Mother only permitted supervised access of child in recent Ontario Court of Justice decision

Macedonio v. Peers

2016 CarswellOnt 5026

Ontario Court of Justice

Family law --- Custody and access — Access — Supervised access

Parties had one child — Child was removed from mother's care by children's aid society due to domestic violence, inappropriate physical discipline of child, neglect, substance abuse, lack of cooperation with society and overall concerns about mother's parenting skills — Child was placed in care of father — Father was granted custody of child and mother was granted supervised access — Mother brought motion for unsupervised access — Motion dismissed — Access should continue to be supervised, as mother's interaction with child continued to be problematic and quality of interactions had not significantly improved — Mother continued to have conflict with those who supervised access and she had trouble abiding by rules — Mother was not supportive of father's custody and she could not be trusted not to denigrate father if access was unsupervised — Mother did not have insight into how her behaviour affected child — There was risk that child would be emotionally harmed by mother if access was unsupervised — There were concerns about mother's mental health — Mother had not taken further programs to improve her parenting.