A Maple Ridge mother has been restricted to supervised visits with her son, after allegations of her giving him “urine therapy” came to light.
B.C. Supreme Court issued an order for supervised parenting access Wednesday, to the mother of an eight-year-old after the child’s father alleged that the mother practised “urine therapy”, which is an old practice of drinking one’s own urine and massaging it into one’s skin, on the child.
The couple, referred to as A.G., 41 years, and C.A.G., 47 years, in the court proceedings, lived in Maple Ridge from 2009 until 2020, before separating. In 2020, according to the father, the mother who had been diagnosed with cancer, took her son to Vancouver Island while getting her treatment, without his consent. The family is now back in their family home in Maple Ridge, albeit continuing to be separated.
Later in April this year, the son told his father that he had a secret to share, and asked him not to tell his mother. He then told his father that his mother had asked him to pee in a jar and then put the pee into his fruit smoothie. He also said his mother drank her own urine.
The father approached his family doctor looking for advice on how to proceed. The doctor wrote back saying the Ministry of Child and Family Development would be in touch. The child also spoke with the doctor and repeated the same allegations against his mother.
The father notified the mother’s lawyers that he would no longer allow unsupervised visits, and asked for the urine therapy to be stopped immediately.
The mother denied ever using urine therapy on the child. She agreed that she had given the child a jar to pee in, to monitor his lymphatic system, a well-known way to check if his kidneys were filtering, she said.
While there were competing applications in front of the court, in the matter relating to interim parenting time, Master Kimberley A. Roberston, said that while the court found both parties’ evidence exaggerated at times, Robertson also thought the evidence presented by the father was generally more balanced and centered on the child, whereas the mother’s evidence was focused more on defending her health beliefs, and minimizing the effect that they may be having on the child.
Robertson said, “Unfortunately, at this point in time the respondent is acting in such a way that her judgment, particularly as to health matters and risk caused by the urine therapy practices, constitute exceptional circumstances to support that supervised access is an appropriate order to make.”
“Ultimately, the nub of this application can be summarized by the following statement made by the claimant in his affidavit: ‘[the respondent] is his mom and she loves him, but she is ill and her judgement and health are questionable at this time,'” said Robertson.
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