Child Custody Issue
At the end of 2001, Edwards was involved in a highly publicized child custody case in Canada. While playing for the Vancouver Grizzlies in the spring of 1996, Edwards, who was married, started an affair with Canadian citizen Kimberly Van de Perre. He had at least two other affairs. During the affair with Kimberly, she became pregnant and gave birth to a baby boy named Elijah, in June 1997. When Elijah was three months old, Ms. Van de Perre began proceedings for custody and child support, naming Edwards as the father of the child. Edwards responded initially by seeking joint custody and liberal access, but later changed his response to seek sole custody.
After a lengthy trial that ran from the fall of 1998 to early 1999, the trial judge released his decision and awarded sole custody to the mother. Edwards was given considerable access — four one-week periods quarterly throughout the year, shared time at Christmas and on Elijah's birthday and additional access upon short notice when he was in Vancouver. Theodore appealed this decision.
During the hearing at the British Columbia Court of Appeal, the Court invited Mrs. Edwards to apply to be admitted as a party and to request joint custody of Elijah with her husband. Mrs. Edwards is also an African American. This new, joint application for custody was successful, and Elijah was placed in the custody of Edwards and his wife.
The Court of Appeals' decision was stayed to allow the mother the opportunity to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, with the result that Elijah remained primarily in his mother's care throughout these proceedings. In 2001 the Supreme Court of Canada restored the trial decision and awarded custody to Elijah's mother; the Court concluded that in this case there was no evidence introduced that race should be "an important consideration". After the Supreme Court affirmed that the mother should have sole custody, the father ceased visiting and paying child support.
In 2009, the Canadian Television Network produced and aired a made for TV movie based on the custody battle story entitled "Playing for Keeps", which is released in the US under the title "What Color Is Love?".
Read more about this topic: Blue Edwards
Famous quotes containing the words child and/or issue:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Your child...may not call you or other people names.... Don’t be tempted to gloss over this issue. You may be able to talk to yourself into not minding being called names, but this decision may come back to haunt you in later years. If you let a preschooler speak disrespectfully to you now, you’ll have a much harder time of it when your child is a preteen and the issue resurfaces, which it is likely to do then.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)