Sharper than a serpent's tooth (an adult child severs child support and educational funding by rejecting her father).

• Author: Mitchell, Teresa

A British Columbia man has been discharged from a court order for child support and educational funding because the judge decided that the child had unilaterally and completely severed the relationship. The parents separated when the child was three years old and the father had access to his daughter until she was eleven. At that time, she began to refuse to see him. She returned his Christmas cards and birthday gifts. Finally, just before she turned 18, she wrote to him: "... you are not welcome in my life. I do not want to see you, nor do I want you phoning me or showing up at events such as my recital ... Do not contact me at home or anywhere else. I do not want to hear from you or see you." The father, who had been paying child support since 1983, applied for an order terminating support and declaring that the child was no longer a child of the marriage. Justice Romilly of the BC Supreme Court wrote "This letter from his daughter must indeed have been...