Fathers 4 Justice Travel to CT for Hunger Striking Father
Bill Coleman is a Connecticut father on a hunger strike. He says he’s innocent of the rape his wife accused him of three days after he filed for sole custody of their children. Coleman has been incarcerated in McDougall-Walker prison in Suffield since 2005, when a jury convicted him of sexual assault in a spousal relationship, unlawful restraint, breach of peace, second-degree threatening and sixth-degree larceny.
Coleman was convicted without any physical evidence or witnesses, only his wife’s testimony. Fathers & Families’ Robert Franklin, Esq. wrote about another questionable rape case, “This is the way the American judicial system works. It’s aimed at putting people in prison and does so with ruthless efficiency. Most of those people committed the illegal acts they’re charged with. But that same system can be equally ruthless when an innocent person finds himself on the conveyor belt that begins with a charge, runs through court and ends in prison.” (Duke II?, 7/12/09)
Friends questioned the quality of his legal representation after Coleman didn’t testify in his own defense. Michael Gannon, Coleman’s defense attorney had his license to practice law suspended two years later, yet Coleman hasn’t been allowed to have a retrial.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut is assisting Coleman, a British citizen, in regard to his force-feeding. Patrick Doyle, education program manager for the ACLU-CT told the New Haven Advocate that after the first procedure Coleman was sneezing up blood and was covered in vomit. Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program wrote that “brutally force-feeding” Coleman violated his basic human rights and his right to make a political statement by refusing food.
Coleman told Fathers 4 Justice board member Donald Tenn that he doesn’t need to be strapped down for hours each day. (See Abducted child’s father faces prison for peaceful protest to learn more about Tenn.) Tenn says Coleman’s case is an example of why Fathers 4 Justice has a “No Jail For Being A Dad” Campaign.
Coleman is one of many parents who choose this form of protest. John Murtari of akidsright.org was fed via Nasal-Gastric tube for 123 days after refusing to eat or drink voluntarily while incarcerated for child support arrears in NY. Murtari traveled to Illinois recently for the showing of Angelo Lobo’s documentary SUPPORT? at the Peachtree Film Fest.
False accusations of rape are not uncommon, evidenced by recent news stories: Women held for blackmailing man [with false rape claim] 9/29/09, False rape accusations forces gay U.S. Soldier to out himself 9/29/09, Nanuet woman accused of making false rape report 9/29/09, Rape accusation traumatizing, former suspect says 9/18/09, Woman charged with filing false rape report after road rage incident 9/10/09, Woman faces charges for false rape claim 9/4/09, as well as high profile cases like the Duke lacrosse case and the alleged gang rape that turned out to be consensual sex at Hofstra University.
Bill’s brother Geoff told the Advocate, “Shame on the people who have violated [Bill's] rights, his mind and his body, shame on a justice system that fails the very people it sets out to protect.” Coleman’s supporters are having a rally at the prison today from 11 am to 6 pm.
After speaking with Coleman and his ACLU attorney, Tenn who is best known for protesting 4 days on a 175′ crane during a thunderstorm (cnn news report) and helping UK Fathers 4 Justice activists climb the Lincoln Memorial to hang a banner in support of America’s fathers is convinced Coleman is innocent. Tenn announced in a press release yesterday that he’s currently traveling to Connecticut to meet with him. Rumors are buzzing, but whether we’ll see another high profile peaceful protest for family law reform is yet to be seen.
Rally in support of Bill Coleman
October 2, 2009
11 am to 6 pm
MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution
1153 East Street South
Suffield, Connecticut 06080
Bill Coleman’s Statement of Protest
I, Bill Coleman, in September 2007, stopped eating solid food as a form of protest. I am protesting a broken judicial system that is incapable of providing justice as well as protesting the State of Connecticut assisting in the abuse of my children. The system has failed my children and me and I have communicated this in several forums, including in court. My case in not an isolated incident; countless others have been subjected to the injustice of the judicial system. Innocent people do not belong in prison and I now just want to be left alone to protest. Force-feeding me by inserting a tube through my nose into my stomach against my will violates all medical and international law. Furthermore, I am not demanding anything from the Department of Corrections or the judicial system. I want to make very clear that my goal is not to detrimentally affect the order of the prison or Department of Corrections, and it would be disingenuous for anyone to suggest that my actions would.
I also want to make sure it is clear that my protest is not a reflection of the Connecticut Habeas Unit. They are good people doing a good job by fighting against an increasing amount of injustice in the system. The system is broken and corrupt and is also void of any moral or ethical values for the truth. This is further exacerbated because those incarcerated are not offered rehabilitation, which is no more than a token gesture, thus making society a more dangerous place on a daily basis. This is compounded by politicians and legislators putting blame on everyone and everything other than themselves, where it belongs. More laws and longer sentences are not the answer. What Connecticut citizens should know, even if they don’t care about my children and me, is that they are one ‘falsely accused’ arrest themselves away from my nightmare. Make no mistake, your arrest is your conviction in the State of Connecticut.
What surrounds my conviction is filled with suspicious wrongdoing of many types. Having explored every avenue, to save my children and prove my innocence, I now believe the system is not an option for the truth to come out and I choose to fight to the maximum with my life. I do not want to die, but I am willing to die. Force feeding only prolongs death as my organs, after a period of time, will eventually give out. This means the DOC will have to force feed me until my death. Instead of letting me continue my protest the State is wasting valuable resources to temporarily prolong my life for only an undetermined short period of time. These resources should be spent on a better cause such as an investigation of the corrupt judicial system which would help not only me, but also others who have been wronged.
Finally, I forgive those who have wronged me and I ask forgiveness especially to those I have troubled. My family, friends and supporters vowed to never stop until my children are saved and what surrounded my case and conviction is exposed. For this, and more, I give them my eternal love and gratitude and to the Lord “I commend my spirit.”
- Fathers 4 Justice
- Bill Coleman Innocent Man Wrongfully Convicted
- Tenn’s Dedicated to daughter Madison website
More family rights articles:
- Family court documentary SUPPORT? at Atlanta film fest this weekend
- Tortured for child support
- MA getting closer to equal parenting via HB 1400
- Dirty little secrets of domestic violence programs
- Family Rights 101: Why is there a fathers rights movement?
- Family Rights 101: Where can I learn more and hear victim stories?
| More from Teri Stoddard
Stumble It!
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:02 am
Teri,
First, I am most grateful that you have decided to grace the pages of MND with your fine work. Sad to say, but the sexual politics of the times makes the voice for women like you who side on the ways of truth and justice all the more valuable.
Thank you for sharing with our readers this horrific story.
And on a more personal note, I want to cringe every time I hear someone refer to F4J members as nut cases. These are extreme times and I commend those brave men for doing what most won’t.
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:06 am
Thank you Donald and Teri.
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 am
I just don’t understand how someone can be convicted on the sole word of the alleged victim. How does this even make it to trial. Are there not basic laws that prevent charging someone with no evidence, only someones word. I am honestly asking. It seems out of the twilight zone. I thought our system was set up so that “beyond a reasonabl doubt” was a pretty tough bar to reach. If all it takes is one convincing liar to put a man in jail for serious felony charges, than we are all slaves to the liars of this world, and equally scary, whoever lies first, wins.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Teri, this is wonderful.
One day it would be nice to read how you and others managed to get to a stage of consensus in this work. How did you decide who was to be the spokespeople?
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Thanks everyone. Julie, there was no consensus. Each of us have simply grown in our skills and found our individual paths to best benefit the cause. I’ve made some great friendships over the years, and learned that some people will never accept me.
Donald is a professional climber and business owner which lends well to being an F4J board member who climbs cranes. He also has the heart and patience of a saint so he can listen to parents crying several times a day. (Even though at times he says it gets hard to take.)
I was a determined, then angry grandmother who spent a couple of years simply absorbing information from these guys. Okay, yes, and debating the value of feminism. (God forgive me. lol)
I was networking fathers’ advocates with each other for a year, then it hit me… these guys need help. They needed to pump up their numbers. So I started including noncustodial moms and grandparents. Low and behold, the owner of the largest noncustodial moms organization in the country was 100% in support of equal parenting. (Yey)
I went back and forth about including CPS families for awhile. But it became clear to me how many there were of them, and that they were describing the same kinds of corruption. Shortly after that I learned that foster and adopt parents have organized against the system too!
The mostly disregarded fathers movement had become a huge parents movement. Everyone was on social networks and adding new people daily. And by then we had attys, judges, court workers, authors, professors, etc all supporting the cause.
My issue now is educating or silencing the anti-male domestic violence people, ending anti-male media and getting other liberals to see that parents rights is a nonpartisan issue.
Have you ever seen the youtube video of Donald and I on justin.tv? That was the day we met.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:09 pm
quote:
“Coleman was convicted without any physical evidence or witnesses”
how can this possibly be ? this goes to show the system is bias against fathers
he was convicted on the basis of what ? the wifes slander and false acusations ?
this is a known common thing and this story is sick, but doesnt suprise me
i doubt this father is guilty of anything, unless that is its now an offence to be a father.
its not always the mother but the system and childrens services that introduce sick allegations, they are the sickos
this must stop !
i wish america would sort out family law to make things equal for fathers so as to set a president to the rest of the world that all loving fathers want is to see there children.
not more than mums but the same … equality its not that difficult .
newfathers4justice UK
http://www.newfathers4justice.info/
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:00 pm
@ Teri Stoddard.
I have been really impressed by writngs of Robert Franklin. Esq. He is one attorney who dares to defy the collegiality of American Bar Association (ABA) and his fellow lawyers who are in it for money.
This quote of his is apt.
“Robert Franklin, Esq. wrote about another questionable rape case, “This is the way the American judicial system works. It’s aimed at putting people in prison and does so with ruthless efficiency. Most of those people committed the illegal acts they’re charged with. But that same system can be equally ruthless when an innocent person finds himself on the conveyor belt that begins with a charge, runs through court and ends in prison”
Attorney General of Connecticut is the state’s legal officer who advises the legislature about laws constitutionality. The current long-term AG is well connected to media and has indicated feminist leanings. Like Eliot Spitzer, he has made a name for himself, so he is unlikely to help.
Link to AG office
http://www.ct.gov/ag/site/default.asp
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Bill Coleman has an abusive past and an established history of being violent and abusive with his wife. This is why he was convicted based on her testimony. Coleman also cheated on his wife at least once. This website goes into great detail about his past and the turbulent marriage. http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=10323
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:11 am
@ Adrian
Your post here serves as a dandy example of the crippling lack of understand of justice and the law itself that has resulted in the loss of constitutional rights in this country.
First, all but one incident of what you claim is an “abusive past and and established history of being violent” were simply unproven accusations which Coleman also denied. And the one incident of “violence” he admitted was insisting his wife take a shower.
Even in the article you link to it remains an absolute that the rape charge was a “he said, she said” situation, not a conviction based on forensic, eyewitness (outside the accuser) or any other type of evidence that would be required for a conviction under normal circumstances. As in so many other cases, the simple finger pointing of the accuser is considered proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
And now we have so many in the population, like yourself apparently, that consider the “she said” part of this sad equation as scientific fact.
The article also did bring some interesting information into this story for me.
Consider the following from the article:
Once home, Coleman told Parle he was filing for sole custody of their children and taking them back to England. Later that day, the family went for ice cream, meeting a friend to look at Parle’s car. The next day, the couple drove to the Waterbury courthouse, where Coleman filed papers seeking sole custody. Over the next two days, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2, Coleman drove Parle to and from work, and searched for a bunk-bed for the boys, according to Judge Munro’s account.
The next morning, Parle told a friend that Coleman had raped her. She invited the friend to dinner that night, and testified later at the divorce trial the friend left around 10:30 p.m. Coleman claimed the friend stayed late into the night and that the three of them had sex. The friend testified she had no memory of what happened after dinner that night.
Is there really anyone on this planet that can’t see the snakes crawling though this wood pile?
This has set up written all over it, and constitutes enough reasonable doubt (along with the utter lack of evidence against Coleman) that this story should never have needed to be written.
That is why we are here with people reaching for straws, and holding up other unproven allegations as evidence that another unproven allegation is true.
Such is the gender insanity of the times.
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:46 am
They both sound like flakes. Maybe the mother was the lesser of the two evils.
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:49 am
Not only was I aware of the article mentioned, I referenced it in my article. Thanks for the comments Paul.
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 am
@ Paul
The article stated instances of his abuse and violent past as fact and not as he-said-she-said. I believe they were fact.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 am
@ Marta:
I agree that they were both flakes. The mother seems to be somewhat better than the father. But this whole case is extremely exaggerated by “men’s rights” advocates who make it seem like this was a near-perfect man who is being abused by the law and his wife. I’m sure.
October 3rd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
@ Adrian
You should copy and paste those “facts” from the article to support your claim. In the meantime here are a few more clips that might have caused the contemplative to have some concern:
“Coleman was convicted solely on the testimony of his ex-wife, without forensic evidence, and no witnesses were called on his behalf.”
And as to the history of violence that you think was presented as fact:
“The plaintiff (Parle) stated that the defendant (Coleman) kicked her, spit on her and punched her, made her crawl outside on the deck and take showers to ‘rub her family off her skin,’” wrote Judge Munro. “The defendant denied all of that other than insisting she take the shower to rub her family off her skin.”
Nowhere in the article is factual support of the violence allegations even implied. Nowhere. The accusation about the shower was not even an accusation of violence.
All this notwithstanding, the critical and fatal flaw of your argument is that someone should be convicted of one crime because they might have been guilty of something else.
I hope you never face such a slanted and immoral application of justice, though as a woman in this culture it is not likely.
October 3rd, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Great article Teri,
Tragic indeed, keep telling the ugly truth.
October 3rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
@ Paul:
I’m sorry you can’t read. And I’m sorry that you like to misrepresent and twist what I said and what I meant. And I”m sorry that you can’t use deductive reasoning. Oh well. Goodbye now.
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
To Teri #5,
Thank you very much for explaining how you have accomplished a good working team. And well done for your work.
***there was no consensus. Each of us have simply grown in our skills and found our individual paths to best benefit the cause.****
That sounds like a really good tactic.
*** I’ve made some great friendships over the years, and learned that some people will never accept me.****
I can understand you making great friendships in something like this. There are many awesome people in it. Yet I think it must have been hard dealing with some. I watched some of the hardship you endured but I want to tell you that you are an international star and the MRM in New Zealand has a lot of good things to say about you. If you ever feel like travelling all the way over here, you will have good homes to stay in all over the country.
(that’s an offer BTW)
***I was a determined, then angry grandmother who spent a couple of years simply absorbing information from these guys. Okay, yes, and debating the value of feminism. (God forgive me. lol)****
I think you paved the way for other females. I also think we were very fortunate you were so true and worth it. Thanks a lot for that.
***I was networking fathers’ advocates with each other for a year, then it hit me… these guys need help. They needed to pump up their numbers. So I started including noncustodial moms and grandparents. Low and behold, the owner of the largest noncustodial moms organization in the country was 100% in support of equal parenting. (Yey)***
Wow wee! What a great break.
****I went back and forth about including CPS families for awhile. But it became clear to me how many there were of them, and that they were describing the same kinds of corruption. Shortly after that I learned that foster and adopt parents have organized against the system too!****
Very clever. I came through this as someone from the CYFs (that’s our initials for the same organisation) side.
***The mostly disregarded fathers movement had become a huge parents movement. Everyone was on social networks and adding new people daily. And by then we had attys, judges, court workers, authors, professors, etc all supporting the cause.***
Gosh! Wow! Fantastic! Awesome!. I really hope you continue to write on here. I soooo like you and admire you. We in NZ have many established groups that are not exactly into the rightwing ideology anor into the left wing ideology either who really want something to happen.
What you do and what you know is priceless. I seriously want to copy your success.
***My issue now is educating or silencing the anti-male domestic violence people, ending anti-male media and getting other liberals to see that parents rights is a nonpartisan issue.****
Oh, we must connect. I may be able to help you and I am sure you will be helping me. BTW, there is another woman who joined the online MRM (America) who I must invite to come over here and met you.
***Have you ever seen the youtube video of Donald and I on justin.tv? That was the day we met.***
Not yet, but I will now!
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Mr K says, #7
***I have been really impressed by writngs of Robert Franklin. Esq. He is one attorney who dares to defy the collegiality of American Bar Association (ABA) and his fellow lawyers who are in it for money.***
SO AM I impressed by Robert Franklin. He is an amazing man and very onto it.
October 3rd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I must be in a really good mood. I’m chuckling.
Adrian, you make your statements with such conviction! You must know more than I do.
Or maybe not.
I’ve just interviewed Ms. Bardes for part five of the series.
…chuckling again…
Julie, you can write about me anytime you want! …big smile…
I’m not sure I deserve credit for creating a working team though. There is an ever-growing network of people around the world who share the same passion. Some of us help each other when we can. I’ve now known some of these people for years.
I call the people I work with or have worked with friends. Most of them probably have no idea that they have a special place in my heart, but they do. The people in this movement are such good-hearted people. Even the ones with gruff exteriors.
I’m only a tiny bit of this whole thing. I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for people like Mike LaSalle, Pete Clark, Matt O’Connor, Jamil Jabr, Donald Tenn, B.Bat, Kris Titus, my secret mentor and so many more.
As you know, I went through hell getting to this point. But really, I don’t think it was much worse for me than it is for anyone who steps into the online parents movement with a vulnerable heart, and is stubborn enough to stay. I just did it publically.
I’ve always felt that if I just kept telling the truth I would overcome detractors of the cause, and of me.
I’m becoming more encouraged every day that things will improve. Young feminists believe in the ideals that we do, and are addressing it within their movement…slowly and gently…which is fine by me. It’s like watching a miracle.
October 3rd, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Oh my…is this what they call a brain freeze? Adrian, I apologize. I had the Bardes case on my mind. As far as Coleman, it does seem that although he may have been controlling, there is no evidence that he abused or raped her.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:17 am
@ Teri Stoddard
You may consider suggesting to Bill Coleman to petition the Governor to grant parole or pardon on “humanitarian grounds “for him. Presidents have the power to grant either and usually do at the end of their tern for federal cimes (As Bill Clinton did for couple of hundreds) and governors have similar power for state crimes. Many years ago our former Governor paroled/pardoned several women who had killed their husbands or partners. Ohio Governor did similar thing earlier. He could petiton for either of both. It does’t need admission og guilt. Parole does not wpe out the conviction but ends the prison term/ Parole wipes out the conviction.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Correction to my earlier post.
The last sentence should have read “Pardon” not parole.
Wikipedia defininition of pardon. Link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon