Knowles & Douglas

[2021] FamCA 160

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Knowles & Douglas [2021] FamCA 160

File number(s):

PAC 1229 of 2019

Judgment of:

HANNAM J

Date of judgment:

26 March 2021

Catchwords:

FAMILY LAW – COURTS AND JUDGES – Disqualification – Apprehension of bias – Where the mother contends awareness of compromise parties had reached grounds feared deviation from deciding case on its merits – Where there is no basis upon which a fictional observer might reasonably apprehend that I might not bring an impartial and unprejudiced mind to the resolution to the parenting dispute between the parties – Application dismissed.

Legislation:

Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

Cases cited:

Ebner v Official Trustee in Bankruptcy [2000] HCA 63; 205 CLR 337

Salerno & Salerno [2015] FamCA 774

Silva & Phoenix [2018] FamCAFC 41

Re JRL; Ex parte CJL [1986] HCA 39; (1986) 161 CLR 342

Number of paragraphs:

50

Date of hearing:

13 October 2020

Place:

Parramatta

Counsel for the Applicant:

Mr Livingstone

Counsel for the Respondent:

Ms Mahony

Solicitor for the Independent Children's Lawyer:

Ms Lam

ORDERS

PAC 1229 of 2019
BETWEEN:	MS KNOWLES Applicant
AND:	MR DOUGLAS Respondent

ORDER MADE BY:	HANNAM J
DATE OF ORDER:	26 MARCH 2021

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.The mother’s Application in a Case filed 4 August 2020 seeking that I recuse myself is dismissed.

Note:   The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court’s records.

Note: This copy of the Court’s Reasons for judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 17.02A(b) of the Family Law Rules 2004 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to 17.02 Family Law Rules 2004 (Cth).

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonym Knowles & Douglas has been approved by the Chief Justice pursuant to s 121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

HANNAM J:

INTRODUCTION:

1. Since March 2019 the parties have been involved in a dispute concerning the future parenting of their only child, a boy aged almost nine (“the child”). The salient issue in these proceedings is whether the father poses an unacceptable risk of harm to the child on the basis of sexual abuse.

2. Shortly after trial directions were made in April 2020, the parties reached agreement in relation to final parenting orders for the child with which the Independent Children’s Lawyer (“ICL”) agreed. Proposed orders in these terms (“the proposed orders”) were sent by email to my chambers on 4 June 2020 and filed with the Court a few days later.

3. The proposed orders provide in summary that the parties hold equal shared parental responsibility for the child and that the child live with the mother and spend time with the father which is to be initially supervised by the paternal grandparents.  The children’s time with the father under the proposed orders will then gradually become unsupervised and increase to each alternate weekend and half of each school holiday. Other…