Open Letter to the Senate Inquiry by a Concerned Father on the Family Violence Bill

The following is a rebuttal to the Senate made by a concerned father in response to erroneous, misleading and misguided research submitted to the Senate Inquiry into the Family Violence Bill, 2011, claiming that Australia’s 2006 Shared Parenting legislation has forced children to live with paedophiles, and other absurd and unsubstantiated claims that lack any credible or relevant evidence.

This is an admirable initiative from one man, and is a great example of constructive activism.

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Dear Senators,

I am writing to rebut the “evidence” that shared parenting forces children to live with paedophiles, submitted on notice by Justice for Children.

I point out that this submission cites caselaw made 30 years before the shared parental responsibility amendments were enacted and quotes irrelevant UK judgements in which supervised contact was ordered to protect the father from further child sexual abuse allegations. Briggs consistently refers to interim orders where findings of fact cannot be made. Apparently they don’t expect anyone to check.

In Robins v Ruddock (FCA) 2010 – In 2006 the father pleaded guilty to downloading child pornography [voyeurism not abuse]. The Tasmanian Department of Child and Family Services investigated and concluded that he did not pose an ongoing risk to his two children. They were returned to live primarily with the Father by the Mother’s agreement. In 2010, days before another trial and after the children’s lawyer recommended the existing arrangements continue, the child made disclosures of inappropriate behaviour. A change of residence followed which permitted overnights only if supervised by another adult was recommended by two doctorate psychologists.

Importantly the finding was unacceptable risk and not “a clear and present actual risk” or that sexual abuse occurred.

Rivas & Rivas [2010] FMCAfam 55 – Pornographic materialof the children found – unacceptable risk finding – children to spend such time with the father as may be agreed between the father and the mother, provided that the entirety of that time is spent in the presence of the father’s mother. The Mother wanted the children to have contact, but the contact centre in Devonport could not facilitate this long term. It is a fabrication that contact was ordered “because she [the paternal grandmother] is a Christian”

Asikas & Morikas (FMC) – Not found on Austlii (Not in the CCH or AGIS Plus Text or CaseBase Lexis Nexis)

Murphy & Murphy [2007] – evidence was neither sufficient nor satisfactory to support definite positive or negative findings on the issue of past sexual abuse – interim orders made – graduated re-introduction of unsupervised time with safeguards including a short period of supervised contact and post-order monitoring and review to appease the Mother’s concerns.

Excerpts highlighted in yellow in the Briggs submission refer to

46. D’Agostino(1976) 30 FLR 509

47. L [1989] 2 Fam LR (UK) 16

Ms Briggs claims that “These judgements demonstrate that the family law decision-makers do not regard placing children in the care of convicted child sex offenders as being against their best interests” must be rejected – allegations are not proof and “unacceptable risk” is not a finding of fact that sexual abuse has occurred. And a few hours of supervised contact is not shared parenting.

I must point out that Brigg’s assertions depend on the notoriously unreliable method of retrospective self-reporting and how one defines sexual abuse – “rude games” or rape? That alleged child sexual abuse is often iatrogenic in nature (that is, actually caused by intervening professionals or feminist amateurs rather than being the result of events under consideration), is consistently and conveniently ignored.

I would refer the Senate to peer-reviewed research by Dr Jane Rawls in which a male research assistant posed as day care worker with young children. All interactions were filmed. 25% of the children reported being sexually abused by him – including genital touching, the man putting his hands under their upper clothing, of him touching their bottoms, and of him making them touch his  – which the video showed did not occur [likely explains the sudden decrease in male pre-school teacher numbers].

And the results could easily have been worse. Depending on the way questions were asked, the children’s total accuracy of recall about a variety of situations at their first set of interviews ranged from 13 per cent to nil.

What was especially frightening was that errors appeared to evolve over time with repeated interviews and, for many, were first reported when diagrams of body parts were used. “

http://www.thefamilylawdirectory.com.au/article/false-sexual-abuse-allegations-child-interviews-the-family-law-directory.html

Briggs is an alarmist whose ill-founded statements about the prevalence of child sex abuse fans hysteria for her ideological agenda. This involves coaching pre-schoolers with “protection” to an unhealthy extreme.

As a last point to the enquiry, the fact that this is the first amendment to the family law Act that has not had Bi Partisan support must be of significant concern to the committee.

The Bill is proposed on the basis it will reduce the incidents of Family Violence. It is almost impossible to see how any of the amendments will in fact do that with any degree of certainty.  In  my view, in their  current  form, the amendments will  most  certainly  involve children  of  separating  parents  in  vastly  more  complicated,  litigious,  lengthy,  conflictual  and  hostile separations than Australians have witnessed before.

Yours faithfully

Howard Beale