## Facts

- Following divorce proceedings in the Circuit Court for Harford County, the mother was awarded custody of the parties’ four-year-old daughter; the father’s visitation was later set at unsupervised four-hour visits on alternate Sunday afternoons.
- The father had admitted sexually abusing the mother’s daughter from a prior marriage (the child’s older stepsister) and had been criminally sanctioned after a plea bargain.
- After unsupervised visitation began, the child reported inappropriate touching by the father; a medical examination found genital scarring and concluded prior abuse could not be excluded.
- The Harford County Department of Social Services filed a CINA petition based on reported abuse, the child’s disclosures, and medical findings, and recommended that visitation be supervised and that the father not be alone with the child.
- A court-ordered mental-health evaluation reported the father’s acknowledgment that he abused the stepchild to “get at” the mother, described physical abuse with sexual overtones, advised he not be placed in situations alone with the child, and noted unresolved alcohol-related issues.
- In consolidated hearings, the trial court entered an order granting overnight visitation and contemplated “supervision” by one of four persons close to the father, without designating a neutral setting or otherwise providing concrete, enforceable safeguards.
- The mother relocated with the child to Kentucky and did not comply with the overnight visitation order; the trial court responded with measures including removing the child from the mother’s custody at one point.
- The mother appealed the order granting overnight visitation and challenged several evidentiary rulings.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by awarding overnight visitation contrary to the child’s best interests in light of credible evidence of sexual abuse risk.
2. Whether the appellate court should reach the mother’s evidentiary objections after determining the visitation order was erroneous.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the order granting overnight visitation.
- It held that, on this record, overnight visitation was not in the child’s best interests and the trial court’s decision was clearly wrong.
- It concluded that the nominal “supervision” arrangement (friends or relatives of the father) lacked the specificity and enforceability necessary to protect the child.
- Having reversed on the visitation issue, it declined to decide the mother’s evidentiary challenges.

## Legal Principles

- Visitation determinations are governed by the best interests of the child; trial courts have broad discretion, but it is constrained by the obligation to protect the child’s welfare.
- Where credible evidence indicates a parent may pose a sexual-abuse risk, the court must impose specific, enforceable safeguards; supervision must be meaningful, not merely labeled as such.
- Past sexual abuse of a child in the household is highly probative of risk in structuring visitation and may render substantial unsupervised or loosely supervised access incompatible with the child’s welfare.
- Custody and visitation orders may not be used as a device to punish or control a parent; enforcement concerns cannot override child safety.

## Conclusion

The court reversed an overnight visitation order because the trial court failed to implement concrete, enforceable protections in the face of serious evidence that the father posed a risk of sexual abuse, and it reaffirmed that visitation must be structured solely to serve the child’s best interests rather than to sanction a parent.


Hanke v. Hanke, 94 Md. App. 65, 615 A.2d 1205 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1992)