In this case, based only on what this journalist has told us, the girls shouldn't have unsupervised visits with dad.

The fact that no-one seems willing to trust a major news outlet is also a major cause for concern. There may well be other issues that the judge considered but we aren't being told about. Saying "all authors have bias" is of little help when so much of the media has the same bias. It isn't feminism, as much as a paternalistic desire to protect women, even those who have behaved poorly.

The councellors appear to have breached client confidentiality.

@pelican: If the child's name and family were not mentioned how is it a breach of privacy?

You and I have very different views of privacy, pelican. If I tell you a secret I ask you know to reveal to person X, and later I find out person X knows and they found out because of something you said, indirectly or otherwise, intentionally or otherwise, then you have breached both my privacy and trust.

Whether names were mentioned is completely immaterial. For all I know the other side could have played a guessing game. Whether the game was played out in a private conversation, or in public via a newspaper article is beside the point. Privacy is not just about "whether the public finds out". As a counter example, if a doctor revealed your medical records to your insurer and you were refused insurance as a consequence, I am sure you would say your privacy has been breached. It doesn't matter the public doesn't know your name, your insurers name or your doctors name. It fact it doesn't matter if no one else hears about it all. The fact is the doctor breached your very clearly understood privacy expectations.

As I said, defences from the newspaper might be the father already knew, or that although the kid requested confidentiality it was never agreed to. But this "the newspaper didn't reveal the names" is a total straw man argument.

As for what happened, here I am with benk. I am not more prepared to believe a newspaper report written by someone with an ideological barrow to push than I am likely to jump the moon. If I cared, I would check the court records myself I guess or seek an impartial biased summary of those records. As it happens I don't have the time to do that, and I am certainly not going to condemn the father, the mother or the court on the basis of what I regard as little better than hearsay.

Link to the case:

http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/resources/file/ebfeb74aa88d192/2010_FamCA_35.pdf

The father is well aware of the child's fear of being alone with him. The issue was addressed formally and he responded via his counsel:

"The father’s counsel submitted that I should reject the views of A in relation to overnight stays as that seed was planted by the mother. I do not accept that submission. The clear evidence of Dr R was that there was no evidence of coaching."

I just can't believe the apparent confidence that abuse happens only at night. Throughout the report elements of grooming the children and other adults, intimidation, exploitation and control are apparent.

I wonder how much a parent actually has to do to be denied contact.

Hopefully after all of this he'll desist and try just being a decent father.

It is a sad case, no doubt about it, pelican.

But I'm with rstuart on the privacy issue.

We may not know who he is or they are.

But they most certainly do.

Therefore the plea, "Please don't tell dad" has been most comprehensively compromised.

How would you feel, if you confided in an authority figure on the basis that a very specific third party should not be told.

And then saw it published in the national newspaper.

Pericles: The child probably already knows that her father is aware because the partial disclosure had been the subject of interviews by
others and had been addressed in court.

Sadly, abused children and even adults often beg that the perpetrator not be told all sorts of things. Sometimes it's through fear of retaliation or punishment like, "If you tell that means you don't love me - so I won't love you back", but often it's because they really do care about the perpetrator - they just want the abuse to stop. For some kiddies, sexual abuse is the only way the perpetrator makes them feel special and lovable. That holds for a while, until they're old enough to realize their need for affection, such as all children have, has been misused to satisfy the adult's wants.

If the adults to whom the child was speaking failed to report it then they would be colluding with the exploitative adult's manipulative behaviour.

If the adults who are aware of the child's fears don't act on what they are told, then they can't really protect them (as the case shows; it's quite hard to protect them anyway).

Dear Anti,

I read your given website, taken from
The Australian by Caroline Overington,
15 March 2010. It seemed pretty straight-
forward reporting.

However, I am totally amazed by the Judge's
decision. How on earth can the judge grant visitation
rights to a father who's a registered child sex offender
to two children ages 10 and eight?
Especially when one of the
children seems terrified of her father.

This case needs to be re-examined. If this man has
behaved "inappropriately" with these children in the
past - he's lost any rights he ever had. The children
need to be protected. His rights should not even figure
in any of this.

He's a registered child sex offender.