Double Standards in Court
Shock as Prosecutors Drop Rape Charge Against Rebecca Helen Elder
PROSECUTORS have surprisingly dropped all charges against a woman accused of orally raping a man.
Rebecca Helen Elder, 39, of Parkside, appeared in the District Court today.
She had previously pleaded not guilty to one count of aggravated serious criminal trespass in a place of residence, and one count of rape.
Prosecution documents, filed with the court, alleged both offences took place at a suburban house between September 20 and September 23 last year.
They claimed Ms Elder broke into a house while its male occupant was lawfully on the premises.
They further alleged she broke in with the intention of committing a further offence of rape.
Ms Elder was last month ordered to stand trial, during which prosecutors would allege she raped the man by performing an act of oral sex on him without his consent.
European Court of Human Rights does a backflip: Biological fathers’ lawsuits dismissed
Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights: Biological fathers have no right to recognition of paternity if the mother lives with another man.
In 2010 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that German legislation prohibiting biological fathers from having any contact with their child without the biological mother’s consent was discriminating against fathers and a violation of the men’s human rights.
Refer to article: European Court Bolsters Fathers’ Rights
However, the European Court of Human Rights has just announced a backflip on its previous position, now claiming a ludicrous exception to this ruling by removing the parental rights of the biological father merely because the mother has moved in with another man.
Its a bizarre case of one step forward, ten steps backward for fathers all around the world, and this particular decision exemplifies the entrenched discrimination against biological fathers at every level of the legal system.
When Abortion is not Enough: Women’s Rights Reaches New Low
Editor: KILLING newborn babies should be allowed if the mother wishes, Australian philosophers have argued in a prestigious journal, however their whole argument is premised on the notion that mothers ‘own’ children, and this property is theirs solely to decide on matters as important as life or death.
The role, rights and responsibilities of the fathers and other family members is ignored, perhaps denoting that these supposed philosophers are engaging in something other than open-minded scientific debate. Perhaps this discussions has something to do with the growing number of women being persecuted for filicide, the murder of the children, especially at the point of birth. We in Australia are quite familiar we a particularly high profile case of a sports personality who killed her new born child because it was expected to interfere with her sports career.
Perhaps in the well tried fashion of the likes of Jen McIntosh, this publication’s true purpose is to provide legal leverage to such mothers, in order to avoid prison terms for killing new born babies.
Its quite interesting that such leniency does not seem to be extended to the father in this philosophical discussion.
Israel Takes Steps To Reduce Discrimination Against Divorced Fathers
Jerusalem — January 20, 2012 …. For many divorced fathers in Israel, the declaration yesterday by Israel Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman that divorced parents must now share custody of children, may have come too late. Neeman has accepted recommendations by the Schnit Committee that joint parental custody be ordered in divorce cases involving young children, which the law defines as those up to age 6. Until now, most divorced fathers became visitors, being limited to seeing their children only a few hours a week.
As the new law comes into affect, thousands of dads in Israel would have lost any opportunity of fatherhood due to the fact that their children have already grown up or that their children suffer from PAS – Parental Alienation Syndrome. With PAS the children become alienated against the father as the mother has pushed him away and brainwashed the children that he is of no worth, or perhaps even bad for whatever reason she creates.
Fraud in Australia’s plan to reduce violence against women
The 2009 Australian project a ‘Time for Action: The National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-2021′, was approved for implementation by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). The Plan, which is split into several parts, puts forth recommendations for new legislation, changes to judicial processes, requests for funding and ideas for domestic programs targeted at reducing domestic and sexual violence against women. The advisory council has some powers to implement programs through the Office of Women among other agencies, but much of what the government funded program calls for requires approval by Parliament.
The entire premise of the National Plan was underpinned by the belief in this statement:“While a small proportion of men are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, the majority of people who experience this kind of violence are women in a home, at the hands of men they know.”[27-pg1] But a quick examination of the statistics and data shows a much different picture to the rather sweeping indictment of Australian men the National Council paints.
Another Bridge Protest Against Disgraceful Child Custody laws
A un-named man who was charged over a risky protest against Australia’s Child Custody laws on Brisbane’s Story Bridge, has walked free from court on bail.
Police sought to have bail conditions imposed on the 31-year-old Ormeau man, who was charged with performing an unregulated high risk activity, but the request was denied.
Lawyers acting for the man said he had made his point through the high-profile protest against Australia’s discriminatory child custody laws, however he did not intend to repeat the activity.
The man was bailed to appear again in court on December 19.
According to statements made by the man, a father of 3 who has spend over $88,000 to gain visitation to his children, his protest was against the Australian Family Law Courts and their complete disregard for the rights of children.
Child Abuse by Mothers in Australia – A case study
Nobody believed ‘Frank’ when he tried to protect his son from bureaucratic bungling. John Stapleton reports that, nearly 20 years on, Frank has been proved right, even though he lost in court.
The boy was eight weeks old when his father called welfare authorities and pleaded with them to take his son into foster case. He alleged that the mother was being violent towards the child, throwing him against walls and trying to smother him. The authorities ignored him, as they did for years to come, but the father persevered.
Twenty years, 550 days in court and tens of millions of dollars of public funds later, the matter which has just run across the civil, criminal and family law jurisdictions, reached its final chapter this week.
Fatherlessness on a grand scale – an open letter to Julia Gillard on the 2011 Family Violence bill
From an email sent to Fathers4Equality:
I would just like to thank Fathers4Equality for all the information and support your group has made available to me over the years, especially during the times when I felt completely dissolutioned and abandoned by the family law system in this country.
Despite the hardships along the way, and for the one year when I was denied contact with my son because of false allegations of child sexual abuse, I now am happy to say that I have a very happy, co-operative and child-focussed shared parenting arrangement with my ex-wife, and have done so now for a number of years.
I however have recently been reading the news that the Gillard Labor government is set to replace the 2006 Shared Parenting laws with a set of malicious, archaic and bizarre set of laws that will presume all separated fathers as being violent and abusive, and from what I have read the legal test will now be subjective, meaning that even provable facts will no longer be a defence for fathers.
I write the following with a strong sense of despair, not for myself, because I now have an unshakable arrangement that both my ex and I, and especially our son, wants to continue.
My despair however is for the next generation of Australian children who will lose contact with their fathers’ because this out-of-touch government has chosen to replace Shared Parenting laws that encouraged mediation and co-operation, with laws that will encourage acrimony and false allegations.
I am actually dumb-founded that the proposed new family laws have ZERO protection for children who have been subject to parental alienation, and ZERO protection for fathers who have been the victims of false allegations. One has to ask what type of family laws they are expected to be when they don’t protect children and fathers, as well as mothers?
I am quite saddened because I personally experienced the overwhelming discrimination faced by fathers in family law as it was, and things will now only get significantly worse with these new laws.
As I said with my case, I have a very co-operative relationship with my ex, and this has been the case since our court case was finalised. However, I too was subject to the most sinister allegations of child sexual abuse by my ex, and I am still at a loss to understand why she made those allegations to begin with. Over a chat recently, she told me that she regretted that episode, and she made reference to being ‘pushed’ by the independent children’s lawyer to make the allegations she made.
None of this makes sense to me, as I still cannot fathom how someone can make such sinister allegations that they knew as un-thruths, or should reasonably have known, but what I have learned over the years is that false allegations are by no means the exception in family law, and I have since read possibly hundreds of cases of eerily similar stories to mine.
In any case, the allegations against me were roundly condemned by almost all the experts called in Court, from DoCs, doctors, psychologists, the family counsellor and others, to a point where my ex was condemned by the Judge for not being completely truthful in her testimony, or otherwise having developed irrational beliefs. The Judge lamented that our child was needlessly paraded from one doctor to another, in an effort to find someone who agreed with my ex’s allegations.
I say ‘almost all the experts condemned the allegations’, because the one exception was the independent children’s lawyer, a most malicious women whom I will never forget for her breath-taking personal comments to me prior to the start of our hearing, and for her relentless demands in Court that I not be allowed to see the child again unsupervised.
This woman was however forced to admit in Court, only after being repeatedly challenged by the Judge, that there was absolutely no evidence that any child abuse ever happened, but she kept on defending her demands by arguing that there was “no evidence that child abuse did not occur.” (In fact there was abundant evidence that nothing occurred….but I will not digress)
I recall like it was yesterday the first thing this malicious woman said to me as I introduced myself to her on the morning of the hearing: “I will not support any over-night contact with you because it will reduce the mother’s child support”, she said.
When I responded by saying: “What has that got to do with the family law act?”, she said, “Everything, as far as I am concerned!”
To cut a long and painful episode short, I have put all this behind us now and my son has excelled in everything from school to sports since then, with both my meaningful support and likewise from his mother.
Our shared-parenting arrangement is rock-solid, and my son is a great testament to how two people who have everything in common when it comes to their child, will make it work given the right laws being in place.
However, with these laws changing, I see an end to stories like mine, because the influence of these malicious persons, who seem to be present in one capacity or another in almost ever family law case, will eventually win out, forcing an outcome which may be ideologically in keeping with their hate-inspired gender views, but completely inconsistent with the charter of their profession, which should be to protect the best interests of the child.
Because of the likes of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Attorney General Robert McLelland, and every member of Parliament who have so far supported passage of the Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2011, family law will no longer encourage co-operation between separated parents. It will once again be about winner-takes-all, and this will bring out the worst in most parents, at the expense of our children.
With the Gillard government removing any penalties for false allegations, with its redefinition of abuse to include events that have never occurred or not likely to occur, where even a side-ways look will now be considered domestic violence, and with the drastic slashing of funding to Family Relationship Centres, it is clear that being a decent and loving father is no longer good enough in this country, because the presumption that stands is that separated fathers are violent, and no amount of evidence will dispute this.
…and sadly, the malicious anti-male zealots in privileged positions, like the Independent Children’s Lawyer in my case, Miss Jane Weber of the NSW Legal Aid Commission, will now be able to systemically abuse the unprotected victims of the family law system, without the necessary checks and balances that have been so desperately needed in the most exploited area of law in this country.
If fatherlessness on a grand scale is the goal of this legislation Miss Gillard, then it sure has the makings of success, but no doubt we will one day look back at another stolen generation and ask ourselves, “how did we let it happen again?”
Any conflict, real or imagined, AND no Shared Parenting, AG says
The release of a report examining conflict between parents after separation, comes as the government today begins debate on new legislation asking the Family Court to consider family violence before granting custody to both parents.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the government would use the research to boost its case for reform in the family law system under the Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill.
“The bill continues to promote a child’s right to a meaningful relationship with both parents, but with one key difference – it emphasises that the child’s safety must come first in situations where there is conflict,” he said,” even if those safety concerns are only subjective.
The Attorney General claims that where any conflict exists in the event of separation, even if the conflict is not entrenched and is merely the natural tensions that occur during separation, that this will automatically refute or deny the prospect of a shared parenting outcome.
When questioned whether that meant that Shared Parenting would be almost impossible to achieve under such conditions, even for decent fathers who were the subject of false allegations, the Attorney General failed to respond.
The research into the report was carried out in two phases and the results compared what parents reported from the first survey to the second, on average 28 months after separation.
The study found less parents in the second phase (49 per cent compared to 60 per cent in the first phase) were able to discuss custody arrangements, while more parents (11 per cent compared to five per cent in the first phase) relied on the courts to decide upon custody.
Mr McClelland said the results showed law reform was needed to decrease the prevalence of inter-parental conflict, fear and abuse post separation, and that this could only be done by removing the fear of shared parenting from the custodial equation.
Sydney Harbour Bridge protester keeping up his fight
Sydney Harbour Bridge protester Michael Fox says he is meeting his local member Bronwyn Bishop today to continue his campaign to get more support for children from broken families.
Mr Fox, who stopped traffic by staging a sit-in at the top of the bridge on May 17, said he had not seen his children since he was granted bail on charges of climbing the bridge.
“[Politicians] have seen how resilient Australian soldiers are in battle, well, unfortunately for them, this is my battle and I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
“Until they give children a voice, I’m going to be the voice for the children.”
The former soldier from Narrabeen, who said he was a paratrooper who served in East Timor, was also scheduled to meet Rob Stokes, the state MP for Pittwater, next week.
Mr Fox believed government authorities and institutions have failed to protect children from disputes involving their parents when they separate, and hopes an inquiry would help to explore how such processes could be improved.
“The way I look at it, I’m a veteran. And there’s a Veterans Affairs Minister. And us veterans, compared to the number of kids in Australia, are very low in numbers, plus we are adults, we can think for ourselves and vote with our feet. But the kids can’t, they don’t have a voice. And yet there’s no minister for children’s affairs.
“Jenny Macklin – her portfolio is way too big with family services. And the only other one that comes close is Peter Garrett with his education portfolio – early childhood learning and youth. And he isn’t even touching on the problems of health affecting youth.”
He questioned why Prime Minister Julia Gillard weighed into the planking debate last week but missed “the big white elephant in the room”, which he felt were the after-effects of dysfunctional families on suicides and mental health.
Mr Fox, who is a father of three, declined to speak about his own case, calling on the public and the media to “forget my name, but remember my message”.
“I don’t think I will be able to implement any sort of change that will affect my situation. I’m happy to be patient and to go through all the proper procedures.
“It’s the fact that through going through that process, it has made me aware how many people are going through this. I’m not talking about adults, I’m talking about children.”
He said that since his Harbour Bridge protest, he has received hundreds of emails from parents and children telling him about their personal struggles with the law and government institutions.
Mr Fox is due back at the Downing Centre Local Court on June 10.
Glenda Kwek
