Dear Mrs Macaulay,

I recently had a son and from his birth, his father has said the child isn’t his. I told him to do a DNA test but he doesn’t want to do it. I told him to pay half the money and I’d pay the other half, and he said OK, then backed out, saying he doesn’t have time for that. What should I do?

It is very unfortunate that you engaged in an unprotected sexual relationship with such a man who has denied his paternity of your son. He is clearly a worthless man and a true deadbeat dad.

Anyway, he cannot get away with his unfeeling and irresponsible conduct. This is why we have laws made to regulate the conduct of citizens who try to deny their legal obligations.

You have to make applications to the Family Court of your parish for orders for your son’s father to admit or have his paternity proved in the course of your application’s hearing by the court.

You must go to your parish’s Family Court office and take with you a certified copy of your son’s birth certificate and tell a clerk there that you are there to make an application against the father of your son for (1) a declaration of paternity and an order for the alleged father, the respondent, to do a DNA test at the laboratory stated in the order; (2) that upon proof of the paternity, an order be made for the inclusion of the father’s name and particulars in your son’s birth records; (3) sole legal custody of your son; (4) maintenance contributions for your son’s general necessities; (5) one-half care and educational expenses and one-half medical, dental and optical expenses; (6) access to the father as determined to be in the best interests of the child or not until he is older and to commence at a particular age, as the court decides; and (7) that upon the positive result of the DNA test, that the court orders that the respondent pays or contributes to your medical and confinement expenses.

The clerk will assist you to prepare your application for the orders I have stated above without any cost. You should ask her/him to arrange for the court bailiff to serve the documents after the date for hearing is fixed on the father. You must go to the court’s office and have your application and affidavit in support drafted, and once the date is fixed and it has been served on the father by the bailiff of the court, you must make sure that you turn up at the court in good time on the date of the hearing.

Go to the court office as soon as you can. This is your duty as your son’s mother. Do not deny him his rights. Go so that you can get the orders made for his benefit and also yours too.

I wish you and your son all the very best. Your son will get his entitlements and you will not have to meet the full burden of all his expenses. This is why the Maintenance Act exists, for the benefit of mothers and their children in circumstances like yours. Use it and do not let this man get away with his selfish and irresponsible conduct which is contrary to law, and your son’s rights.

Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide personal responses.