His mother, famous children's book author Joy Cowley always made excuses for James's bad behaviour, and her own example. Joy Cowley simply walked out and left her four children and her husband, a nice man, because she was ambitious, and wanted more than he could offer. She blamed him, accusing him of having affairs, this pattern of blaming other people and twisting reality was also passed on to her son James, as is evidenced clearly in the utterly sad letter he wrote to the family (below). For her part in this matter, Joy Cowley is a writer of fiction - and none more fanciful than the fiction she wrote to my daughter and tried to pass off as fact - such as telling my daughter that her father had always paid child support when she knew full well that he NEVER had! Joy then manipulated the Family Court by selling the house we lived in to ensure that Lily didn't have a home to come back to - as another Judge did recently.
James never paid one cent in child support, or contributed toward the support of our daughter. He worked, and probably still does, in the film industry as a freelance camera operator. His uncle Graham Cowley set him up in the film industry. James was being paid about $1200 a day when his daughter was born about 25 years ago, so he was certainly in a position to contribute. Instead, he moved in with Maria Saunders, ex wife of Barry Saunders, and helped pay off her mortgage on a lovely house on the beachfront at Seatoun in Wellington, instead of paying child support. When they married in 1995 Joy Cowley gave them a farm in the Marlborough Sounds for a wedding present. He boasted that when the Child Support collectors came to their flash beachfront home in Seatoun he just told them he didn't know who James Cowley was, and then had a good laugh about it after they'd gone. His mother knew all about this, and indulged him, making excuses for him.
Meanwhile, I worked on orchards and vineyards, as a cleaner and manual labourer, to provide for myself and my daughter, working in restaurants at night as well, so I could be there for her after school, etc. I tried my best to be a good mother and give her a happy, healthy childhood, and set her up for life with good morals and principles. We lived wherever we could afford to, and I tried to make a nice, warm, clean, happy home for us as best I could, in shearers quarter and farm cottages in rural communities where there was work. Things were quite difficult for us during those years, but we were blessed with the support of wonderful people in caring communities, like Waimarama, Te Awanga, Poukawa, Mangatahi, Maraekakaho. I'll llist them at the end of this story, my head is filled with their names, wonderful, wonderful people, who helped me fiind work, helped look after my daughter, helped with accommodation, friendship, aroha.
I received 3 or 4 letters from James over the years describing his life, swanning around with Maria in her Aston Martin or his Rover, or one of their other vehicles (or one of his other girlfriends), drinking champagne, attending film premieres, travelling to exotic locations to make beer commercials (all expenses paid), etc, having a wonderful life (but paying no child support). The letters always had empty promises about what James Cowley was going to do, start his own company, send for my daughter and I to come to Wellington and work for his company, "I should be in a position to send you some money soon" blah blah. "I've lost my license again for drunk driving" etc.
Joy Cowley wrote me, and our daughter, numerous letter over the years. Many of these letters refer to Joy suing her publisher (Doubleday? I'll check) for $100,000. Joy's letters to us promise over and over again that Joy is going to divide the $100,000 between me, James, and her other three children (who are all very nice people indeed, which is one of the reasons I haven't written about this before).
Cut to April 1996. Click on the images below to enlarge them.
This letter, written to police in June 1997 by lawyer Bryan King of Langley Twigg in Napier describes how my daughter was removed illegally, against her wishes and mine, examined by the police doctor illegally and without consent, and a number of other serious allegations.
Paragraph 1 refers to information that the removal was engineered in advance, exactly like the actions of corrupt local police at the public meeting in Carterton when they conspired with Carterton District Council staff to travel at dangerous and completely unnecessary speed to drag me out of the meeting and lock me up all night like the Gestapo!
There will be a letter up soon, from his mother, Joy Cowley, to me, saying how James should not have unsupervised access to our daughter because of his mental instability, and propensity to manipulate people. It says "Don't believe what he says, his motivation is not concern for Xxxxxx but a desire to get at you. I promise you that any time Xxxxx spent with us while james is here would be carefully supervised." on one occasion. He had no rights at all, no access rights, custody, guardianship, nothing. This was because he had shown almost no interest whatsoever in her life. That is evidenced by a letter from Joy Cowley to the Principal of the school our daughter was attending in Havelock North, near where she had always lived with me, to advise the Principal that her son James had no role in his daughters life. He had denied paternity.
This letter shows that James Cowley had been assessed as owing over $17,000 in child support at the time I inquired, a short while after her removal.
Another request from my lawyer revealed that he actually owed over $26,000.
In spite of the fact that James has never, ever paid child support, his mother
