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Fair points about sticking with the privacy aspect. Must admit it is difficult to just contain comments to your main point while the decision is a bit hard to digest.

<"Am I being unreasonable in expecting a journal of record to demand a high standard of professional integrity from its staff?">

Someone who doesn't even report here truthfully demands integrity from others. The court's determinations about each of the parents and their evidence are not reasonably reported by your post.

General privacy is not the issue, though it remains intact. The child didn't want her father to know she'd disclosed; a moot request in that he was necessarily informed as a matter of court process concerned with her safety.

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

Ref for example to items 136-138.

"136. No complaint was made about this by the mother to any appropriate authorities for some years. The father denied the event and said that his recollection of it was that he was simply checking the child who was sick. I prefer the evidence of the mother.
137. Counsel for the father said the 2001 allegation was fabricated. I do not accept that submission. At the time the mother first disclosed that allegation she clearly believed that the father would not have anything more to do with the children as a consequence of being charged with child pornography offences. The mother felt ashamed that she did not act protectively of her children as a
consequence of her fear of the father and his intimidation of her. Whilst it is not without concern that she left it for so long, having regard to the dynamics of the relationship and her sense of powerlessness this explains why she did not disclose this earlier. I am satisfied the mother was truthful in giving that evidence."

How bizarre that you disparage someone else for not being "dispassionate" when your own personal experiences drive your hate campaign against women.

Btw the Family Court isn't an investigative body.

Here is another father's opinion of Fathers4Equality and similar groups. Ilya Shambat says that you and your groups do not speak for him and some of the reasons why are reflected in the case example.

http://www.xyonline.net/content/who-truly-speaks-australian-fathers

The court proceedings are a matter of public record, so I can't see that Overington deserves any censure for doing her job. If there is any fault in the publication of the daughter's request that her sex offender father not be told about her disclosures, it must lie with the presiding Judge who could have had the file sealed.

What gets me is those who attach greater primacy to the denial of the girl's request to not tell her father, than to the denial of her request that she not be compelled to stay overnight with him.

pelican: "Your assertion that if the father was a pedophile he would be in jail is naive."

It wouldn't be just naive. It would be wrong. But of course I did say it. I said "if they had managed to prove the father was a paedophile he would be in jail now". I was making a point about the degree of certainty the judge would have in the facts presented. Obviously, that certainty doesn't extend to "beyond reasonable doubt".

We will have to agree to disagree on the importance of him being a registered sex offender. But again you stretch it when you imply I think it is OK for him to around children in all circumstances. For a variety of reasons I don't think it appropriate he be a primary school teacher, for example. However, his own children are a very different matter. Frankly I find the idea of banning men from having contact with their own children whose sole crime was to look at child porn bordering on lunacy.

As for the rest of the case - I am not about to enter into the discussion about the conflicting claims and counter claims put before the judge. The judge has not doubt had years of experience in this sort of thing, and has no doubt done a better job of it than I ever could here.

CJ Morgan: "What gets me is those who attach greater primacy to the denial of the girl's request to not tell her father, than to the denial of her request that she not be compelled to stay overnight with him."

That is unfair, CJ.

The denial of access to the father is obviously far a great import. No matter what decision is made, it is going to cost someone dearly emotionally. Worse, it the decision rests on conflicting and uncertain information. I personally don't feel equiped to answer the question, and frankly I doubt anybody else here is either. That surely is a good reason for avoiding it.

In contrast, the privacy issue is fairly easy to think about. The one thing needed to fulfil the child's request would be the deletion of a single line from a newspaper report. That would be no great loss. Surely the child's privacy is worth more than the single line?

But don't interpret that avoidance of the first question as assigning it lesser importance. I don't think anyone here does.

'But don't interpret that avoidance of the first question as assigning it lesser importance. I don't think anyone here does.'

I don't think he seriously does. He just likes to ride that high horse, and grandstand this superior empathy thing he's got going on.

From the first post: 'I don't want to discuss that case, here'

Apparently it's not acceptable to talk about any side issue, peripheral point, if there is any relation to a wider issue that's more serious or emotive.