawyer when he had been dismissed by the boys and myself after not providing service for over a year, I kept concise notes on everything i and the boys went through and sought advice from other lawyers whom made it clear to me that Mr.Elliot was innapropriate and unprofessional.The first innaprpriate decsion made by Mr.Elliot was to try and pressure me into was that HE requested to drive my children home from his office after THE FIRST SCHEDULED meeting, when i kindly declined this, as i believe not to have a stranger drive my kids home in his personal vehicle but i have raised my children to never accept rides from someone they do not know. I had to decline this several times as he would not drop the issue, and at one point he said to me,"I hope that this is not going to get us off on the wrong foot,and I'd hate to see this get in the way of our relationship"...CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS..I COULDN'T! I have never been spoken to in this manner ever, by a lawyer. I spoke to the Ontario Obudsman whomcould not believe the behavior and actions that MR.Elliot and Marge Matheson had taken against me.My boyfriend submitted a formal complaint to Ontario Obudsman regarding both of their bevaiours and how they both crossed the line of representation/or lack thereof..This man was so innaprropriate, these are some of these issues for example, Mr.Elliot meeting with the father first,after I was the one that called this lawyer to represent the children, i requested to "please leave me out of it so you can base your decsions on what the kids say" and i hadnt heard for months if he was even going to take our case, i had to call them and call my lawyer to see what was going on,then he interviewed me for over 2.5 hours while making my kids wait outside in his very small waiting room after school. Mr.Elliot did not tell me that he even wanted to speak to me that first meeting for an interview, as far as i knew he was only interviewing the kids.All that he talked about was my marriage to my ex, he did not ask about my boys, that same day he spoke to my children for 10 minutes.I later came to find out that Mr.Elliot and my ex knew each other, but they told no one how they knew each other outside of this case and that they knew each other in a personal capacity.An issue that also bothered me was upon meeting Mr.Elliiot he had his shirt buttoned down exposing his hairy chest and a lot of gold chains around his neck, i felt this too was innappropriate and unprofessional dress code when interviewing children about sensitive issues. Mr.Elliot uses a Clinical Investigator,Marge Matheson,I invited her to my home and she refused to even assess the children's bedrooms or the rest of the home,Ms.Matheson interviewed me for almost 3 hours, i was more than cordial answered all her questions and very hospitable to her..however,she later sent me intimidating and threatening emails that she would proceed to have my children taken away from me, their stay at home, not from this town staying here for the kids to be close the father,mother!!.. because i would not give her MY family doctors history immediately when she requested it, i asked if i could please speak to my lawyer first, clearly this action infuriated her.Ms.Matheson then proceeded to gather ALL FURTHER INFORMATION FROM ROOKE PITURA WITHOUT OUR KNOWLEDGE AND WOULD HAVE BEEN AGAINST OUR CONSENT, a counselor at Cameron Bay.[whom by his own admissions, was having conversations with my ex 2-3 times a week} Since Ms.Matheson chose not to interview the boys for almost an entire year she actually submitted her recommendations to the court and the OCL based on outsourced information coming from this biased information from this counselor, who left Cameron Bay when i told his supervisor, and then Cameron Bay knew that they were sourcing this information from people that did not have a neutral opinion.Ms.Matheson was caught in several lies, treated me very poorly and even violated my human rights. making lude and inappropriate statements about a personal matter that happened to me when i was a 3 year old child..and this is whom Mr.Elliot uses regularly. i would like to note she spoke to my children 11 months after being put on the case. Mr.Elliot only spoke to my children 2x. I would NOT recommend Mr.Elliot as an OCL . read more
