Rusty, Excellent suggestion. Well worth a try. I get the idea …the mother goes off to a womens refuge… the children above the age of 2 get placed into foster care or a boarding house type arrangement…no further orders are made regarding custody until a court gets to make a fully informed decision.

A case I know about was thoroughly investigated. The applicant for the AVO knew that but she didn’t tell the court. From a transcript of the hearing it can be seen that the court took no interest in such things. It was only too happy to issue an AVO on her uncorroborated statement and without the respondent who was working nearby, being present. Those in the DV industry had given her assistance with the application and there was no proper examination of it in the court before the court issued the AVO.

In the interest of justice, due process and the best interests of the child, the investigation needs to get started and the truth of the matter established at the earliest .

I should add that I particularly like your suggestion that there should be a “no-tolerance” system with respect to false allegations.

Roscop,

I am not even proposing that my suggestion is "good".

Merely superficially equitable, which is more than the current system. It is merely superficially "just" if every allegation is true, and then only barely.

If both parties have an equal interest in a rapid settlement then the delays of the law, which the informed can make onerous for the uninformed, might be eliminated at the insistence of the child's advocate, the child's intests being supposedly overarching.

False accusations were historically more criminal than just committing a heinous crime. Something has changed and not for the better.

Rusty

ChazP:"if an DVO/AVO is granted penalising the alleged offender, then reasonable cause must have been established."

Nope. The whole point of "acceptance without admission" is that there is no need to make any kind of case at all. the purpose is to separate two people who obviously can't get on. The facts of the case are irrelevant unless the matter is defended. since the Court, the lawyers and the police all want the matter to be resolved on the nod, there is much pressure to accept without admission, meaning the matter will not be defended.

"Reasonable cause" is not needed to bring a DVO application and is not examined.

You know Chaz, I don't reckon you've ever had anything to do with Courts at all. You simply don't know anything about the subject, but you know you hate men. You and cotter et al make a perfect match.

Here you go boys!. An organisation of REAL men that you might apply to join, rather than hiding among your chummies on FLWG with their quaintly reactionary 19th Century attitudes. But then again, I get the feeling that you would not be welcome among such forward-thinking men. The caravan has moved on boys and you're left in a desert of past privileges and positions.

"The National Organization For Men Against Sexism (NOMAS), has called for men and loving fathers to join them in their cause to end sexism. They warn men to avoid getting caught up in the “Father’s Rights Groups.”
“The male supremacist groups (“Father’s Rights”) have caused unspeakable harm to our country and to our children by encouraging abusive fathers, often with little past involvement with their children, to seek custody as a tactic to pressure a mother to return or to punish her for leaving. “Shared parenting”, “friendly parent”, involvement of both parents and other concepts that seem fair and benevolent have instead been used to manipulate courts and legislatures to help abusive fathers. For instance, women are routinely denied custody of their children after being classified as “unfriendly” for asserting that the husband has abused them or their children.”
http://outingtruth.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/finally-some-truth-from-a-great-group-of-real-men/

Chaz, in my last post, I asked you where your priorities lay- either in the proliferation of sick stereotypes which actually enable and perpetuate child and domestic abuse along gendered lines, or with the universal obliteration of child abuse.

Your last response has answered that question in spades, right down to your sexist remarks about what constitutes "real men" (need I remind everyone that feminsts were often villinised about being "man hatuing lesbians" or of the number of stereotypes which trivialise abuse against womnen which are baswed upon society's opinions of what "real women" are).

You have exposed yourself for exactly what you are, an unscrupulous and fraudulent zealot of misandry who will happily shield female child abusers from repercussions for their abhorrent crimes and who attack their victims for daring to shatter the myth of "women as perpetual victims" by the "crime" of simply wanting their stories to be heard.

You talk about keyboard courage, but the person who has demonstrated this in the greatest spades is yourself- it is your acts which are so vile that you would not dare repeat them in person due to the severe reaction they would justifiably receive. You are no friend to child abuse victims or survivors- you are their enemy, merely pretending to lobby for them, all so you can use them to advance your own vile and sexist agenda.

If you want to look at why child abuse is so rife in society, you should take a good long look in the mirror (you and your misandrist ilk are as bad as the Catholic Bishops who covered up for paedophile priests). However that would require enough courage to be accountable; and as you've demonstrates by your vile lies and actions while "playing the victim" to try and excuse it, you're far too much of a coward to do that!

Gee, I can't believe this thread is still going!
Bowspearer, I doubt anyone supports child abuse, in all it's forms.

However, this thread is about family violence...which usually means one or more family members verbally or physically threatening or carrying out violence against other family members.

No one has ever said women don't commit violent offences against their family members at all.
What is undeniable is that male family members commit more violent acts against other family members (other male, female and/or child relatives) than females do.

Male family members who do physically attack other family members usually cause more physical damage to their family members than females do- merely because they are usually physically stronger.

I believe that if a woman accuses a related man of violent offences against her and/or her children, then the man should be removed from the family home while the situation is investigated- NOT the rest of the family.

If the man accuses the woman of the house with violence against other family members, then she should be removed from the house until further investigations are carried out.

No matter who is at fault, the children must be protected.
Anyone who lies about such accusations should be charged and punished with wasting police resources.