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Letters to Byron (Press Release)
Letters to Byron is a chronological list of the last 121 letters I sent to Byron before it became evident there was no further point in spending this time every week.

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My beautiful Byron,

It has been so long since I last wrote before the Covid pandemic began that I cant even remember how long ago that was. So much has happened since and yet, more disappointingly, so little has happened for you and me.

I have still not heard from you since 16 February 2016, although I have written at least once every single week since then. Every opportunity for you to spend time with me, with all the benefits that represents for your development as a growing boy, now 11, have been squandered by Adler, her lawyer Amlot and their friendly family Court Judge, Michele O’Leary, who are collectively £3 million better off for having succeeded in preventing you from seeing me.

It didn’t seem at all right when Adler removed you from my home after Fathers day 2013, and it didn’t seem at all right when Adler and Amlot presented lie after lie after lie in family court claims that generated legal costs for me above £500,000. It didn’t seem right that Michele O’Leary, a barrister in family court, who is often employed by solicitors in family court, could be chosen by solicitors in family court to switch with DDJ Burles on the very morning of April 15th, 2015, in the case of Adler vs Broulidakis, in which her first action as switch judge was to award the entire ‘win’ to her fellow member of family law Charlotte Adler.

To me that was clearly dishonest, shameful child-abuse by members of family law, for no reason greater than the money they could make out of using you, my son, as the football in their game of blackmail.

Of course, that might sound a little one sided, accusing a gang of family law members of being child abusing blackmailing thieves, and you might well ask, well, if it was that obvious, why didn’t you appeal it. Spend more money and get different lawyers and appeal the judgment. Surely, in a matter as transparently corrupt as this, involving members of family law behaving worse than child abusing thieves with conduct including paying a goon to attack me in the street outside my home, you would expect an appeal to be granted. And if you asked that question, you would be right.

So I did. And I spent a ton of money on a top family law firm. One with famous family law solicitor Fiona Shackleton as a recommendation. Who happily took a ton of money to bring an appeal to overturn this ‘Horrible Judgment” by a Deputy Judge, Michel O’Leary, famously known for making post-menstrual judgments. They did that process very well and lo and behold, I was back in London at the High Court, for another £50,000 bill, to apply for Permission to Appeal.

Do you know, the Judge who heard my Permission to Appeal was the President of Family Law. A very smart man. Sir James Munby. I was so relieved when I saw his name set down as the Judge for my Appeal hearing.

I knew a smart man with integrity would immediately see the corruption in the Adler Vs Broulidakis hearing before Judge Burles in 2015. Starting with the fact that it was not before Judge Burles at all, because it was switched on the the morning of the first day.

Burles was out and the new judge was one Michele O’Leary, whose conduct thereafter simply beggars belief. My lawyer at that time said “If we get O’Leary we will lose“.
“Why“, I asked?
“Because she is crooked. If she switches to take this case it is only going to be for one reason.”

He was right. O’Leary was switched to hear Adler’s case, and in her first act she simply refused all witnesses set down with evidence to disprove Adler’s lie. Her claim was so clearly a lie.
“He promised to give me his house and business if I left him and took the child away.”
She didn’t remember when this promise was made, or where she was at the time, but she assured the judge that it was true because she said it was. She didn’t need any evidence.

Family law aggression was able to run me up a bill of half a million pounds just to defend that lame blackmail attempt to make me either pay up or face the weight of their mighty legal prowess. I saw mighty blackmail as a more likely finding in court than this ridiculous supposition by a known liar that I had simply “promised” to hand over my entire net worth in the event that she decided to have sex with her boxing instructor.

Adler lied in court, as a member of the law society, with no evidence, and knew that the witnesses would prove her baseless claim was in fact – a bald faced lie by a failed blackmailer.

That is why she had to find a switch judge who would turn the case, to prevent it from following due process, in which she would have been found guilty of lying, and most likely been disbarred from practicing law.

So, enter, Michele O Leary. Who stepped in fifteen minutes before the hearing was due to begin and prevented all evidence by way of witnesses, while labeling me as ‘Mentally infirm‘ with her first sentence, repeating that finding about 27 times throughout the three day hearing. Classy. Michele declared she found against me because there were no witnesses to substantiate my claim that Adler was lying. After she literally made it her first order of business when switching to take the Adler case, to exclude the witnesses.
It is that obvious.

Michele is a lot like Trump. Lying in plain sight because – wha hey. What ya gonna do about it. She didn’t even attempt to make the lies link with any form of consistency. When a leading California Doctor and specialist in child development (As a Psychiatrist) wrote to her on your behalf, Michele simply. Didn’t bother reading the medical advice. Totally classy. You have free input from a world leading expert on the development of a child’s mind – the neural pathways at age 5 – and instead you say “Nah nah. Not listening. Go away. I’m the boss in this court.”

I had the experience of sitting with this leading doctor reading the reply from the court. He, like me, found Michele to be below the bar of what any functioning judiciary would allow to make decisions on a child’s future. He was one of several leading professional experts who stepped up to advocate for you in the face of the very clear corruption that occurred in the court of Michele O’Leary in the Adler Vs Broulidakis case in April 2015. The reply from British family court was uniform. Adler won 100% of every argument. At no point was her word even questioned. She was rewarded with some £3 million for a claim based on zero evidence. Only her won word. And for the dozens of recorded instances of improper conduct – including police recorded burglary of my laptop – that I reported her and Amlot to the Solicitors regulation authority, not one single reply did anything beyond validate her credibility a 100% “We have looked into your claim and find that Mr. Amlot has no case to answer.”

You would think at that point, with such a transparently dishonest con job I would simply disclose what happened to the President of Family law, that he would be so shocked he would order an Appeal.

It’s funny you would think that.

It took family-law President Munby about three minutes to rule that the O’Leary judgment had to be Appealed.
It stank.
I watched him literally turn his nose up as he read the judgment in the High Court.
It was a work of pure fabrication that was at the same time discriminatory in ways that remain completely and illegally at odds with any civil service job, so firmly rooted in deceit motivated by remunerative family law relationships, that quite frankly the participants should be jailed. It’s that extreme. A legal judgment that was in fact written by the three of them in conjunction. Adler/Amlot and O’Leary.

A judgment whose consequences have cost you all these years with me, and have cost me my home and business in the UK, in entirety. (30 years of work and shrewd investment to own my own home and business.) The word for it is larceny. The three beneficiaries of this larceny are well known. And lucky for you and for me, that day in the High Court, Sir James Munby ruled that O’Leary’s judgment stank.

At that point, I still thought British Family law would come through. After all, the offenses by Adler/Amlot and O’Leary were evidenced in black and white; in the judgment.

And the actual President of Family law had taken one look and given “Permission to Appeal” in a compellingly enthusiastic fashion that included giving good advice to my barrister on how to be sure to prevail at Appeal. So what could possibly go wrong?

All that remained was for Fiona Shackleton’s firm to collect another £50,000 from me to return to the UK for the 19th time, to present the very obviously flawed judgment of O’Leary to the Family law Appeal court, and that would be that.

The liars would be exposed.
The stolen money would be paid back by the lying thieves.
Damages would be determined and paid without delay.
The miscreants would be struck off the Law Society register for their offenses and most importantly;
You would be able to come and see me. And I would be able to resume actively being your father, a part of your development as a human and resume my role in your education.

I so missed our daily sessions of showing you stuff. Teaching you Greek, and Music, and football and tennis and Math. And English and the importance of the smile. I remember how quickly you learned that lesson. To smile and be cheerful and look forward to learning with enthusiasm.

Of all the things I expected from that Appeal, resuming my role in your education was what I looked forward to the most. I wanted to pick up where left off when Adler removed you from my home.
I had no idea at that time that any law existed to allow a court to take a child away from his father and prevent any further contact.

Although by this time my home had been stolen by that court judgment, I had already prepared a new home for you with me and Phyllis, as you know, because you were there in August 2014, and saw the new educational opportunity for you in which we would be integral as a part of your education, whether it was at Laguna Beach middle school, or at Rokeby.

I loved teaching you stuff. You loved learning stuff from me. It was the best time ever, our four years together. I am not going to say you were the greatest student ever, but on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the greatest ever, you were a solid 8.
Never lower than that. Occasionally a 9. You were exceptional, as every one of my family and even Maria and Chris kept reminding me.
Your Greek was coming along beautifully. l had a library of age appropriate Greek books for you and you looked forward to our classes with enthusiasm. You never once ‘didn’t want to learn.’
You had the major scale on the piano.
You had dance moves.
You could side foot the ball with both feet.
You knew all the words the “Beat it”.
You could drum along to Jump.
You knew almost all the script of some five favorite movies, like The Incredibles, Up, Toy Story and Finding Nemo. (Lookout Dory – those are mines.)

And so what went wrong?

After two years of expensive litigation, I had spent even more money. I arrived in the UK for the hearing. I was well dressed and polite. And I expected an Appeal hearing, just as President Munby had ordered.

But there was no Appeal. Andrew Moyland, set down as Appeal Judge, simply didn’t give one single fuck about your education or my role in that process.
He was a busy man, as well as another member of family law. Was Andrew really going to take against his own and risk putting his job-for-life on the line? He had nothing to gain from being an honest appeal judge and everything to lose. He dismissed the appeal before it even began on grounds so specious that in my view, he is unfit for any responsible office, let alone one involving the well-being of young children. I don’t know how his life has worked out since, or if he ever reflects on his conduct that day in my presence, but if he does, I am glad. It will help him in the fullness of a life experience to own it. “We are what we do.”

Before that Appeal my lawyer and I chatted. He knew that winning the appeal meant I would ‘win‘ the right to be a part of your life. And he knew the inherent flaws in the system. After we walked out, he actually cried. Can you imagine a lawyer, crying, because he knows that a child has been abused by members of his own profession and he has been unable to prevent them succeeding.

Not long after that president Munby left the Top Job in Family law, and not long after that I read a talk he gave in Edinburgh in which he explains with heart felt sorrow, that the Appeals process in Family court is broken. I posted that talk he gave in an earlier “Letter to Byron” but refer to my impression here; that when I read his words, I knew he remembered what happened in the case of Adler Vs Broulidakis and his decision in the Permission to Appeal. And the abject failure, nay total absence of, the Appeal process.

After that Adler simply stopped allowing you to even received any calls from me. My last visit with you ended on 16 February 2016, and then Adler moved home with her Boyfriend at the time. She didn’t disclose the address of where she moved you to.

When I phoned, you were ‘not available’. I wrote letters to you every week. Eventually they started arriving back with a message ‘Not known at this address‘. I wrote to Adler demanding the address of where you were. She told me to ‘Talk to my lawyer’. So I did. I wrote to Amlot formally requesting your address, as is my legal right as your father and your guardian.

It took until 16 December 2016 before I received an letter from you containing a card. Obviously Adler had arranged fro you to send it, and on the envelope was the address of where you were.

That was 9 months after she moved you without disclosing the address to me. I imagined what it must have been like for you. What did she tell you about why daddy stopped calling. Why daddy stopped writing. Why daddy didn’t take you skiing when he said he would.

Adler has brought disgrace and disrepute to the very notion of responsible parenting. Amlot has been an abomination as a member of family law, disregarding the published ethical code in so many ways, on so many levels, that he has really earned the money he stole from me by lying in court. And O’Leary is still working as a Judge in Family-Court. Despite all of what she did being known, not just to former President Munby, but to many readers of the Judgment, many of whom are themselves members of family law, in the UK, South Africa and the US. She is really quite famous through all of this.

At that point, it became clear to me. British Family law is what it is. They would rather fall on their own swords collectively than own up to the child abusing deceit that may well impact on the very existence of the family court system, ending their job for life prospects of earning £500 an hour from causing rifts between separating parents.

Its a sad, disgusting truth. But, as Police Departments in the US have learned, once public opinion turns against conduct so heinous it becomes unacceptable to continue its funding, the entire legal structure is terminated and rebuilt in a new fit-for-purpose system. In the US Policing metaphor, it is an archaic statute called ‘Qualified immunity‘ that makes the law a mockery. It is unfit for purpose and unless it goes, the awful mess its existence causes and enables, will continue.

British family law similarly has statutes that make it not-fit for purpose. That is, unless you consider a small handful earning £500 an hour for alienating parents to increase their billable hours as a worthwhile reason to continue with a broken service. One that harms more children than it helps, while concurrently taking money from parents at their most vulnerable time in life, during painful separation, who can then not spend that money on their children future. Because the family lawyers now have it. In my case Adler took over £500,000 from my money intended for your education just in legal bills she forced on me.

Now you are 11. And I have no role in your education. Last week I had a long conference with your headmaster (and the vice head) and I heard a full and honest appraisal of your education progress since I was your primary educator, from the man I chose to trust with your education, before Adler chose the boxing Instructor.

I was not in the least surprised to learn Adler is not deciding whether to send you to boarding school rather than allow you to resume your education, and life, with me, in a situation where you would have a full time parent with you daily throughout your schooling, participating actively in your journey towards self awareness and critical thought.

I remember how thrilled she was by earning the big money when she got her own law firm in 2012. She is mad for it. And I can understand why. It’s exciting when you go from being broke your whole life to suddenly earning real money.

Who would rather sit teaching a boy to read Greek or play the piano for free, when you can be earning £500 every hour you spend playing God with other children’s lives. Mothering doesn’t pay anything like that much. Much better to send the kid off to boarding school and keep up the billable hours.
There’s always nanny and granny to help with education at home in support of the school.

Do you know, I was available and waiting to see you in the months after Adler left. She demanded £100,000 from me. If I did not pay, then she wouldn’t let me see you.
I didn’t pay.
She didn’t let me see you.
Simple. Blackmail.
I pointed out she was just having to pay nanny and granny when I was available and willing to have you. She chose nanny and granny. It was heartbreaking. I simply didn’t know that level of love for money still existed in the world. It is so clearly counter intuitive to the mothering instinct to prevent a child being with his parent just for money, I believed it was inevitable that she would see the benefits for you and your education being a part of my life. And know that far exceeds the value of the £3 million she has stolen from me.

I don’t know what will happen next but I do know I have low expectations from Adler. Liars, like leopards, do not change their spots. Most commonly, like the Liar in chief in America, liars will double down on their lie. Happily though, that process usually ends the same every time.

Now the whole world is plunged into a new uncertainty. The old order is crumbling. Ordinary people are redefining their expectations from government and legal process. And from education.

Lets remain hopeful that;
1.) You are able to stay in touch with me through “Letters to Byron”
2.) You are able to make contact with me, by whatever means you can muster and;
3.) Know that you don’t have to go to boarding school. You can school with me and Phyllis in California at a top school, where I will be a part of your education on a daily basis and you can enjoy a more outdoor activity driven education in which you can once more be a solid 8 in the student measure. If you choose this and let me know, you will have the support you need to make it happen.

Miss you,
Love you,
Daddy

LETTERS TO BYRON in chronological order:

The first of the LETTERS TO BYRON:  The PILOT
2nd GRAHAM COY
3rd:  TOM AMLOT
4th:  Thanksgiving day
5th: MICHELLE O’LEARY. The switch Judge
6th : Raining in California
7th: Music
8th: December Rain
9th: Brexit and Greek war
10th: Winnie the Poo
11th: December kayaking
12th: Family law and Mark Zetin
13th: Xmas day 2018
14th: Maria and Anna
15th: New years eve 2018
16th: Your first smile
17th: Your Uncle GEORGE
18th: The Mighty PACIFIC
19th: WEBSTER and Summer HOLIDAY 2019
20th: Breach of Privacy offense
21st: MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY
22nd: Philotimia
23rd: A short note
24th: MUSIC and KINDNESS
25th: Robin Hood
26th: SRA ethical code
27th: NINE YEARS LATER
28th: Valentines day
29th: EVZONES
30th: Rushing
31st: Quick Note
32nd: Johannesburg 2019
33rd: Still in Johannesburg
34th: More Johannesburg
35th: Last Johannesburg for now
36th: Traveling. Upgrade
37th: Spring
38th: Whales
39th: MEXICO
40th: CABO ST LUCAS
41st: 1 April. Wallace’s Birthday
42nd: SANTA BARBARA
43rd: Short letter
44th: PINEAPPLE EXPRESS
45th: KIRA visits
46th: Goodbye uncle Lazaros
47th: Easter Monday
48th: OJAI Tennis
49th: Short letter
50th: PARENTAL ALIENATION FACTS
51st: Cartagena memory
52nd: NEW RECORD
53rd: Last letter to 9 yo
54th: First letter to 10 yo
55th: D Day – 75 years
56th: LA QUINTA
57th: MASON GRADUATES
58th: DESIDERATA
59th: EARTHQUAKE
60th:  Chris and Golf
61st: Chris visits Byron in London
62nd: SUMMERTIME
63rd: PHYLLIS’ LETTER TO BYRON
64th: GUN CRAZY AMERICANS
65th: MISS YOU
66th: SCRUFFY
67th: Mason leaves for college
68th: ART
69th: Day after 911
70th: PAPOU. CALLING CHRIS
71st: Two Women
72nd: ANOTHER YEAR
73rd: PLANNING CALIFORNIA VISIT 2019
74th: KAYAKING WITH DOLPHINS
75th: M and M
76th: HALLOWEEN 2019
77th FINGER EXERCISE
78th: First late letter
89th: MIAMI
90th: Thanksgiving and the SRA
91st: Dentist
92nd: EDUCATION
93rd: Almost Xmas
94th: Boxing day 2019
95th: 2nd January 2020
96th: 9 January 2020. Liars and Thieves
97th: 16 January. Thursday
98th: 23 Jan. Mystery Thursday visit99th: 30 Jan. Months end
100th: 6 February. 2020. Summer Holiday101st: 13 February. 2020. Family Law
102nd: 20 February. Dogs
103rd: 27 February. The elderly in the desert
104th: 5 March. James Munbys’ talk on family law. And unilateral judgments
105th:  26 March covid19-what-else
106th: 2nd April. British Family law
107th. 9th April. Good news about Covid
108th: 15 April. 2020. Covid Tzar. A good pair of hands
109th:  23 April: Distance Learning
110th: 30 April. A video Letter. Byron Sundays
111th:  7 May. VE Day
112th:  14th May. History Lesson
113th:  21 May. A family birthday
114th: 28th May. Happy Birthday
155th: 4th June. Riots
156th: 11th June. Guessing
157th: 18th June. More Covid
158th:  25th June. Business open from Lockdown
159th: 2nd July. Writing and Cleaning
160th: 9th July. Six years after Scotland
161st: 23 July. Masked Lockdown
162nd: 30 July. Maybe next year?