Family Court magistrate Carlisle Greaves has been blasted after threatening to stop a teenage mother from getting child support payments.

And Social Services Minister Nelson Bascome has promised that a complete overhaul of family legislation is in the pipeline after the mother of the teenager, who does not wish to be named, accused the whole court system of being unfair.

The 16-year-old, who gave birth to a son two years ago, received the warning letter from the Child and Family Support Office last week after the father of her child complained he had been denied access.

The letter read: "It has been brought to our attention that the weekend access has been denied to. ..

"Please note that the order dated February 15 clearly states that ...

should have his child at his family residence for the first and third weekends every month.

"Should you continue to disobey this order, the magistrate will have no alternative but to take steps to withhold any further maintenance payments to you.'' Yesterday the teenager's mother claimed the legal system was unfair and prejudiced against mothers.

She argued that the only reason the father had been unable to see his son for the weekend of May 1 was because he turned up several hours late to pick up the child.

She added that the father had stopped making child maintenance payments a month ago, but nothing had been done about it by the courts.

"Within days of him making a complaint my daughter gets this threatening letter,'' she said.

"And yet for a whole month he hasn't been making any payments and they haven't said anything.

"The problem is that the magistrate has only heard one side. I know that we have a court order which says that we must allow him access and we respect that. But at the same time Mr. Greaves should do what he said he was going to do. The father should be locked up for 90 days until the money is paid. He (Mr. Greaves) is the magistrate, he has to get involved.'' The teenager's family are now trying to get the father's visitation rights withdrawn and will go to court over the issue in July.

The 30-year-old father of the child could have been prosecuted for having sex with a minor, but was never charged.

But he nevertheless received a two-year prison term shortly before his son's birth after being convicted of supplying cocaine. He was released last December and applied for visitation rights to his son immediately.

Last night, after being told about the case, Mr. Bascome confirmed that amendments to family legislation were being drafted.

Referring to Mr. Greaves' action in the case he said: "That's the worse possible move because at the end of the day the child just isn't going to benefit from it.

Family Court order draws mother's fire "But the processes of the Family Court is being reviewed -- there are a number of amendments that could be changed and should be changed as soon as possible, but it's going to take some legislative framework.

"I have got the family council looking at the legislation so that the system isn't cumbersome to the judges when they make decisions or the parents or guardians.

"As it stands there have been a number of cases that have presented challenges.

"Once I get the amendments I will have to put them to the Attorney General, but it's something I will ask to be pushed up the timetable.'' Shadow Social Services Minister Kim Young backed Mr. Bascome's condemnation of the letter, saying it was wrong for Mr. Greaves to play child maintenance payments off against visitation rights.

"I think the magistrate should re-think his position because he's linking the two,'' she said. "The father's responsibility is to pay maintenance. But the two are totally separate -- you can't use one against the other. I totally disagree with that.

And Sheelagh Cooper of the Coalition for the Protection of Children questioned Mr. Greaves' call to threaten withdrawing child support payments.

And she also asked why the father had been allowed access in the first place.

"I would be very concerned that there's no provision for some sort of supervised access when there's this kind of history of drugs and sexual misconduct with a minor involved,'' she said.

Mrs. Cooper added that to stop child maintenance payments would not be in the best interests of the child -- the whole point of child protection legislation.

"If that's true, the courts should not be saying that.''