A friend of mine is in a similar situation however she is the child. Her birth father showed up out of no where and wants custody when she would rather stay with the man who raised her since she was 4, she is now sixteen, the mother is out of the picture and the stepfather who raised her never adopted her , he just cared for her. Do you know of a way for her to stay with her stepfather?

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Originally Posted by NickW

A friend of mine is in a similar situation however she is the child. Her birth father showed up out of no where and wants custody when she would rather stay with the man who raised her since she was 4, she is now sixteen, the mother is out of the picture and the stepfather who raised her never adopted her , he just cared for her. Do you know of a way for her to stay with her stepfather?

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Legally, probably not. The stepfather is not a legal parent or even guardian. If the stepfather refuses to return the child, he could very well get into trouble for interfering with child custody.

Why is the father suddenly interested in his daughter's life after being absent for a over a decade? Has he actually been established as the biological father through either a court-ordered DNA test or by signing a paternity acknowledgment?

I want to emphasize the point that the step father has no legal standing here. He may actually be in serious trouble for caring for this child all these years. He had no rights to approve medical care or register in school or anything like that.

However one of the keys to what will happen depends on the circumstances involved in the mother "being out of the picture". Was he actually married to the mother? For how long? What happened to her? What did he do about the child when whatever happened, happened?

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

... He may actually be in serious trouble for caring for this child all these years. ...

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*rolls eyes*. Not really.

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Originally Posted by AK lawyer

*rolls eyes*. Not really.

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Oh? Lets say, for example, that the mother's parents wanted custody of the child, but the step-father did not let them know that the mother went out of the picture or that he had the child and where. Yes, he could be in trouble.

I can see what both of you are saying. Scott is pointing out that there's the possibility of one of the child's relatives getting upset and trying to have charges of kidnapping/concealment filed against the father.

My opinion is that nobody is going to take it to that level and even if they tried to, I would see the courts being more likely to grant custody to a family member and leaving it at that, rather than getting into the mess of prosecuting the stepfather.

We also don't know that he was never granted legal guardianship. Before my wife and I married, I had legal guardianship of my (then) stepson so we could get him insured.

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Originally Posted by ScottGem;

the probability of the step-father being prosecuted is small. But the fact remains, that he had no legal standing or right to continue to raise the child.

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It's not a crime to raise a child without "legal standing", as the fictional Silas Marner did. The probablility of being prosecuted should be zero.

Concealing, etc. as you suggested in your post of Today @ 01:07 PM would be a different kettle of fish.

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Originally Posted by AK lawyer

It's not a crime to raise a child without "legal standing", as the fictional Silas Marner did. The the probablility of being prosecuted should be zero.

Concealing, etc., as you suggested in your post of Today @ 01:07 PM would be a different kettle of fish.

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I'm really not in the mood for this to turn into an argument and, once again, detract from the OP's question. What could/couldn't happen has been discussed and agreed upon. Drop it already.

Also at this point the step dad could go to court and fight for custody of the child as he has cared for her "as his own" for this many years. There is a good chance he could win in a custody battle of this nature provided he wasn't concealing the child from the bio father.