Yvonne:"from my experience, legal aid lawyers are NOT the best performing lawyers in any field. That's why you 'won' your case. Cut the anti feminist rant. Your lawyer was simply better than your ex's legal aid lawyer."

Erm...I self-represented, Yvonne, after sacking my lawyer about 3 months into the process when she attended a "mention" on my behalf and agreed, without my consent, with the other side's proposal to join the children to the ex's DVO application. She had been urging me to "accept without admission" and had also been urging me to "accept what their mother is asking for and move on" with respect to the ex's claim for increased custody. I might add that I had paid for that lawyer out of my own pocket, because Legal Aid entitlement is based on gross income, not what's left after paying 27% of it in CS and a further 30% in taxes. IOW, I won in spite of the best efforts of the legal profession, not because of them. The reason for my success was that both the ICR and the Family Report writer were able to see through the smokescreen of false abuse claims by the mother and I'm very grateful to them. My children are too. In the end, even the Women's Legal Aid Service (nice bit of gender discrimination, that) refused to fund her appeal.

Sunita, I'm sure you're sincere, but my experience leads me to believe you're misguided. Fathers do NOT routinely abuse their children and mothers are NOT saints who never lie. Family Courts are horrid places that exist for the simple reason that people cannot be trusted to act honestly and without malice in stressful situations. The worst aspect of the Family Law at the moment, as Yvonne has said, is the fact that it is adversarial. Without the Family Report writers and ICRs the Court has little chance of getting an honest answer. Your article is badly flawed.

ANTISEPTIC: Nowhere have I said that "Fathers routinely abuse their children and that all mothers are saints and never lie". Perhaps you could kindly direct me to my alleged statement?

I believe that it is an illuminating statement on your part.
It is not and must not continue to be a "fathers" and "mothers" contest.
It is a Children's safety and welfare concern : no more and no less.
Please focus on that and that only.

Given the alleged calibre of "experts" and lawyers etc. in the FCA at the monent,there is little hope of Child Abuse issues being properly and fully considered, let alone our Chidren being properly protected.
Refer to Quadrio / King interview, Kochs' articles, Background Briefing on PAS by Jane Shields,statements of the American judiciary and other acepted research and reports on these matters.

I have not concealed my identity on this Forum ; you have chosen to do so.
Sunita

SUNITA, Antiseptics choice to use an alias is legitimate on this forum as is your choice to reveal your own name.

Those of us using aliases have a variety of reasons for doing so. For those who comment on family law issues sometimes using our own experiences as examples we are able to do so without identifying others involved (would it be appropriate if Antiseptic was using his real name here and by default identifying his ex and kids).

We minimise the risk of our views impacting on us in the real world when dealing with orgainsations with significant discretionary powers (CSA and family court etc).

Some find it necessary to comment with an alias because of professional obligations. What should matter is the quality of an argument, not the name attached or the letters around the name.

Thats one of the joys of OLO that people can put views which may be unpopular in some quarters with relative safety from inappropriate consequences.

R0bert

R0bert, excellent defence of aliases. I might add that the Family Law Act and the Child Support Acts have clauses in relation to identification of parties to a FCA matter. To use my real name would have the potential to cause OLO to be held liable. I'm sure someone of Sunita's claimed expertise would be aware of that.

Sunita, this topic is truly a gendered one, regardless of whether you want to think so or not. I'm sure that some cases of abuse are missed, simply because of the volume of false accusations that are made. If those in the business of supporting mothers through the process of litigating in the Family Court offered a less credulous ear to abuse complaints in the first instance, I suspect we'd see a lot fewer real abusers get away with it, simply because the Court would place more credibility on the report. IOW, it's in the interest of those who wish to see abusers stopped to make sure they only present genuine cases to the Court, instead of trying to stack the deck by appointing to the Court those they consider more likely to accept the claim at face value.

On the topic of court experts: a recent published Interim Judgment - check out the court expert involvement.

It is called Robertson and Robertson (2008) FamCA 497 20/6/2008.

Difficult to summarise as it is very detailed. Child is 13 years old, little contact with 'dad' in last 5 years.

Boy says he witnessed dad download porn and masturbate in front of computer. There is a history of drug use (both parents) and violence.

Mother says in the past child would vomit and have panic attacks before contact.

There is a lot more, but the point is - the teenager Pt 82 "..repeatedly and consistently has stated he does not want to see the father or have anything to do with him"

The court experts recommend: No. 4 Mr T - "...does need to know and have a relationship with the father"

No. 75 Dr M "it is my impression that despite (the child's) reserve and detachment from his father if he were to see more of him the relationship would develope"

This 13 year old has ran away from the visits - on one occassion to the local police station.

At pt. 31 the mother is scrutinised: "...the mother has sabotagued the orders..."

There is discussion of whether to change residence to father. In the end the orders are second weekends and half holidays.

Should this 13 year old be forced to see his father because court experts say it will do him good?

What effect does it have on children and teenagers to have both their words and actions on such a crucial area of their lives totally, totally ignored. Perhaps they should be handcuffed, with a police escort and made to repeat: "I you love daddy".

In this case the child is ordered confidential conselling.

As has been pointed out earlier, these situations are not helped by being adversarial. However in dealing with the situation as it now is, the `Experts’ have erred in seeing this as an `either or’ situation. Firstly the Court should have required each parent to set out separately what they believed were this child’s primary needs and priorities, and then to have set out their individual proposals for how they would meet the child’s needs, individually and cooperatively if possible. Especially the financial support of the child. They should also have been required to set out their understanding of how they would each propose to form a `meaningful relationship’ with this child and in what ways they believed the child would benefit, or not, from such a meaningful relationship.

If this still did not satisfy the Court and the child continued to be reluctant to attend contact meetings with the father, then interim measures could have been put in place and independently monitored and assessed at each stage. E.g. Indirect Contact (telephone, letter, cards etc) and Supervised Contact (again independently monitored and assessed).

Thirdly the Court should have asked for a statement by the child concerned and for the child to give direct evidence to the Court (this would then meet Children’s Rights requirements).

Children's lives are far too important to be left to the current vagaries and idiosyncracies of Courts and their `Experts'.

If each of these stages were then evaluated at say, three monthly intervals the Court would then be able to make a far better informed decision based on the information provided from the above.