Justice for kids:

Cortisol testing is a great idea. The problem is that The Family Court and those who work within it have no interest in child abuse.
I was told this recently on high authority and at great cost.

Valarie: yes, your statement sounds so awful but true. Everything I have read and personally experienced indicates what you are saying is correct...Are you able to say who was upfront enough to serve this cold hard fact?

Yes it sounds like the attitude of most Judges - Lord Nelson put his telescope up to his blind eye and said, "I see no ships", when they put the telescope up to their blind eye's and say. "I see no child abuse".

The problem with cortisol testing is that you may determine that a child is anxious and highly stressed BUT then WHO is TO BLAME would be the question and that's when all the same misogynist stories will be told and all the same outcomes will occur - it would become just another weapon. All the 'enmeshed' parents, 'alienating' parents, 'vengeful' parents would still be there to blame and they would still be women. The Family law system has an investment in enabling and continuing child abuse as the practices of supporting abusers have beome increasingly institutionalised and all professional participants have a stake in believing their mythologies. To refer to the fairytale of the Emporer's new clothes, it would mean suddenly recognising that the emporer had been wandering around nude for years - all the people who have forced children to abuse would be forced to face what they had done to these children. Denial and continuation of the institutionalised abuse of children is for now the only apparent way for family law in this country. Tragically.

Justice for kids : Yes, when the time is right I shall make a full and public report on this.

According to yesterday's Melbourne "Age" newspaper, Business section, p17, under "Tenders" a report into the effects of shared parenting/child abuse has been commissioned by the Attorney General. Tenders close on 19 December.

Iain Gillespie's article (also on p 17) on this tender begins: "In the tragic battleground that is the Family Court...". A prominent subheading reads : "The best intersets of children are often forgotten in custody battles". (I therefore think we have reason to hope).

I intend to make a submission to whatever person or organization gets the job. This would be the most effective means of publicizing it (and everything else I was told in what seemed to be a determined attempt to silence me). It was all very patronizing, but altogther worth it. See my next posting tomorrow.

Not one person involved in running this case has so far shown any concern for the children. They are more intersted in what it is costing me and in maintaining the various myths.

Whether I make this public before the research report is published will depend on the findings of of the panels considering my complaints against legal team and family consultant, lodged in late Sept/early Oct.

The legal profession seems to be relying on a very old precedent to prevent Family Court cases from being opened. This is Rice v. Asplund 1979.

I wonder why this is so. This precedent was set a generation ago and is no longer relevant.

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has had experience of being blocked by the above precedent