Welcome to another week.
The Australian press reports that a parent with an extensive history of threatening behaviour, assessed as at high risk of killing his children and himself, has been granted access to his children by a judge in court.
The parent had attempted to commit suicide several times, and threatened to kill the children’s mother, her partner and himself in 2012.
Supervised contact overseen by the father’s grandparents was awarded.
This decision stems from an expert opinion in the case, in which a doctor diagnosed the father with borderline personality disorder and advised that if the father did not get contact he would most likely feel he had nothing to lose and would remain at high risk of a’suicidal, murderous rage’. When asked by the court how he would react if he did not get contact, the parent replied, “I can’t predict the future.”
There are several concerning aspects to this case. The first is a less than perfect court system which puts highly controversial questions to parents and tries to ascertain the honesty, or lack of it, in the responses it hears without any psychiatric training on the judge’s part.
The second worrying aspect of this case is the impact of those answers on how a judge might award contact: in this case, an element of blackmail seems to take control of the proceedings and the judge feels he has no choice but to award contact in this instance, as he believes not doing so could put the children’s and their mother’s lives at risk, as well as others.
This judgment puts the children in a contact situation, not only with a parent who is considered high risk, but with that parent’s own parents, relying on them to ensure that the children are safe. Given that the overseers of the contact are the high risk parent’s own family, what are the chances that at some point they may feel it’s alright to leave the room the children are in at any time, or even allow for unsupervised contact at some point? Whilst the courts and the experts assigned to a case are under a duty to measure that risk, we do not know if they have, or indeed whether such assessments in this context could provide solid reassurances.
There will also be future impact on the children once they grow up and discover the extent of the proceedings.
Our question to you then, is just this: what do you think about this judgment, and is it in the best interests of the children, after all?
Thank you to the National Child Protection Alliance for sharing this story with us.
If the children were of an age to speak then here lies the truth some years ago a little girl in a court of law told the judge who she wanted to live with and she got her wish, but then adults still say children should be seen and not heard, and what of kids in care who have been abused by their parents and report it, then taken into care and social services FORCE the child to have contact with the abusers, and the child in fear begs the SS and says I don’t want contact, As I have always and continue to say children are screaming to be heard and until the idiot adults who ever they are listen to the kids and the judges on their own assumptions then can or may send a kid to its death Time to give kids a voice as the parents who split up many use the kids as a weapon. I hope one day people in power will listen to what I say and to the poor little kids.
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Baby P’s mother saw her surviving children when she was in jail ! If she was allowed supervised contact so should just about anyone else be allowed it, including the father in the case quoted.
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Yes I agree, what I do not agree with are the parents such as baby P and others who have abused and murdered their kids and get contact, I am fed up with stating that if an adult reports abuse then it is a criminal offence, and they are not forced to have contact with the abuser, but kids are and the case such as baby P the mother was found guilty but not for long but as you say still had contact with her other kids
how does any one know if the other kids had been abused and wanted contact with an evil mother, any one who kills a child or abuses a child with 100% evidence they should rot in prison, but then we need the family court open so the media can report truth and what is amazing is that this so called British Empire do not allow the media and public to know truth so how many parents do walk away scot free we will never know because of the cover up we need a judge and jury to protect the children, the bloody law is an ass.
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Without knowing the full facts, it is difficult to make a truly valid comment – but on the face of it, this seems like a truly crap judgment. But then, when do the Family Courts ever work in a child’s best interests?
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Yes, I totally agree with the Judge.
Threats are often said in the heat of the moment but if someone is intent on harming someone they may not threaten but just carry out the act. I would think in this instance that it was anger and attention seeking.
Borderline and some other personality-disordered people are more at risk to themselves than those around them. BPD is often misunderstood but used in family court to take children away from their mothers who have the personality disorder. Some of the most dangerous personality disorders are sociopaths or psycopaths but they abound in the general population and most are never officially diagnosed and so are not seen as a threat to any children they may have.
The percentage of parents who carry out serious harrful acts/murder against their children is low in the great scheme of things.
Allowing the grandparents to supervise is a smart move. No one knows their child better and even if they are considered in denial of what their son is capable of, which is often levied against them, they have a vested interest in keeping their son & grandchildren safe. A stranger supervising sets up an unnatural situation and the children would not benefit.
Often father’s are marginised and ousted out from their children’s lives, I believe that is wrong. When you take everything away, you have nothing to lose!
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http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/borderline-personality-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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I am appalled and disgusted by some of the previous comments, as I am with this judicial decision, which demonstrate Victorian attitudes that children and young people are no more than the `Goods and Chattels’ of parents, and are to be allocated and distributed in similar ways to the house, finances, furnishings etc.
But then, the Family Laws and Courts similarly objectify them and treat them as inanimate objects, names on pieces of paper, and to have neither identity or entity in law. This is the ugly underbelly of the `Shared Parenting’ laws in Australia.
Children are human beings, with unique individual qualities, wishes and feelings, and views on how and where they wish to spend their childhoods and with whom. It is long overdue that the Courts and judiciary recognize this.
Their primary right is to be safe and protected from harm and exploitation, and in Australian law this has to be the primary and paramount consideration `in the best interests of the child’. This Judge, Altobelli, recognizes that there is a very high risk to these children from their father, yet flagrantly disregards the law and places them in serious danger of abuse and even death.
It is also a primary parental responsibility to ensure that their children are safe and protected and if they are the risk to their children, then they should forego their rights or the law must do it for them, as frequently occurs in Care Proceedings.
In Australian Family Law, children and young people have the right to apply independently for a Parenting Order (Sect.60c) and to be joined as a party to proceedings by either of the principal parties. But they have been consistently and persistently denied this right by the Courts, the judiciary, and lawyers and the last child to be able to give their views in an Australian Family Court was in 1991(Pagliarella).
Human rights for children and young people as written in UN Conventions and European laws are completely meaningless, unless they are enforceable in law.
A great deal of lip service has been paid to upholding and enforcing the rights of children and young people and its time the people who have the duty and responsibility for ensuring that happens, took responsibility for ensuring that it does.
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I believe he ought to be granted a resonable level of contact but supervised by a couple of people other than his parents – and I don’t mean a couple of little old ladies as they say but a man and a woman, although preferably not social workers. By that I mean a couple of hours perhaps once a fortnight. We don’t know what not seeing his children might do to his mental state and that could put anyone at risk if he ‘blew up’ at any time – as we have seen in the past with those with mental health issues regardless of reason. I often think some judges and so-called professionals – doctors, sws, psychiatrists even – are devoid of common sense, an attribute often useful in many situations. Unless he actually frightens them, children should not grow up not seeing both parents.
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