Norway – updated Nov ‘11

                                                   Norway

Update 20-11-’11
At the end of this posting I mention Norway’s justice minister.
Glad to hear he’s had to resign over his support for child abduction.

update (16-10-’11) at end of article.

I see that an issue I was dealing with a few years back has just hit the headlines over there (and causing a bit of a stir), so thought I’d explain in English what’s going on, and why I refer to Norway’s legal system as being no better than that of a third world country such as Zimbabwe.

I sometimes joke that when Jack Nicholson suggested that if God ever wanted to give the world an enema he would put the tube in at Mexico, he got it wrong – it should have been Norway. But this is a very serious matter, so let’s look at the facts:

For those not familiar with the British Island of Jersey, we have our own government, called The States of Jersey. I was a member of that legislature from 1998 to 2008.
As a States member, it is not unusual to be approached by people with problems they cannot resolve. Happens the world over.
And so it was that I was approached by a Jersey resident about 5 years ago.

The lady was Jersey born and had lived here most of her life. She married a Norwegian and they lived in Jersey, having three children. After about ten years, the marriage broke down and they were divorced. Our Royal Court – the ‘High Court’ – granted custody of the children to the mother, with specified, limited, access for the father.

After a while, the Norwegian father left Jersey, saying he had no interest in the children.

Then, in April – I think it was 2005 – he came back to Jersey with the grandfather, staying for a week in a flat (which he never paid for).

Then he asked the mother if he could take the children to school. She agreed and took a day trip to nearby France. When she learned the children hadn’t arrived at school she became concerned and when she got back home found they had been abducted. Later, it transpired, taken to France on a private boat (it’s a 33 mile journey to St. Malo in France).

Naturally, she informed the police – and wondered how they had got away seeing that the childrens’ passports had been cancelled. At that time it was assumed they had travelled by ferry – only later was it discovered a private boatowner had facilitated the abduction.

But that was just the beginning of her problems.
I won’t go into all the details here – it would take several pages – but suffice to say her trust in Norway’s legal system was seriously misplaced – hence my comments above.
I do not joke when I say the Norwegian legal system is the most corrupt I know.

So what happened?
The ex-husband filed a case in Sandnes stating the children were in Norway – and that the mother had abducted them. They weren’t in Norway, they were in the process of being abducted, so that was straightforward perjury.

Did they send Mr Muren to prison? No chance. But his ex-wife had a Court Order proving she had custody, so that would prove the truth and get the children home?

If only.
In Norway, their custody laws are quite different, so they didn’t understand the Order. No problem, you might think – it will be explained. Yeah, right….  Just to help matters along, the ex-husband crudely altered the Royal Court Order to his advantage. He forged his ex-wife’s signature (looking absolutely nothing like the genuine article) to enter the children on the Norwegian Folk Register – again with more lies.
Then there were ‘expert child psychiatrists’ who gave evidence in court. They never met the children – just took instructions from the father.

I would have no problem with the above, provided a court did its job properly. Unfortunately, in Norway, you can take the judge out to dinner the night before a case ‘to explain things to him’. And provided you are Norwegian, you can get the judge changed for a more amenable one if you wish. And the court (unworthy of a capitol ‘C’) will accept any ‘evidence’ – even if it’s known to be a forgery!  I joke not – all the above happened.

And don’t trust your lawyer, because you’ll find later on that he is actually working for the other side as well, and merely using your brief to undermine you.
Columbo or the Pink Panther couldn’t have done worse – only this was for real – we’re talking about a mother’s and childrens’ lives here.

And so the court found in the father’s favour. It was his ex-wife who was delusional. She had abducted the children and he had retrieved them!

The next five or six court cases went the same way. Or maybe not the last one. During that ‘trial’ the court remarked how badly the mother had been treated and how scheming and nasty the father had been.
And when the verdict came a couple of weeks later? Exactly the same as before – custody for the father with only limited access for the mother – basically when it suits the father. For the first few years (yes, years) that was only for an hour about once a month – and then only under supervision at a designated place.
For the umpteenth time, the ‘trial’ had merely been a charade, with the conclusion known before it even began. The father used to boast he knew the outcome before a trial – we know why.

At the time, I was in contact with the British Embassy in Oslo, the Foreign Office in London – not to mention Jersey’s Attorney General.
I raised the matter in our States Assembly and briefed our Chief Minister. I also tried to correspond with the Norwegian Justice Ministry. I say tried, because, according to the minister, they never make mistakes and their justice is just marvellous.

I was called as a witness at one trial and travelled to Norway (at my own expense) to explain, amongst other things, the Royal Court Order and its custody meaning.

However, I had my suspicions about the mother’s lawyer, Knut something or other – never could spell his last name - and didn’t tell him all I knew. Just as well – it later transpired he, like the others, was in collusion with the father’s lawyer. He was a frightful figure I recall calling ‘the viking’. Sadly, in Norway they have no more sense of humour than of justice.

Anyway, I suppose it should have come as no surprise that when I arrived at the court, this clown told me I wasn’t needed – and promptly went into court leaving me standing in the corridor.

I hadn’t travelled a thousand miles at a cost of several hundred pounds for nothing, so I marched into the court myself and tried to understand, as best I could, what was going on. My presence didn’t make them very comfortable, I have to say.

In recent times I have learnt that there is a backlog of Human Rights cases against Norway at the Hague, many for similar reasons.

Despite being signed up as a participating party, when it comes to repatriating abducted children, Norway’s policy is to go, using armed force, to fetch back any Norwegian child – but to refuse to release any child abducted to Norway by a Norwegian. Apparently there’s about 30 children a year abducted to Norway.

And their courts will twist and bend anything, no matter how absurd, to arrive at the conclusion they desire.

And so I warn not only Jersey, but any country who anticipates signing any agreement with them. Sadly, they have not come far from their Viking days.
My analysis is that whilst the courts do an average job, the verdict handed down comes from above, most probably the Ministry of Justice.
If this is so, the courts should tell the minister to stick his interference where the sun don’t shine – but they don’t: hence my label of corruption.
I was told by the British Consul that a couple of years before Muren abducted the children, there was a judicial clean-up and some judges went to jail.
Seems they need another clear out.
Until then, any bi-lateral agreement or indeed any other agreement another country has with Norway is unlikely to be honoured.
The is no ‘fair play’ there, so best avoid doing business with them.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned about Norway.

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                                       UPDATE.

Below is English version of the article in Norwegian newspaper. (Blue clarifications in parenthesis are mine).

My story ABDUCTED TO NORWAY
During a visit to Jersey UK where I lived with my three children for whom I had custody, I made the fatal mistake of letting my Norwegian ex husband take them to school one day. They never arrived. Instead they were abducted by him and his father and smuggled off the Island by private boat to France some 10 (actually 33) miles away by sea, where the grandfather had cunningly placed his Norwegian registered car ready to travel through Europe up to Denmark where they would all take the ferry to Norway the next evening. The children had no passports or ID, and my ex husband admitted that he had planned it all. He had also forged my signature to register the children in the Folk register in Norway. He did not submit the Court Order or the true documents.  

The Jersey Court immediately issued an Order for the return of the children with an attached Arrest Warrant, which was faxed to the Police after Kristiansand Port Authority had confirmed they had arrived in Norway.

A false petition made by his Norwegian lawyer was also submitted to the (Norwegian) Court prior to their arrival in Norway, and this petition was completely untrue, false in everyway, made with the sole intention to deceive the Court. Attached to it were the illegal registration forms from the Folk register and a forged letter that he claimed I had signed to give him custody of my children. Again, he did not mention or submit the valid (British) Court Order or the Agreement he signed. He knew he would not have been able to register the children if he had.

The British Embassy in Oslo, UK Foreign Affairs Office and the Jersey Royal Court requested Norway to respect my Court Order and return the children. Norway dismissed this. The Attorney General in Jersey contacted the Justice Department in Norway requesting it take into account that the Hague Convention on child abduction in Jersey was about to be ratified, again all requests were rejected. When his next letter asked for the case to be resolved through “Judicial comity”, an action between countries to try to resolve disputes in diplomatic ways, this request did not even receive a reply.

During a hearing in the District Court, the judge concluded that there was no reason to return the children to Jersey, and no evidence or documents suggesting they should be. It was clear the judge failed to read the requests, Court Order and all other evidence, but it is my view that this was all deliberately ignored.

During a hearing in the Court some months later, his Norwegian lawyer stated that she knew of my ex husband’s intention to abduct the children and had drawn up the petition with him prior to him leaving Norway. He himself also stated that he had planned it all for a long period with the help of his lawyer and the Norwegian Consul in Jersey, and he had also had taken advice from the Norwegian Ministry, whom he stated all advised him that the best way to get custody of the children was to ensure he got them to Norway as quick as possible and applied for custody there as he would be favored.

Evidence of the statements they made were submitted to another Court later, which further showed the extent of the Norwegian Consul’s involvement, and proved that my ex and his father had kept the Consul fully informed of the progress of the abduction as they headed to Norway after abducting, and further to inform him they arrived in Norway, and again months later, to inform him of the progress.

The Consul, who was fully aware that there was an existing High Court Order in Jersey for which my ex husband had no rights of custody and no right to remove the children from my care, did nothing. He alerted no police and no authorities Instead, he chose state to my lawyers that although he was informed during many meetings with my ex husband that he wanted to abduct them, and he said he was in Jersey to help Norwegians, not Jersey people. Even after being told of the abduction and knowing my ex husband’s whereabouts, he failed to advise the Police who could have detained him and my children at that point, and prevented them traveling further.

In Court he also lied at first stating quite strongly that he was annoyed his name had been mentioned as he did not know who my ex husband or his father were. He said he had ever had any contact with either of them and had actually never heard of them…. Until however, when confronted with transcripts of his own written evidence by way of letter to me, and also in documents submitted by my Jersey lawyers, his memory returned very quickly and precise.

The judge however, even being aware of all the lies told in Court from my ex’s side, against all the extensive evidence proving my case, against the Court Orders, and also after hearing my ex husband’s own statement of how he had carefully planned the abduction with the help of his lawyer and the Norwegian Consul, took my children and dismissed me as the children’s Mother.

He gave me only 4 hours a week visitation under strict supervision, stating that the FATHER had to be safeguarded against me taking my children home!  

And so began a 6 year battle in the Norwegian Courts at all levels, judges who persistently refused to take into account any evidence or background of my children’s lives before Norway. Judges who continuously deprived not only me but my children of their Mother, and made it impossible for me and my children to have any real relationship like we once had or any decent contact for that matter, against all the evidence of what my ex husband did. They did not care he forged my signature, prevented my access, or how he used the children for his own gain, the law was “irrelevant” to him.

My children were happy children. There has never been any history of abuse, alcoholism, drugs or anything untoward in our family. My children had a nice home, a close family, many friends, they were settled in school and most of all, they had a Mother who loved them but all of this accounted for nothing in the Norwegian Courts.

In Norway, it’s okay to abduct children – as long as you are Norwegian”. You can forge documents and give them to authorities because its “irrelevant” or “not valid for the question”. There is no law for Norwegians. The Norwegian authorities actually help their citizens abduct children from abroad, regardless of circumstances or other countries Court Orders.

For 6 years I have been treated like a criminal and subjected to horrific injustice. Many Christmas’s and birthdays with gifts only exchanged in front of impersonal visitors and mostly behind a locked door, never alone. No cuddling or talking with my children as this was seen as me manipulating my children with love. The emotional stress of hearing your child whisper in your ear “take me home Mummy”.

The Court said this was how it had to be as there was a risk I would take my children home to Jersey. Yet I never abducted my children to Norway. He did. But as I was not Norwegian, I was put under strict and extreme conditions, the type of interaction I was allowed with my children is the same given to parents in severe child welfare cases, incest, molestation, family violence, alcoholism and drug addicts, murderers. And all because I had legal custody of my children and we lived in Jersey, but the father wanted them to live in Norway.

I was convicted on assumptions and presumptions by the Courts, penalized by so called “experts” named psychologists and child welfare services who did not have a clue about the situation at all, all who said my children’s lives were “irrelevant” before they got to Norway, and all  who sided with my ex husband and his lies. They all wiped out my children’s previous life. All that mattered was Norway. Their background was unimportant, not relevant they all said. Anything and everything was used against me, yet nothing was said about him or what he did or how he was manipulating the children to his advantage with extreme Parental Alienation… Nothing was either mentioned about his lies. The Court said he did nothing wrong in abducting my children against a Court Order. They looked for ways to praise him instead of seeing him for the calculating lying manipulative abductor that he was.  

Legal witnesses were dismissed as irrelevant with judges stating that I had been given too much advice, was focused on the law instead of the fact my children were in Norway, referring to me being the abductor for taking my children home after my marriage failed, having spent only some 200 days in Norway during a temporary reconciliation of marriage period, all despite the fact that I had rights of custody and legal agreements in place.

I moved to Norway to be near my children after they were abducted. Even then I never got a fair hearing. There has been no equality in the law for me.

What is very clear however is that if you’re Norwegian it’s accepted by the Courts, the Norwegian Ministry, the authorities, the psychologists, everywhere you look, it’s accepted for you to go to other countries and abduct your children against your spouse’s custody rights and Court Orders without any fear of repercussion in the Norwegian Courts for doing it. And we only have to look at the Skah case to see this.

Sadly for me, there were no Jersey Elite Soldiers with ties to the UK Intelligence Service to smuggle my children out of Norway back to Jersey on a sailboat. I took the legal route and abided by the law… did it help me?… NO!

Norway took my children regardless of the law. They ripped a Mother out of the lives of three small children whom they had lived with all their life, a happy life full of love and security. They gave them to their abductor on a silver plate after a well planned and calculated abduction by their Norwegian father and grandfather! 

This is how Norway treats foreign parents.

                                                                           ********************Les også A-magasinets artikkel ”Dømt til å tape”  11.03.11.

 

Update 15-10-’11.

Just to demostrate how corrupt Norway is:
The media made a documentary about Mrs Muren’s childrens abduction, together with other abduction issues.
The first part was shown on TV – and then the rest was suddenly banned from transmission just an hour or so before it was due to go out.
By a court? No, by the Justice Minister – who did so because the broadcast would have shown him in a bad light (ie he lied).  I call that corruption – which is rife in Norway.
But, happily, there’s a thing called the internet – so the banned programme was put on Youtube – where it went international. As a result, journalists from around the world are meeting to find out what’s going on.
Let’s hope those bastards who support child abduction (eg that ‘Justice’ minister) end up in jail.

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