Listen to kids, says retired magistrate
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F4E Editor comment:  The fact remains (although hardly ever reported) that not one single child in a Court mandated Shared Parenting arrangement in Australia has ever been found to have been abused, whereas over 80% of all familial child abuse occur in single-mother, sole-custody house-holds.
Yet the media still rely on the bizarre insights of the likes of Barbara Holborow, who by her own admission has never read the family law act, has never read a family law judgment on this matter, and has relied solely on one biased newspaper article to formulate her view on Australia’s Shared Parenting legislation.
How exactly is there to be an informed debate on Shared Parenting in this country when the media rely almost exclusively on the views of un-informed media-tarts who have never even bothered to read the legislation that they they are so zealously criticizing?
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Barbara Holborow- has never read the Family Law act.
VULNERABLE children stuck in court custody battles are put at greater risk because judges and magistrates are out of touch with kids, a former Children’s Court magistrate says.
Barbara Holborow said Family Court judges and federal magistrates should go back to school to learn how to talk to, and deal with, children.
She told the Herald Sun that children were not adequately being heard in court and some were subsequently left with abusive parents.
One horrific example Ms Holborow highlighted was a case where a judge allowed a young girl to stay with her abusive father – as long as locks were on the child’s door.
Ms Holborow made a submission to a federal inquiry into controversial family law changes aimed at boosting children’s safety in parenting matters.
The proposed changes would see family law courts focus more on protecting children than on benefits of children seeing both parents, if family violence is suspected.
The push has caused a stir with shared parenting groups that say changes will lead to unproven accusations of domestic violence used to gain custody.
But advocates argue children have been forced to see violent parents or parents jailed for sex offences.
Ms Holborow, who received an Order of Australia medal for her work with children and in court, said in her submission that “most of the federal magistrates and Family Court judges were not truly experienced in considering what is in the best interest of a child”.
Special classes to train judges in how to deal with children was one option the retired magistrate floated to the Herald Sun.
“They could have experts explain to them how to approach children,” she said.
One-on-one meetings with a child inside cham- bers was another option, she said.
“It could be that the magistrate or the judge might say, ‘I want to have a chat with Freddy in chambers’,” Ms Holborow said.
Law Institute of Victoria president Caroline Counsel said judicial colleges needed more money to ensure training provision.
“There is always a need for ongoing education in the legal fraternity, but particularly for those who sit in judgment,” Ms Counsel said.
Submissions to the inquiry close April 29.
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i think all kids should have a say in a court room its there life its not about the parents my children are being removed off of me to go back to a neglectfull father and abusive step mother and there is nothing i can do i know my kids and if some one was willing to listen to them and here what they have to say then the right desion will be made so listening to children is the best thing that can happen…..
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Read some of the submissions to the Senate Inquiry into the AG’s Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011.
They are mostly by woman and children against fathers having time with their children.
Provable true stories from men and their children need to be presented. The Senate is well aware of my matter as is the AG hence their prevention of any inquiry into judicial misbehaviour and the Judicial Misbehaviour Commission Bill.
Come on, speak up by 29 April 2011 or expect to never see your children until they are adults.
Links:
Senate Legal and Constitutional Committees Inquiry:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/family_law_familyviolence/index.htm
Information about the Inquiry:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/family_law_familyviolence/info.htm
Submitting Online to Senate Committee Inquiries:
https://senate.aph.gov.au/submissions/pages/index.aspx
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‘hidden’ femini$$m agenda’s, asif good&normal: hearing of children is barbaric and only serves the manipulative parent, we already have equal treatment and we already have criminal law, divorce is child abuse, divorce is parenting-child-family alienation to begin with, divorce is domestic violence, men don’t hurt to harm but to protect aginst gov’t-violence&mothermafia ! the divorcing parent is unfit and must never be rewarded, the divorcing parent has to pay maximal, defathering is a terrible crime and so is destroying normal families which fatherless-defathered (lesbian) households aren’t ! identity-frauds, femini$$m is charactermurder, abortion is child murder, divorce-adoption are child thefts, divorce is in essence familymurder on children&fathers, divorced children&fathers are lifelong harmed&damaged in their being asif nothing ! natural fatherhood delivers best !
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Let’s face it Barbara Holborow is an idiot.
Anyone who would suggest that a judge, trained in law, should “have a chat with the child in chambers†to determine the matter is suffering delusions of grandeur and is not in touch with reality.
Psychological judgement dominates family law. To this end Family reports are conducted by specialist child expert psychologists and/or psychiatrists in clinical conditions, sometimes over days, utilizing psychopathology diagnostic tools of MMPI-2, WAIS, PSI… and other mental health instruments, in addition to evaluations practiced over 20 years of child-parent interactions and attachment for the purpose of prognosticating the parenting capacities of the parents with respect to the child’s emotional and intellectual needs and wishes. This cannot be glossed over by a few extra hours of training.
It is hard to believe Holborow’s solution to protecting children is to let the kids decide. Has she any idea of what sort of emotional abuse, psychological harm, coercion, guilt and alienation this would expose the children to in a truly abusive case?
For such reasons the Family Court has a long established policy, supported by a significant line of authority, that children should not be drawn into Family Court proceedings by being called as witnesses from either side in a custody or access dispute.
Holborow is a sad indictment of the quality of Children’s Court judiciary and compelling reason why magistrates of this court should not be called to the Family Court bench. An OAM bought.
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zac Reply:
April 18th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Good points Howard.
I changed lawyers when my ‘country’ lawyer said that my ex-wife’s SECRET 15 year old psychiatric history was irrelevent to our bitter custody battle where I was FALSELY accused of molesting our 10 yo daughter and where my ex-wife had grown up with an alienating mother and with little fatherly contact and love.
When complaining about my first lawyer’s poor advice to our state’s legal commissioner the lawyer responded by saying that they were NOT my (mental health) counsellor and that my depression (mild, but understandable under the circumstances) was something that they could not help me with. I needed a LAWYER to counter the horror of false criminal allegations.
Well I say that Family Lawyers should also be required to be up to speed with ways to deal with Criminal ‘allegations’ arising out of Family Law proceedings. For example… I was my alleged ‘victim’ daughter’s advocate ‘in absentia’ for 24 days and whilst she was in the ‘care’ of her manipulative and criminal (perjurer ) mother until a children’s lawyer was appointed.
Is this why a copper said to me that my daughters will be the eventual ‘judges’ of any parental wrong doing?
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dave aldridge. Reply:
April 18th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
You certainly make a very valid point Howard as regards a child having to front up to a judge/magistrate and the undoubted trauma that this would subject a child to, but specialist child expert psychologists ?.
When i was going through the meat grinder the EXPERT child psychologist was unable to fault my interaction with my child so instead she stated that i was more interested in my financial position than my child, when all i said was that this was was costing me thousands of dollars while the ex [the abuser ] was getting all the free legal aid. She still recommended that my daughter continue to live with her mother despite all the PROVEN abuse and neglect she was being subjected to. Really the only reason i gained custody was because my daughter voted with her feet late one night and ultimately SHAMED the bastards into doing something. Yes the court judge did eventually listen to her.
My daughter has now completed her degree in psychology, is doing honours this year, and is already talking of doing her PHD. Hopefully one day she will take her own place in the ranks of child psychologists, and i can assure you her recommendations will be far more fair and unbiased than the rotten and biased decisions she had to put up with when she was a child herself. She well knows the discriminatory traits of the current system which almost condemned her to a life of abuse, neglect and underachievement, having borne the brunt of those decisions herself, and also the difference a loving father can make to a childs life when given the opportunity.
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Howard Beale Reply:
April 18th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I agree that some family reporters seem to be appointed to find evidence to support the predetermination, namely, children should live with the Mother. The incestuous relationship of the in-house family reporters – underqualified social workers – is of particular concern.
However, the Family Report is our best chance to get settlement before the trauma and expense (don’t mention money) of the trial process or, in circumstances where the family report recommendations are the final orders in 90% of cases, a reasonable outcome at trial.
Thus it is vital that we know which family reporters are genuine and which are toe-the-line profiteering sycophants. Of course if she has legal aid there is no hope of resolution.
My point is that it would be a mistake to give judges more power to make unqualified mental health and child psychology judgements, effectively bypassing any unliked expert opinion, in circumstances where LAT has already removed the protections of procedure and the Evidence Act and fair access to appeal is stifled by denial of court provided transcript.
These people seem to be legislating themselves as demigods under the pretence of protecting our children.
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dave aldridge. Reply:
April 18th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Yeah, while at the same time legislating so they have no accountability whatsoever for the damage they cause to children.
zac Reply:
April 19th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Agreed Howard, My barrister told me that the 4 pages of the second Family Report (which exonerated me and recommended shared living) totally trumped a 200mm high file of lawyer correspondence and allegations in 10 affidavits and over 10 months of war… Children need unbiased and well trained Family Reporters….and people in judgement should listen to them.
Craig Reply:
May 2nd, 2011 at 2:35 am
didnt have the patience to read all of it Howard, in my experience the kids had little time with the so called family report officer who has misunderstood therefore ill advised the court of what is really happening
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Use you energy on your Kids, we know the system isnt right, the only way it will change is if they recognise our energies are on the kids, and if that’s the basis of your argument, they can’t deny it
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Folks, this woman was never a family law judge nor federal magistrate.
She was a magistrate in the Children’s Court.
She dealt with delinquent kids, and regardless of the fact that you may speak to a teenager in Court who has committed a crime, the same principle does not apply to a 5 year old, who may have no idea what is in their best interests, or who may be subject to alienation or alignment.
The principles of the Children’s Court simply do not apply to family law.
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dave aldridge. Reply:
April 17th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
And i’ll bet London to a brick that a good propertion of those delinquent kids came from single mother families where they have absolutely no conntrols or discipline. She should know better.
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And some of this is sheer perversity.
My kids suffered ongoing negligence and abuse with their mother EVEN AFTER a court mandated shared parenting agreement. Indeed, the abuse and negligence they endured for 18 months occured because she was so angry at having to share the kids that she took it out on them. Her violence against me increased dramatically, and hasn’t declined since.
What kid is going to go into a court room or in chambers and feel calm and free to speak about his/her parents? The kids will probably be completely freaked out. Putting them through the ordeal is probably not appropriate.
Kids often don’t like to speak ill of either parent, particularly boys. With the magistrate staring down his/her bi-focals in this oppresive court room or judges chamber the kids are not going to feel forthcoming.
I agree with Father4two. Clearly this woman is a moron. Kids not only can’t solve the problem, they don’t want to get involved. They are already trying to cope with peer group pressures, growing up. They should be concentrating on being a kids and going to school, not manipulated into lying about their fathers so idiots like this woman can further their personal agendas to make women wealthy and put kids into dangerous envrionments!
Leaving kids with mothers isn’t about the best interests of kids, it’s about power and money.
Sorry, this sort of article really gets under my skin!
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I actually agree with at least SOME of what this woman has said. My own daughter was forced to live for 3 years with her abusive MOTHER. Why ??? because nobody listened. It was only after my daughter voted with her feet late one cold rainy night that she was able to finally SHAME the bastards into doing something. It seems that all a father has to do is sneeze at the wrong time and he will be denied custody or contact with his children, yet a mother can get away with anything up to and including murder. Only a year or 2 ago a mother was brought to trial for shaking one of her children to death. The judge then duly gave her back custody of her other children because she might become depressed if separated from them. In my opinion some of these judges should be taken out back and summarily executed.
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1. How many single fathers do not like a bit of porn? So long as it is not kiddie porn, what’s the problem.
2. Why do these judges always wait until they retired before admitting they never had a clue what they were up to all along?
3. A family law magistrate who has never read the Family Law Act. She’ll get work in any Commonwealth country then. You can keep her. Order of Australia medal, no less. Congratulations. Why let knowledge get in the way of state-sanctioned legal profiteering.
“most of the federal magistrates and Family Court judges were not truly experienced in considering what is in the best interest of a childâ€Â. hmmm, surprise, surprise….
4. Who would want these reprobates anywhere near their children. Talk to them….no way, not unless the session is videoed and shown to the child development experts.
5. Why not simply let the child development experts talk directly to the children? Instead of giving more money to judicial training colleges.
6. “There is always a need for ongoing education in the legal fraternity, but particularly for those who sit in judgment,†Ms Counsel said
Ne’er a truer word said.
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If this moron Holborow had even read this judgment she refers to she would realise that the father was not (and never was) abusive.
He had a porn addiction, which hardly qualifies for him being an abusive father.
Why bother with the facts when we have morons like her to tell us how easy it is to fix the law…just ask the kids. Anyone in Family Law knows how idiotic this suggestion really is.
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