Case information

Family law — Custody and access — Custody of three children awarded to mother — Father granted supervised access rights — Father’s appeal of custody and access orders dismissed as meritless, given lack of complete record — Father’s further appeal to Court of Appeal dismissed — Whether children have statutory right to have unimpeded access to parents — Whether parents have duty to be truthful and candid and not to engage in fraudulent misrepresentations about children to mislead courts — Whether courts have statutory or common law duties or obligations to cite parent for contempt of court if parent misrepresented material facts about children and other parent to obtain custody and child support — Family Law Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F. 3, s. 49(1) — Children’s Law Reform Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C 12.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

The applicant father, Mr. Dahir Mohamed, and the respondent mother, Ms. Farhiyo Tahill Farah, have three children. Between 2010 and 2018, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice issued four family law orders relating to custody and access for the three children, ultimately resulting in the mother having sole custody of the children, with supervised access rights for the father.
The applicant father sought to challenge all four orders. His appeal from all four orders was dismissed by Justice De Sousa of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on February 28, 2019, who found that the appeal had no merit, based on the incomplete state of the record. A further appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal was dismissed unanimously on July 18, 2019 (with written reasons provided on July 22, 2019).