K v B

The applicant, K, sought special leave to appeal from a decision of the Full Court of the Family Court of Australia. The dispute concerned supervised access to children, where the applicant argued that the "unacceptable risk test" as applied in the case of *Mand M* was causing confusion and had been wrongly applied.

The legal issues before the High Court were whether the "unacceptable risk test" articulated in *Mand M* was causing confusion in its application, and whether the trial judge had erred in his approach to determining the adequacy of proposed supervisors for supervised access. Specifically, the applicant contended that the trial judge had wrongly deferred to the wife's objections to supervisors, rather than making an independent assessment of their adequacy.

The applicant argued that the "unacceptable risk test" was causing confusion, evidenced by the outcome where the applicant was denied access to his children based on the mere possibility of past sexual abuse, contrasting this with *Mand M* where abuse was found but future access was still contemplated. Furthermore, the applicant submitted that the trial judge's reliance on the parties' inability to agree on a supervisor, despite the judge's own view that proposed supervisors were adequate, demonstrated a misapplication of the principles. The applicant contended that the court, not the parties, should determine the adequacy of supervisors. The applicant sought reconsideration of *Mand M* and argued for a different principle to be applied.