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The Forum > Article Comments > Darcey Freeman: high emotions that lead to tragedies > Comments

Darcey Freeman: high emotions that lead to tragedies : Comments

By Barbara Biggs, published 3/2/2009

There should be a review of Family Court procedures as a result of Darcey Freeman’s fall to her death at the hands of her father.

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I don't agree with the people who say we should not be discussing this. Familial breakdown is a major social issue today and it leads to terrible outcomes in the worst cases. However, the vast majority of families that fail do so without any risk whatever that this sort of thing could happen. Yet my experience is that the lazy third-rate lawyers who seem to feature so much in Family Court matters quite deliberately use the existence of such extreme possibilities to bolster the distrust that is already a part of such proceedings. It is my view that this approach leads to significant alienation of fathers, which is apparently at the root of many of these sorts of tragedies, just as PND is regarded as a significant factor in many maternal filicides.

Can anyone here imagine how soul-destroying it is to be told, "There is no supporting evidence, but we can't take the chance that the mother's allegations may be correct" as a justification for making interim orders that say (effectively) "this man is a danger to his children and can't be trusted alone with them"?

The next element in the mix is the letter from the CSA telling him that as he is not caring for his children, he must pay more to the person whose unsubstantiated word put him in the position in the first place. If he objects he gets "don't you care about your children?".

The next piece of the jigsaw is his "contact" in a "contact centre", assuming he can find one with a timeslot free. That will be after some months on a waiting list and having attended at least one pre-appointment interview. There will be a significant fee for him to pay out of whatever the CSA has left him and his "contact" is entirely at the whim of the people running the centre. He may arrive and be told "sorry, not today", after not seeing his kids for months.

At what point do you think you might snap and do something regrettable?
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 6:21:40 AM
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It's all about context, antiseptic, at least as far as I am concerned.

Of course we should be discussing the role of the Family Court in marriage breakdown. Of course we should consider the children.

But this article has been tagged "Darcey Freeman: high emotions that lead to tragedies."

In my view, there is a substantial distance between the state of mind of Darcey's murderer, and the scope of any government bureaucracy-driven support programmes.

The author has attempted to bring the two together into one of her hobby-horse isues. Which I feel is entirely inappropriate.

As I said before, this is an act that I am still unable to digest fully. To use it deliberately as a lead-in to a discussion on "lazy third-rate lawyers" seems altogether distasteful.

As indeed does your end-note:

>>At what point do you think you might snap and do something regrettable?<<

Is this intended as some kind of threat? The system doesn't work for me, so I'm going to throw my kid off a bridge? I don't think so.

Extreme cases make for bad law.

The same principle applies to gratuitously feeding off someone else's tragedy to push your own barrow. There is no clear cause-and-effect operating here. To pretend that there is, or that there might be, is simply taking advantage of other people's pain.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 8:11:50 AM
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pericles:"Is this intended as some kind of threat? The system doesn't work for me, so I'm going to throw my kid off a bridge?"

Did you actually read what I wrote before letting that jerking knee start its dance?

How about answering the question I posed: given the situation I described, how well do you reckon YOU'D do? It's a question that many men going through a family breakdown have to answer with their actions.

What surprises me is that so few take the drastic step of killing themselves - "only" 2000 or so a year men suicide and a much smaller number kill their families.

What I am fearful of is that FCA/FMC judges, registrars and magistrates may be so focussed on these extreme events and the publicity they generate that they may become even more draconian in making their Orders. The precautionary principle is all well and good, but those invoking it need to be able to grasp the difference between "hazard" and "risk". It is not good enough to say "we can't take the chance" and not examine the chance of the subject of the orders coming to harm, or even evaluating the actual risk of the hazard "we can't take the chance" on occurring. While the child's interests may be paramount under the law, every adult was once a child too.

The fact that a man has fulfilled his function by reproducing shouldn't make him expendable. ISTM that too much of the Family Law as it is practised is based on that assumption, and that is directly responsible for outcomes such as this one.

As for context, the author raised the issue of the FCA, so it is a clear part of the discussion.
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 9:32:49 AM
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In 1972, a government promised to do something for the forty thousand couples who wanted to get officially unhitched. The Family Court was created to assist. It was a lawyers solution to an un-Christian interpretation of the Holy Bible by a very influential Church. If the lawyers had been Christians, instead of atheists, they would have known that the Supreme Court in each State, exercising parens patriae jurisdiction, had the power, with a jury to dissolve any marriage, and equitably sort out the rights of the children.

The present system is an atheist abomination. It is an insult to Christianity, it is an abuse of public trust, and it destroys men and women and kids body and soul. . Remember the fathers who in despair, have gassed themselves and their kids, driven into dams, and otherwise acted as insane people. We are told as many women as men do the same thing. Yes the Family Law Act 1975 says that the welfare of the kids is paramount. Ha Ha de Haardy ha. The welfare of the family lawyers is paramount.

When the fundamental contract of life, a contract that two people will marry and have children, and raise them together can be shattered with extreme violence by a State Public Official, on a no fault basis, it is no wonder we have a dysfunctional society.

The Bible says: Whom God has joined together let no man put asunder, but it also says, where two on earth agree, it shall be done for them by my Father which art in heaven. If no agreement was reached, it was taken to Church. The basis of the Magna Carta, the Great Charter of Christianity, is that with God all things are possible; court was church. With clever lawyers in Australia the Family Law Act 1975 would have been unnecessary.

A Court without a jury, is not a court. A Judge is one person, so cannot be Christian. Juries in the Family Court are a constitutional must if we are to save our kids. A court is God, not a Judge
Posted by Peter the Believer, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 10:05:24 AM
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Read this in the smh letters today...

'Contrary to popular mythology, young children are equally likely to die at the hands of either parent. If the child is under 12 months, women are overwhelmingly the perpetrators.

In recognition of the role emotional status plays, special defences in mitigation are available under the laws governing infanticide. These defences are available only to women.'

Is this true? If so, why?

'The concept that women who kill are sad, but men are bad, serves neither the cause of justice nor the protection of children.'
Posted by Houellebecq, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 11:37:40 AM
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After suffering one of the worst viral cases of journalistic diarrhoea this millennium, Babs Biggs takes the coveted " Emmy " for - gross exaggeration, egotistical self-promotion, emotional trauma overdrive etc, the likes olo has never before seen...and I've read some classics.

BB by comparison, put's Sunday Herald Newspaper ( and Oz') most despised and reviled journo, Andrew Bolt into the Minor League.

Using the very tragic circumstances involving the Freeman family as her hobby-horse, she gnashes her way through myriad American web sites,spurious bibliographic sources, to serve us with an article many would consign to the thrash bin of oblivion.

So much for journalism, sans USA !

That one child's death used by a psychopath as a revenge mechanism to hurt his ex spouse is an event, rarely makes headlines. This shocking episode reverberated throughout the World, embellished by reporters who sensationalised, eg ' jazzed up ' and masqueraded the incident to appear extraordinary.

The Media - TV, current affairs etc used the issue to arouse Public anger, sympathy, and all the other mixed emotions, includung self-promotion as an affronted social issue. Falling ratings, image loss, and a whole gamut of commercial issues e.g flagging advertising revenue, market share, share holder confidence etc. the reasons are endless.

Intriguingly, how did BB arrive at 1200 news sources, and not 5000 ?

To further generate credibility, she criticises the FCA for it's modus operandi, with phoney hypotheses only she is privy to. Countless successful case-managed episodes are routinely processed and completed each day with families happy with the outcome. No drama, no hassles - real or imagined. Weekly, annually.

I have yet to see a group of " black-hooded men " interfering with Court proceedings in a Family Court in Australia. Magistrates / Juvenile / Country/ family courts are policed with Bailiff's and numerous official attendents. Halloween masked imposters would be short-shifted pronto. BB's reference to ' Parental Alienation Syndrome ' and her litigious confrontation between warring parties is a figment of imagination. It's a US invention, pure and simple.

She makes light of her incesant demands on the ABC,
Posted by jacinta, Wednesday, 4 February 2009 3:40:30 PM
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