Let's not forget that most custody battles end up in favour of the mother and with the amount of abuse shown and the fact the father is only after custody of one of the kids would be seen as him trying to be vindictive towards the mother. It also wouldn't help Anthony's custody battle either way that he is on bail for rape.
Correct for the second part, in that I would also expect Anthony to lose, disagree for the first (the idea that the incest patch makes it obsolete, suggesting without incest patch is perfectly fine).
In the Patreon version, Myriam has no blood relation with Marc, he is the son of Anthony, and Myriam and Anthony have no legally binding connection (legal cohabitation as exist with variants in some countries in Europe, e.g. the French call it PACS, even have an expression, "pacsé", for when people are in that situation).
So, in the Patreon version, the proceeding is wrong, since it is indicated and shown as a custody case Myriam vs Anthony. In the Patreon version, Myriam has no legal standing for a direct custody case against Anthony as father.
A custody case of that type is based on having two parents with equal legal parenthood rights, but in the Patreon version, Myriam has none - that because Patreon had forbidden Zorlun even from using the "stepmom" approach, so he could not even try to use that workaround.
What you could have is first a hearing to take away parenthood and custody from Anthony (but that would be some kind of social service kicking in), Marc being put under foster care/court tutelage, and Myriam trying after to get the custody of Marc - her testimony could be used in the first, though the filing for custody at the same time could give an argument to a lawyer to say she is biased by a vested interest and her testimony should not be considered.
The incest patch brings back the original situation foreseen by Zorlun, when Myrian and Anthony were married, and Marc and Katherine were both their children, thus it makes the custody court case Myriam vs Anthony more correct (in the limit of the game, of course).
That was the original scenario by Zorlun, and the one where a custody case Anthony vs Myriam makes sense as parents fighting in a divorce over the kids - unfortunately, it happens often in real life, where the "unfortunately", it is because often it also becomes not so much "fighting over the kids", but "fighting through the kids" and/or "fighting using the kids".
To be clear, I am not defending Anthony, just trying to think how a (nasty, if I am allowed a judgement
, though could be a successful one) lawyer could try to turn things around.
For the "kidnapping", to have that, there must be one of the parents who has custody and the other one that stops the first one from having access to the kid.
Myriam was right in not trying to stop Anthony at first, because in that case she could have been considered the one in the wrong, but there is no indication before that custory hearing that Anthony has forbidden Myriam from ever seeing or being in contact with Marc, and he did not bring it in some far away place, so much he continued to go to the same school and see (well, also "see"
) Myriam.
So, no indication of fully fledged kidnapping.
I agree in a custody case between a divorcing married couple, the rape case against Anthony could probably alone be used to weight in favour of Myriam, like is the case in the game, at least for a temporary measure.
At the same time, the rape allegation against Anthony is a separate case, especially in the USA system a lawyer would probably play on the "innocent till proven guilty" and the fact just by chance Myriam is a witness for the prosecution in the rape case but has an interest in having Anthony comdemned to help the custody case, and if were to come out that Myriam had done some activities (especially the sexual ones with Marc), that could be enough to kick her claim out (except in couple of USA States where incest is legal, but even if not illegal, the parameters are a bit different for certain cases).
I don't like it, but in USA it especially possible to discredit a witness not on the factual base of whether their testimony was truthful and e.g. they could objectively have seen something or not, but by creating a doubt in general about morality and behaviour of the person, and using that to suggest they are not a reliable witness even for the specific event.
The history of abuse toward Myriam would count, but to be seen.
In some case victims of violence are allowed to talk under anonimity, and it's true it is a single judge, but still, in general for that kind of situations for the "abuse" argument to be used, there must be some kind of disclosure that the argument has been used towards the other side.
The other side could try to turn it into the fact in more than one occasion in the videos Myriam was clearly turned on and taking on her own a submissive stance (we players saw some harder scene, but with no video, and the judge tries to insinuate doubts with Myriam as part of bullying her), and the video of the dinner (for the ones who did that scene) was taken as showing her willingly taking part (since it started only from a certain point).
The "contempt" by Anthony can weight against him, but before that, the aggressivity towards Myriam is not something special.
Met someone once that was divorce lawyer turned to criminal lawyer, because "criminal" can be bad, but "divorce" was worst
, and I knew someone who was doing both mediation on the workplace (e.g. in possible moral harassment) and family counselling, and was confirming that on the workplace even if they are not friends, people can go back to work together, but family breakup, is the worst.
The reference from Marc about Anthony making Myriam's life a nightmare could count, but would still be something that may or may not be considered as being "the mother influencing the kid".
The fact of battling only over one of the kids can indeed been seeing as vindictive, but they would probably turn it into something like "is because the mother has always put the girl against me poor dad, I only reacted" and stuff like that - plus, given the comments he makes while he is pushing Myriam, that judge is not someone who will consider much that kind of element, that neither party tried to raise.
Agree Anthony should lose, especially after he gets condemned for rape, but at the same time, before that, I would not be surprised if the judge needed to hear again the arguments of the parties (or "hear" the "arguments"
;-), and whatever else Zorlun can think about in the situation, although my guess is that the judge was a one off).