TPP

Your story may well be true, although it doesn't disprove that there have been other cases where trivial issues have been blown out of proportion. The police involved sound to me like public servants trying to make their shift as easy as possible. Lets not waste too much time over-analysing the laziness of coppers.

I've posted a series of extracts from the Fatal Assault section of the annual reports of the NSW Child Death Review Team on the "Safety first in family law is long overdue" thread. As far as practical I've tried to extract comments which might be relevant to these threads. That info was not always available and clearly fatal assault is the extreme end of child abuse.

There are also links to the CDRT reports page and a couple of reports on trends so others can read the originals for themselves.

What stands out from the material is that there was nothing in the material to suggest that shared care was a factor in any fatal assault of a child in NSW.

I do believe that it's reasonable to assume that if the amendments put in place in 2006 were as bad as some claim there would be an increase in fatal assault's by parents. I'm also of the view that it's harder to fudge the data for fatal assault than with lower level abuse. A shift in definitions or the level of proof required (acknowledged or not) can make a big difference to the stats for other forms of abuse which is less likely with fatal assault.

I didn't explore other causes of death eg, where neglect or poor supervision were contributing factors. They may be relevant but from what I've seen it would be much more difficult to put the data into context.

I do think that the proposed amendments have much more to do with politics than child protection.

R0bert

Robert

It's only a matter of time before someone expands the definition of fatal to produce data that supports their case.

Hahahaha!

That's gold benk. They will. Mark my words.

Maybe 'spiritual death', where someone feels like they have died.

benk I did say "harder" not impossible :(

There are way's the data can be fudged but I've not seen any obvious signs of it from the CDRT. One that comes to mind is in deciding which deaths to attribute to mental illness compared to other factors could skew the impressions created by the data.

Anti made a comment about single mum's who have re-partnered on the other thread. That's one I disagree with. I am an interested party though, my girlfriend has children.

I think the most dangerous thing the courts can do is leaving one parent feeling utterly ripped off. Leaving them with the sense that no matter what their actual actions they have been done over by a system that did not care about truth, fairness etc. As has been said a number of times on these threads people pushed hard enough don't tend to make their best decisions.

For those wanting to pick on single mums my impression is that the worst of it lies with those with a preference for violent men (especially those who are violent themselves).

Most single mum's and their partners don't kill children, most fathers don't kill children. A very small number do.

Overall fatal assault represented less than 2% of child deaths in NSW over the study period for the trend's reports. The maternal bias crowd are trying to create the impression that the situation is a lot worse than it is.

R0bert

R0bert:"Anti made a comment about single mum's who have re-partnered on the other thread. That's one I disagree with. I am an interested party though, my girlfriend has children. "

Well, you needn't worry too much, Robert. Although that household structure is statistically much more likely to be damaging that an intact family or a single-father household, it's still a very small chance. It's an even smaller chance if you, she or he are not Aboriginal and still further if none of you are poverty-stricken.

I do very much agree with your second point, but I think that sort of institutionalised behaviour is ultimately self-defeating.

benk, I think you've got it right. I'm sure Drs Flood and/or McInnes are working on a draft as we speak. Attorney-General McClelland and Minister Macklin will be demanding it post haste now that you've revealed its existence.