Editor’s note: Resource Perspectives features articles written by members of Lovefraud’s Professional Resources Guide.
Rebecca Potter works as a licensed mental health counselor in West Palm Beach, Florida. She can be reached at: tlc211@gmail.com.
Judge William Adams shown beating his daughter with a belt on YouTube
By Rebecca Potter
Rebecca Potter profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide
As I saw the following video and commentary on CNN last night, I could not sleep. It appears that the sheriff in the town of Rockport, Texas has received countless calls of concern about Judge William Adams, who was shown beating his daughter with a belt on YouTube. Judge Adams is a family court judge. People were concerned about this judge being allowed to make decisions about the welfare of children. Judge Adams has three years left to make decisions about the welfare of families in Rockport, Texas.
Here’s the YouTube video: Judge William Adams beats daughter for using the Internet
Judge Adams feels that he was fairly disciplining his daughter for downloading music from the Internet. When I saw this video of his daughter, who has cerebral palsy, she was being beaten with a belt as she begged for him to stop. The daughter had set up her computer web camera as she felt the beating coming. Recent comments from the judge indicate that he sees nothing wrong with how he abused his child. News stories indicate he has left town, and officials are stating that he will not preside over cases that involve children.
Family court ignores the physical and emotion affect of abuse on children
Current research is able to document the effects of child abuse on the brain. As a professional, when I testify in court regarding the damage to children from trauma and abuse, I am not taken seriously. The judges feel that there is no physical damage, and they say permissive parenting by the protective parent is the cause of acting out behaviors of children. Meanwhile, current research shows that 60 percent of children who experience trauma and abuse will develop a substance use disorder.
Unfortunately, many of us have had to appear before judges like the Texas Judge Adams who feels justified to whip (beat and attack) his daughter with a belt, as she had been caught downloading music. These judges discount the scientific research and evidence of physical abuse causing permanent brain damage.
Hanley Center currently researching the effects of substance use and trauma on brain health
Brain scan technology is showing evidence of physical scars that occur in the brain after trauma and abuse. I attended a lecture by Dr. Barbara Krantz, Medical Director of the Hanley Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. Brain imaging is being used in her facility. It is now possible to document what drugs and/or alcohol have been consumed based on the areas of the brain that show injury in brain scans. What also was shared was the difference in the hippocampus of an abused child and the hippocampus of a child who did not suffer abuse. This is the proof of permanent physical damage to the brain of a child who has been abused. Often these children medicate the emotional pain with substance use.
Practicing Mental Health without a license
Family judges are practicing mental health without a license. This practice by family court judges is dangerous to the health of our families, our nation and our financial well-being
- Many of these judges are unaware of current research.
- Judges do not allow children to testify or be a part of the court hearings that determine their well-being
- Children and protective parents are developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Additionally, when a judge has a tendency for personal pathology, they relate to the litigant who is also shares the personal pathology traits. These disordered individuals agree in the harsh punishment, punishment that does not fit the crime. This is the philosophy of control and dominance. These judges discriminate against the protective parent because they have not processed very personal feelings, and the protective parent is unbearable to their own personal philosophy. The judges are able to make decisions that affect the mental health of a child without the ability to understand their own personal opinions and processing of their own injuries. Readers will want to read articles on www.highconflictinstitute.com to understand the ignorance of judges who are confronted with the high conflict divorce and custody cases.
I have worked in the mental health field, and have had years of training to separate my own personal views and judgments from the individuals that I treat. This discernment and ability to separate your personal opinions and judgment comes from intensive personal training, supervision and counseling. Judges are exposed to mental health issues of families and children. They have not had this training and they are unable to provide a competent decision in these cases. In my opinion, I feel that Family Court judges are being asked to practice the profession of mental health without the proper training.
Judges use of defense mechanisms to insulate themselves against protective parents
When an individual does not have the training, supervision and experience to understand their use of defense mechanisms (your own dysfunction and personal defects), the individual blames and targets the individual who reminds you of your emotional pain. The use of these defense mechanisms allows an individual to insulate themselves from the pain, guilt, and shame.
Often times, the judges are so angered by the protective parent that to further insulate the judge, the protective parent is thrown in jail, or worse, the children are taken away and given to the parent with whom the judge can relate and identify. There is further emotional and financial pain placed upon the protective parent. The protective parent and children are damaged by the trauma of the court and develop complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
In my opinion, this is use of a defense mechanisms to project blame and repress the protective parent. If the children are removed and the protective parent is placed in jail, the judges do not have to face their own dysfunction. The saying, “out of sight, out of mind” is the attitude of a dysfunctional individual who wants to keep memories, fears, guilt and shame repressed.
Behavioral Research
Typically, all behavior research has demonstrated that punishment does not achieve a reduction in undesirable behavior. Punishment will actually increase the behavior. The individual who is punished will become more rebellious, fearful and sneaky. There are some severe situations in which punishment is used to extinguish a behavior. The use of punishment must be reviewed by other professionals to determine the effectiveness of the punishment and the safety of a plan that is put in place.
Overseeing the Family Court System
The children who are exposed to court and legal trauma are developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They have been exposed to a war and punishment. The children are left in a state of hopeless despair, fear and victimhood. There is no committee of professionals who oversee the effect of the Family Court decisions on families and children.
I honor the courage and strength of the judge’s daughter for exposing his abuse to the nation. I feel inspired by this brave young girl’s courage and write about this very controversial topic to inspire our nation to band together to write letters and support each other as we attempt to change this ignorant archaic system used in our courts.
One person will not be able to change this system. It is time to band together and develop a plan to insist that the judges no longer have the only authority to make decisions for families. We must also insist that psychologists who depend on the court for fees are not allowed to diagnose a traumatized parent as a personality disordered parent. It takes a trauma specialist to diagnose this disorder and protective parents are often diagnosed with personality disorders. This has become a major epidemic in the American judicial system, an epidemic that has serious legal, health and financial consequences to our nation. We need to demand committees of independent professionals be involved in Family Court decisions.
Rebecca ~
Thank you, thank you, thank you, for this IMPORTANT article for all of us that have had, or are currently having to deal with Family/Juvenile Court cases.
What I found most helpful and informative is your observations under “Practicing Mental Health without a License” AND “Judges use of defense mechanisms to insulate themselves against protective parents” Finally some insight into why they just don’t get it and how do they sleep at night.
Just yesterday, I read an article that speaks directly to this problem. A four year old child, split custody between an unmarried mother and father. Father discovers little girl is being physically abused by mother and sexually abused by mother’s new boyfriend. Social Services investigates and finds there IS physical and sexual abuse by mom and boyfriend. Father goes to Domestic Relations Court and obtains an Order of Protection banning the mom from seeing child. He does not allow mom to see child for two months. Mom goes to Juvenile Court and Magistrate refuses to hear any evidence and refuses to grant an emergency hearing for custody by father. Magistrate charges the father with contempt for violating the custody agreement in effect in Juvenile Court.
In my state, and in MANY states, an Order of Protection from a Domestic Relations Court (who has heard evidence) DOES NOT give a parent the right to violate a Juvenile Court custody agreement. This Magistrate can, at their discretion, hear evidence but is not required under law to do so. This Magistrate choose not to and the child was ordered to spend three days a week with psysically and sexually abusive parent. Again, HOW DO THEY SLEEP AT NIGHT.
The problem I see and have personally run into with trying to change the system is that the everyday Joe Public does not have any idea anything like this is going on and when they become aware of just one case like the one I wrote about they think it is an isolated incident that fell through the cracks. People just don’t seem to care. I wrote recently that maybe we should put our children on the endangered species list and then we could get the support they so desperately need.
I think your idea of committees of independent professionals becoming involved is a great one. I would like to add that EVERYONE, including forensic psychologists that do testing and GALS who have great amount of influence and almost no guidelines be required to take comprehensive training in the research you have quoted.
Please suggest how we can band together and what we can do because as a 64 year old grandmother, adoptive mother, custodial grandmother, former foster mother, social services retired worker I frankly CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE. I need help. Sometimes, even on Lovefraud, the articles on child abuse and neglect receive far less comments and concern than some of the other topics. That does not mean the other topics are not as important, it only means our children are our future and they cannot speak for themselves, we must do it for them.
Rebecca,
I agree 110% with your assessment of the problem with the judges practicing mental health without a license….and unfortunately many of the “mental health professionals” that are being PAID BY THE PARENTS ON THE ORDER OF THE JUDGES” are also NOT competent either, but are simply using the “jobs” as CASH COWS and milking the nurturing parent who is already spending everything they have to fight the abusive parent.
We have a blogger here, MiLo who has custody of her grandson, and the GAL recommended that the child who has been with MiLo for 10 of his 12 years be put into foster care so he could “bond with” his drug addict, neglectful and mother. This is also a special needs child as well. This is just ONE example of what MiLo and her husband have had to endure to protect this child from his mother (their daughter) over the years.
There is a group in California called the California Protective Parents group that works toward educating people and the legal system and keeps a “judge watch” on the various family court judges that are outrageous (like this man that beat his daughter) and they had a Mother’s Day march in DC.
Rebecca I share your frustration and I too have to not trigger myself with the articles here on LoveFraud (I couldn’t watch the video of the girl being beaten) because I feel so helpless.
I think you are right, Joe Public doesn’t know, and is more concerned right now in getting or keeping their job as well as keeping their mortgage paid, and if something doesn’t directly effect Joe, then he/she is unlikely to be very concerned. I think everyone, including Joe Public can be over loaded with disasters going on in the world.
There are all kinds of “good causes” that clamor and cry out for the attention of and funding from Jo/e Public from the Feed the Hungry, to the Race for the Cure, to Wounded Warriors, political parties, churches, Christmas for their own kids, educating their own kids, abortion debates, the War against Terror, domestic violence shelters, drug rehab, homelessness, birth defects, and so on…the list is endless and none of us can give to every cause, either emotionally or financially and the competition for Jo/e’s attention is huge, but that doesn’t mean we don’t need to DO anything and throw up our hands and quit. It just means that we need to focus our energies in a directed way in which to get the message SIMPLE enough that it is easily understandable.
One of the things my attorney that I hired to represent me in the hearing AGAINST my psychopathic son’s parole hearing is that the “parole board is very busy, and they have a very short attention span” so I have to keep my message concise and precise to them. (even then I sent a packet with over 100 pages!) and it worked that time with that one small group!
Maybe a brainstorming of ideas would present some ideas aobut a direction. Recruiting some attorneys that work in family law to the cause, social workers, mental health professionals and parents who have been through the mill….then a web site for a national group,, and some help for forming state and local groups. I’ll throw my hat in the ring (I’m retired too!)
Here’s a quote from an article about the judge:
In a court judgement last October, Judge Adams said that a child’s statements ‘amounted to no evidence’ despite the fact the child’s words had been confirmed by third party witnesses and recorded on video several times.
“The young person had also been interviewed by a child psychologist who believed the child.
Judge Adams also agreed with a lawyer who claimed all children are ‘fantasisers’ and their testimony should just be ignored.”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057419/Judge-William-Adams-beat-disabled-daughter-Hillary-video-WONT-charged.html#ixzz1ckr8czmh
Hopefully some of his past decisions may be reviewed and over turned where appropriate!
Holy Crap!
I can only hope that this judge will not only get what he justly deserves, but also that some (if not all) of what he has handed down to others shall fall on him as a result of Karma coming back around to him as well…
That’s about as nicely as I can put it. Beating a child with a belt? One with CP nonetheless? Despicable low life piece of sewage scum, doesn’t even come close to describing him. He’s lucky I am not the childs mother. One of us might be in jail, the other one in the ground and the little Princess would be staying with grandma for a while…
When beatings like this occurred in my upbringing, I am telling you that by aged 16, you don’t cry anymore. You know you just have to endure. You know it’s not about you, it’s about the abusers need to vent.
But I do attribute such abuse as creating a blind spot in me, that discerning good people and bad was hard for me b/c if what they did to me was LESS than the abuse of childhood, it felt like love. At least it did with my husband, and didn’t feel “bad” until the abuse was worse than those beatings.
I will also say, the pain of beatings was bad but my rage comes from the fury of being trapped and beaten and that I could do NOTHING about it b/c OTHERS had decided it was OKAY. So FFFFF all these people who condon, excuse, blame ME for objecting to being someone’s object of relieving their flustration and anger.
ALSO, Know that I NEVER did this to my child for the same reason. I NEVER wanted her to feel she was a THING to be abused at whim. So that crap that poor guy was just doing what was done to him is JUST THAT. CRAP. An excuse. NO it’s NOT an excuse. It was a CHOICE.
Nope, they already said they will not do anything with this judge because the statute of limitations is up.
Besides the obvious revulsion I feel toward this waste of oxygen, there is an interesting observation to be made about this man.
When I see him beating his daughter and telling her that she doesn’t deserve to live in the house, etc… I become aware of various aspects of his disordered thinking which are the hallmarks of the cluster b PD’s, if not sociopathy itself.
First, he is using black and white thinking. Although his daughter is a music prodigy who has overcome great odds (the idealization phase), he sees her as unfit and undeserving of even having a roof over her head (the devalue phase) because she downloaded something illegally. Can we say “borderline”?
Another thing I see is the typical spath thinking of seeing the glass half empty. Instead of appreciating that he HAS a wonderful and amazing daughter, he can only focus on the aspects which don’t meet his standards. That is the classic attitude of ingratitude that I’ve seen in ALL spaths. They ALL have this attitude. That’s why you can give them a hand and they’ll take your arm. You can never do enough or be good enough toward them.
Then there is the obvious sense of entitlement. His complete disrespect of his daughter’s physical boundaries and disrespect of her dignity as a human being. He feels completely entitled to beat her into submission.
The need to dominate doesn’t even need to be mentioned, all spaths have that.
Lastly and most glaringly is his lack of empathy when she begs for him to stop. She has a disability which affects her motor skills and balance. You can see it in the video as she walks toward the camera to turn it off. You can see it in her stance. She is truly disabled because she doesn’t have the coordination to KICK HIM IN THE BALLS AND MAKE SURE IT CONNECTS.
Anyway, I find it very useful to analyze behavior based on abstract concepts which define the PD’s. Often times we can doubt our gut reaction. People rationalize the behavior, calling it “losing my temper” or “discipline” or whatever. But when you analyze a person’s behavior with what we know about cluster b’s, you can clearly see what you are observing is a disordered PD. Once you know the pattern, you can predict future behavior.
I predict he will abuse his new girlfriend. Spaths never learn.
I thought Adams was a judge in Arkansas, not Texas.
If it’s Texas, that explains a lot. I used to live in Texas.
I used to attend a 12-step group there. I am sworn to secrecy as to the name of the person and her family who spoke one day, but she claimed to be a member of a family that is the source of the name of a Texas county, a kind of well known one for bizarre behavior among its legal and law enforcement officials. I’ll call her Rachelle, which isn’t even her first name.
Rachelle recounted for us a horrendous history of sociopathic, drunken, incestuous, violent behavior in her family. She ended by telling us that several members of the family went on to careers in law enforcement and the court system, as well as political posts as far as statewide, but mostly in their home county.
These kind of people resonate with voters in Texas, because the voters themselves are adult children of such people. They appear “fatherly” and act the part of judge or sheriff quite well.
It’s not limited to Texas, of course, but I noted a creepy feeling around some of the public officials there. A lot of 12-step groups, a lot of stories, in the major cities of that state.
I sometimes wonder what happened to Rachelle. She seemed like an ordinary woman, not a survivor of such awful things. I suspect she’s doing fine. It took a lot of courage to describe what she described.
Oh wow, I’m starting to get chills when you talk about that glass-half-empty perception. Because that’s what’s been happening around my workplace, and I’m realizing my supervisor is like this.
I’m glad I was not able to view the video without having an account, which I don’t feel like creating. The description alone really hit close to home. This is exactly what I suffered at the hands of my stepfather from age 7 to age 15 until I finally stood up to him. It took about 6 more years to finally purge the trauma from the physical beatings out of my body. It happened very spontaneously on my first long meditation retreat. As the memory surfaced of a very bad beating, I went into rage and started screaming. I’m sure I seemed psychotic to the other meditators. Then like a bolt of electricity, it exited out my legs, and I felt more grounded.
I strongly believe that no matter how much therapy you do and how much you talk about it, the body stores the memories until you release them. I know I healed the physical abuse part of my life because I never once attracted a physically violent person into my life after that. Not once.