Jacksun, thanks for clearing up the relationship between you and cotter. I actually asked Graham about you two and suggested you were running a sock puppet. I'm glad to hear that you're not.

Still, I can also see that you're your mother's daughter. Having read some of cotter's more egregious rants it's clear that she doesn't much like men. It's a shame this seems to have become an intergenerational meme in your family. I wonder how much of the problems your nephew is experiencing come from the rather nasty attitudes toward men that exist in his family?

jacksun:"if there is help to be had, do it publicly."

The help was offered by we are unique, who seems to know what she is talking about. If I were in your situation I'd be taking up the offer instead of snapping at the hand that's held out to help.

jacksun:"explain to me why it's OK for a kid who's going off the rails because of his father's behaviour 'will be ok with his dad."

You haven't given any details about what his father's "behaviour" is. does he not take him to school? Fail to adequately clothe and feed him? Fail to provide entertainment and other needful things? Does he beat him or otherwise assault him?

Or does he simply refuse to accept the Feminist-dogmatic worldview that seems to be entrenched in the mother's family? Is he justifiably angry that his formerly loving wife has tried to stitch him up with vile accusations?

You see, I don't think that you're really all that interested in reaching any kind of understanding with this man, you simply want to hurt him.

I don't think that's very admirable at all and it isn't anything to do with your son.

The greatest triumph?? of the (failing world wide) the Westminster system is the get the guilty off scheme, not the protection of the innocents. I think that could be one of the reasons its failing.

It is better that 99 guilty men should go free than one innocent go to jail.

Better for whom? Society? Their victims? The crooks? Their lawyers? Or just the 'innocent' abusers - the people who just can't look in the mirror and see what they are, why cry 'not guilty' when they are absolutely guilty. False deniers.

Again people here play with the law - what is an assault and what isn't. It is writ - go read and comply! As if every little woman a mean man shouts at runs off to the police shouting 'abuse' when they have usually been groomed to obey, to be silent, to blame themselves - anything to try to keep the relationship. Until they realise, then they leave.

If YOU want to know what Jacksun already wrote, septic, YOU read back over the posts. We think he described sufficiently the range of abuse and life threatening behaviour of dear old psycho dad.

Boring - cotter hates men..... only sadistic, cruel, violent ones. You'd be surprised at the number of poor ignorant fool men who eat at my table, laugh and have fun, seek my support, never knowing I apparently obviously hate them, presumably only because they are male, rather than damned decent males. I'm not at all nice to women who abuse - not that you care about that.

Go pull the wings off some more flies and then tell them it's their fault for trying to fly away.

cotter:"We think he described sufficiently the range of abuse and life threatening behaviour of dear old psycho dad."

And even more accurately described the behaviour of bitter, twisted Mum.

Nice of you to call for the introducton of lynching, BTW. A very good demonstration of why the Westminster system has relied on the judgement of "twelve good men and true" instead of "1 hysterical woman".

Reaching understanding with this man? Oh yeah, cos no one's tried that over the past five years! (sarcasm intended) Heck we've done nothing at all like that. Perhaps if we just ask him to understand, he'll turn all soft and cuddly, she can go back to him (again) and all will be just peachy until he decides she's not living up to his expectations, or she stands up for Adam and they'll be back in hospital again and we can play this game again....

We have tried every feasible thing, everything services have suggested, complied with every access, . At the end of the day, the man's behaviour is his choice. And he often chooses really, scarey behaviour. But never in public, never where there is an off duty police officer with a camera. Which suggests this is not an anger management issue.

Twelve good men in a room. Yay, a picnic. and I know its annoying for you pet, but they let women onto juries these days. I'm not bitter at all, and hysterical? Go anti, if you say so it must be true. In your small mind - the land of the flies.

So much for trying understanding. Your poor grandchild seems to be getting used as a pawn. I do hope you're all ashamed of yourselves, but somehow I don''t think that word is a well-understood part of the vocab around those parts.

And yes, they do let women onto juries these days, as they should. They still don't accept the uncorroborated word of one hysterical woman, thankfully. That's the sort of thing that went out with the inquisition.

"String 'em all up and let god sort 'em out" might have been good enough for Judge Roy Bean, but it's not at all acceptable in a modern society, no matter how the lynch mob howls.

Jackson "This article about safety for children has been corrupted by people with their own narrow agendas where children are not the focus at all."

Have a look at Happy's (who is apparently the author) comments at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11331#193542

This piece was never really about safety for children, it's about Happy's unresolved issues over her own father and a desperation by the mothers groups to bring back maternal bias. Nothing has been put forward which gives any reason to believe that the changes will actually make kid's safer (maybe some specific ones at the expense of others).

In my view expanding the power of allegations without putting in safeguards to prevent abuse of the system will make family law a whole lot less safe for all involved including the children. It will increase the level of conflict involved. It pushes people who might otherwise be no risk to anyone to a point of despair where bad choices start to seem like taking a stand. It would be great if everybody was at their best regardless of the provocation or their mental state but that's not how the real world is.

We do need systems where claims of abuse are properly investigated, we do need to ensure that kid's are not placed in (or returned to) the care of someone where there is a genuine risk of that person abusing the child. We also need to ensure that merely making an allegation does not bring benefit to the accuser and harm to the accused if the allegations are not substantiated.

cotter, sometimes letting the guilty go free for the sake of not convicting the innocent does do harm but not nearly the harm that's done when the government stop's paying attention to the presumption of innocence. I doubt that the system work's as well as it should nor do I understand why some ever need to be freed but I'd still prefer what we have to the kind of approach you and Happy seem to take to justice.

R0bert