Court Superintendent Shellon Daniels is urging men, who believe they are entitled to assistance in caring for their children, to apply for child support.
She was at the time being interviewed on the weekly programme “Police and You”.
“In child support matters, whereby a person may apply for maintenance either under the Domestic Violence Act or strictly under the Maintenance Ordinance, when the parent fails to honoor those orders after six weeks, the person who take them to court for the maintenance can apply for a warrant.
“So, what they issue first now is a ‘distress warrant’ that is executed on the person if he or she, and I’m using ‘he or she’ because (if the man is taking care of his children) and the woman is living scot-free, he can apply for child support. So, it’s no longer just one-sided now, but the men, I don’t know why they are not utilising the services,” the Court Superintendent explained.
In fact, she went on to highlight a rare case whereby a man had applied for child support and the woman was arrested for failing to pay.
“Recently, a woman would’ve been committed for ten days because she would’ve failed to pay the $240,000 child support. So, the thing of it, was that a warrant was issued for her, the distress warrant, she hadn’t the money so the warrant was backed by the Station Sergeant and an application was made for an arrest warrant, and she was picked up,” Daniels explained.
The Court Superintendent said she is sharing this information with the public to educate men about their rights and encourage them to utilise the services available to them.
