Canada: Judge assails mother for campaign of 'lies'

Story here.

VANCOUVER — A British Columbia judge lashed out at a French woman yesterday for a nationwide campaign of vilification against her ex-husband that castigated him and the Canadian justice system on newscasts and front pages across France.

Hostility was so intense that the Canadian embassy was forced into the fray to defend Canada's role in the bitter child-custody case, while the French village where Nathalie Gettliffe lived "seemed determined to lynch" her former husband, Scott Grant, according to Madam Justice Marvyn Koenigsberg.

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"They also said he was guilty of abusive behaviour. . . . This persistent and deliberate alienation from their father . . . is a terrible burden for any child to bear and may mark them for life."

The maximum penalty for Ms. Gettliffe's crime is two years in jail, plus three years of probation. Judge Koenigsberg called her 16-month sentence a severe judgment, required because of her prolonged defiance of the courts and the serious harm to her children.

She receives credit for 10 months of time already spent in jail, leaving her with six months to serve.