‘Parental alienation’ is sometimes used in family court to wrest custody from a parent who alleges abuse. by Tim Stelloh, Al Jazeera America
Details how allegations of alienation are frequently used by fathers to counter claims of child abuse. Often, these are cases in which a mother reported a classic symptom of abuse — the child acting in a sexually inappropriate manner, for instance, or having overly sexualized knowledge. However, these cases are not considered to be credible because the mother was considered to be alienating or because she was thought to have a mental-health issue. Attorney Gregory Jacob, a former solicitor in George W. Bush’s Department of Labor, stated, “I see parent after parent after parent punished for raising good-faith allegations in court in order to get the authorities looking at the same evidence they’ve seen.”