Luckwell & Anor and Herridge & Anor
[2011] FamCA 52
•10 February 2011
FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA
| LUCKWELL AND ANOR & HERRIDGE AND ANOR | [2011] FamCA 52 |
| FAMILY LAW – CHILDREN – With whom a child lives – Best interests |
| 1st APPLICANT: | Mr Luckwell Senior |
| 2nd APPLICANT: | Ms Handerson |
| 1st RESPONDENT: | Ms Herridge |
| 2nd RESPONDENT: | Mr Luckwell |
| INTERVENOR: | Director General, Department of Human Services |
| INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: | Legal Aid NSW |
| FILE NUMBER: | NCF | 702 | of | 2006 |
| DATE DELIVERED: | 10 February 2011 |
| PLACE DELIVERED: | Sydney |
| PLACE HEARD: | Sydney |
| JUDGMENT OF: | The Hon. Justice Cohen |
| HEARING DATE: | 10-21 May, 2 June 2010. |
REPRESENTATION
| COUNSEL FOR THE APPLICANTS: | Mr Graham |
| SOLICITOR FOR THE APPLICANTS: | Wood Roberts |
| COUNSEL FOR THE 1ST RESPONDENT: | Mr Wilkinson |
| SOLICITOR FOR THE 1ST RESPONDENT: | Krstina Wooi |
| COUNSEL FOR THE 2ND RESPONDENT: | Mr Mooney |
| SOLICITOR FOR THE 2ND RESPONDENT: | Jennifer Blundell & Associates |
| COUNSEL FOR THE INTERVENOR: | Ms Boyle |
| SOLICITOR FOR THE INTERVENOR: | Crown Solicitor’s Office |
| COUNSEL FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: | Mr Gorton |
| SOLICITOR FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: | Legal Aid NSW |
Orders
That B born … April 2002 and H born … July 2003 shall live with the father.
That the father shall have sole parental responsibility for the said children.
That the mother shall spend time with the said children:
(a)commencing after one (1) month from the date of these orders on each alternate weekend from after school on Friday or from 5pm on a non-school Friday to the commencement of school on the immediately following Monday or Tuesday on a long weekend or to 9am on a Monday which is not a school day;
(b)from 9am on Mother’s Day to the commencement of school the next day if it falls on a weekend on which the mother would otherwise not spend time with the children;
(c)on the mother’s birthday:
(i)from after school on that day to the commencement of school the next day if it is a school day or to 9am the next day if it is not a school day;
(ii)from 9am on that day if it is not a school day and the mother would not otherwise spend time with the children on that day to the commencement of school the next day if it is a school day or to 9am the next day if it is not a school day and it falls on a day when the mother would not otherwise spend time with the children;
(d)commencing at the Easter school vacation 2013 from after school on the last day of term to 5pm on the seventh day thereafter in each of the children’s Easter, winter and spring school vacations;
(e)commencing at the Christmas school vacation 2013-2014 from:
(i)after school on the last day of term immediately prior to the Christmas school vacation on the twenty-first day thereafter in each such vacation commencing in an odd numbered year; and,
(ii)from 5pm on the twenty-first day to 5pm on the last Friday in each Christmas school vacation commencing in an even numbered year.
That for the purpose of implementing orders 1 and 3 on non-school days the mother, her mother, her father and her sister or any of them shall collect the children from and return them to the paternal grandfather’s home and at the time set by those orders for such collection and return and for thirty (30) minutes before and after that time the father and the paternal grandmother shall not come within one (1) kilometre of the paternal grandfather’s home.
That for the purpose of implementing orders 1 and 3 on non-school days the mother, her mother, her father and her sister or any of them when collecting and delivering the children shall not allow any other male person to accompany them or any of them at or within thirty (30) minutes before or after the time set by these orders for collection or return of the children unless the father and paternal grandfather consent in writing to that person collecting the children or accompanying them when the children are being collected or returned and in the event the mother or her parents or either of them are accompanied by any other male person at collection time without having first obtained such consent the paternal grand father shall refuse to deliver the children to the mother or her mother or father or sister or any of them and the time otherwise ordered herein for the children to spend with the mother on that collection shall hereby be forfeited or if at return time the mother, her mother or father or sister or any of them are accompanied by any other male person the immediately following period of time that otherwise by these orders the mother would spend with the children is hereby forfeited.
That there shall be no telephone contact between the children and either parent when the children are in the immediate care of the other parent or his or her surrogate until after two years from the date of these orders and thereafter:
(a)the children shall have telephone contact with the mother by the mother telephoning the children at her expense on one occasion in each week during school term but not on weekends during school term and on one occasion in each week during school holidays when the children are in the immediate care of the father or his surrogate; and,
(b)the children shall have telephone contact with the father at his expense on one occasion each week during school holidays when the children are in the immediate care of the mother or her surrogate.
That the mother and father are hereby restrained from speaking to one another by telephone and from texting one another except in order to make arrangements relating to the mother’s time with the children or in any emergency and for those purposes both parents are hereby entitled to record all telephone calls between them.
That the mother is hereby entitled to attend parent teacher interviews provided for them by the school relating to either child both together with the father and separately.
That the mother is hereby restrained from making special appointments to speak to school staff without the father’s prior consent in writing and is further restrained from saying anything to any member of staff at any school which the children or either of them attend which alleges or infers directly or indirectly that the father or any member of his family has committed acts of violence or sexual abuse.
That the father shall forthwith inform the mother in writing of his contact telephone number and his father’s contact telephone number and any change in those numbers as well as any telephone number necessary to implement the orders herein for telephone contact between the children and the mother.
That the mother shall forthwith inform the father in writing of her contact telephone number and any change in that number as well as any telephone number necessary to implement the orders herein for telephone contact between the children and the father.
That the father shall forthwith inform the mother of any change in address of the paternal grandfather’s home.
That the father and mother shall each be entitled to receive copies of all school reports, correspondence and other material ordinarily sent by the children’s schools or school to parents and both shall be entitled to obtain copies of school photographs of the children.
Each parent is hereby entitled to provide any school or schools attended by the children with a copy of these orders.
That the father is to keep the mother fully and promptly informed of any significant injury, medical or like condition affecting either child and shall forthwith notify the mother of any hospital, medical, dental or other treatment by a health professional either child has had or is to receive and shall authorise the person and organisation which are to provide or have provided that treatment to give the mother any information she seeks from that person or organisation.
That except in an emergency the mother is hereby restrained from seeking medical, psychiatric, psychological, neurological, behavioural or educational treatment, therapy, counselling or advice about or for the children or either of them or subjecting them or either of them to any observations, examination, consultation, test, questionnaire, or admission to or appointment at or visit to any hospital, surgery or the likely premises of a health professional or pharmacy.
That the mother is hereby restrained from taking the children or either of them to any police station or office of the Department of Human Services except in an emergency or in relation to an occurrence or occurrences which do not involve any allegation of a criminal act against the children or herself by the father or any member of his family without first obtaining leave of the Court or the Federal Magistrates Court after providing such Court with a copy of these orders and the final judgment in these proceedings.
IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment under the pseudonym Luckwell and Anor & Herridge and Anor is approved pursuant to s 121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).
| FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT SYDNEY |
FILE NUMBER: NCF 702 of 2006
| MR LUCKWELL SENIOR |
Applicant
And
| MS HANDERSON |
Applicant
And
| MS HERRIDGE |
Respondent
And
| MR LUCKWELL |
Second Respondent
And
| DIRECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY SERVICES |
Intervener
And
| INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER |
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
The applicants are the paternal grandparents of the children who are the subject of these proceedings. The children in question, both boys, are B who was born in April 2002 and H born in July 2003. When these proceedings concluded, they were a little more than 8 years old and a little less than 7 years old. Their father, Mr Luckwell, is the second respondent. He has never been married to their mother, Ms Herridge, the first respondent. There is an independent children’s lawyer (ICL) and the Director, Department of Human Resources and Children’s Services (DOCS) became a party at a relatively late stage in the proceedings, but was a party for the whole of the final part of the hearing.
During the course of the proceedings allegiances changed. However, at the end of the final stage of the final hearing, which commenced on 27 April 2009 and finished on 23 July 2010 with the filing on behalf of the father of his counsel’s written submission, the stances of the parties had crystallised.
The applicants ask for orders that the boys live with Mrs Handerson, the paternal grandmother, for at least 3 years. Thereafter the applicants seek that the boys live with the father. They concede that the mother and maternal grandparents and boys should spend time together, but only if the mother and maternal grandparents or any of them make no further allegations of impropriety which might affect the children. If no allegations are made, they regard each alternate weekend during school term, half school holidays and special days as appropriate. Once the children commence to live with the father, they would like to spend a day on each second weekend during term and three days in each school holiday period with the children including some time at Christmas. There are numerous other orders of a subsidiary nature which they seek, some of them quite important in the circumstances, but as they depend on the residency orders which are made, they do not need to be discussed at this stage. They do, however, ask that the father be given sole parental responsibility.
The paternal grandmother lives in an outer suburb of Newcastle. The father lives with his mother. In oral evidence he said he stays “at other people’s places, namely my partner”. She lives in what should be regarded as an inner suburb of Newcastle. He seeks that the children live with him and spend no time with the mother and that he have sole parental responsibility.
The mother asks for orders providing for equal shared parental responsibility between herself and the father and that the children live with her and spend time with the father on alternate weekends during term and for half the school holidays. She also asks for reasonable telephone contact between the children and the parent who does not have their immediate care and for some other subsidiary orders which are of a consequential nature. She lives with her parents near Maitland, about 25km from the paternal grandmother.
The independent children’s lawyer, represented by Mr Gorton of Counsel, very sensibly presented the Court with alternatives which depend on the Court’s determination of what he correctly identified as a critical factor, it being whether or not the mother, with whom the children currently live, wishes to improve or undermine the relationship between the children and the father. He said that if it is found that the mother wishes to improve the relationship there should be equal shared parental responsibility and the children should live with the mother and spend alternate weeks during the term, half the school holidays and special days with the father. He asked for an order in that event to the effect that the children should attend the same school unless the parents agree in writing to the contrary.
If the Court finds the mother is set on a course of undermining the children’s relationship with their father, counsel for the independent children’s lawyer submitted that I should grant sole parental responsibility to the father and make an order that the children live with him and spend each alternate weekend during school term, and half the school holidays and special days with the mother. He maintained the requirement that the children attend the same school unless the parents agree otherwise in writing.
Ms Boyle of counsel appeared for DOCS. It agreed to abide by the Court’s decision notwithstanding its power to use the State system to attempt to achieve a result which differs from the Court’s orders if they are not to its liking. Ms Boyle’s ultimate submission about the orders I should make are best quoted verbatim. Ms Boyle seems to me to have only a moderately realistic view of the mother. She said at paragraphs 46 and 47 of her submission:
46.The mother has not demonstrated that she has the ability to facilitate, let alone encourage, a relationship between the children and their father. This would appear to have been the case since May 2006, and has continued to date.
47. “It has suited the mother’s agenda to accept at face value comments made by the children suggestive of sexual abuse by their father, and physical abuse by their paternal family.
I think she has judged the mother far too kindly. The submissions which she ultimately made are:
There have been proceedings in the Family Court by the paternal family seeking time with children since 2006. This is half of [B’s] life, and more than half of [H’s] life. The orders need to bring finality for the benefit of the children. The final hearing itself has extended over a period from April 2009 to date.
Orders that are least likely to lead to the institution of further proceedings are orders that are unambiguous, and do not permit the making of further allegations of abuse. Orders that have the children spending time with one parent, or extended family, whilst living with the other are highly likely to continue litigation, in the local Court if not in the family Court. The outcome most likely to achieve finality of litigation is one where the children reside with their mother and have no time with their father or paternal family.
The length and nature of these proceedings has arguably had the effect of distracting the parents from the needs of the children, as they have had to focus energy on the litigation. The children require and deserve the attention of their resident parent to be undistracted by further litigation, and the need to maintain a position for the purposes of Court proceedings.
It is tragic that [B] and [H] will lose their relationship with their paternal family, and these submissions are put with much regret. However, it is necessary for the children to be able to enjoy life free of further allegations, investigations and litigation.
In order to alleviate some obvious and likely consequences of the orders she seeks which also give the mother sole parental responsibility, she asked for these additional orders on behalf of DOCS:
That the mother provide a copy of the following to each school that [B] and [H] attend from time to time:
a.a copy of the final orders of the Family Court; and
b.a copy of reports of Dr. [R] dated 20 March 2009 and 2 May 2010.
That the mother shall ensure that [B] and [H] do not attend the [E Organisation] and Awabakal Service forthwith, and shall not take the children to any other Service for any for of counselling for sexual abuse by their father.
That the mother provides any general practitioner treating [B] and [H] with a copy of:
a.a copy of the final orders of the Family Court; and
b.a copy of reports of Dr. [R] dated 20 March 2009 and 2 May 2010.
There have been a number of expert opinions on what order should be made in these proceedings. Ms T provided a family report dated 16 November 2007. It was suitable for interim use, but in my opinion her observations are of most use for the purposes of final determination of those proceedings. She observed that the boys’ enjoyed “a close and trusting relationship with the mother”. B was excited in anticipation of seeing the father. H needed reassurance that she would be present when he saw the father. Both boys reported without appropriate emotion and in a rehearsed fashion that the father was a “bad man” and the he would “punch and hit mum”. Both boys were relaxed and eager to talk to the father while with him. They were neither anxious nor fearful in his company. They eagerly told the mother that he was “really nice to us”.
The mother’s reaction was one of shock, anger, and reproach directed at the family consultant in the presence of the children for allowing the father to have contact with the children. The experience with the father appeared to have no negative impact on the children, but B at one stage acted as though it had, apparently to please the mother.
Ms T also observed that the children have a “close and comfortable” relationship with the maternal grandparents and “a less familiar but comfortable” and “the beginnings of an affectionate” relationship with the paternal grandparents.
It was Ms T’s opinion that none of the adults she had interviewed appear to have any level of insight into the effects on the children of the conflict between the parents. She seems to have interviewed the parents and all grandparents.
A report dated 20 July 2009 is annexed to the affidavit of Dr N, a psychiatrist who is currently a staff specialist with the Hunter New England Area Health Service. He commenced advanced training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in February 2008 on a part-time basis, and converted to full time in December 2008. He is not very experienced in the relevant field. His report, opinion, and oral evidence demonstrate this. His report and opinion are very disappointing because of the inadequacies they exhibit. He obtained no information from the father and acted upon what he had been told by the mother and others in positions where it is likely that they had an agenda to support the mother with opinions which had probably been formed without questioning what she told them, and without consulting the father.
Dr. N knew that Dr R had already become involved with these children, knew he was an experienced child psychiatrist, knew that after Dr R had seen the children that the father was permitted to spend time with them despite the mother’s allegations that the father had sexually assaulted them; allegations which she has now withdrawn, and knew the Court hearing over residence and contact was in progress, yet failed to make any proper effort to find out what Dr R’s opinion and reasons for it were and in his report of 20 July 2009 ended it with these words:
I request DOCS to take immediate action to stop the visits to the father, [Mr Luckwell], and take the necessary legal action to protect these boys from re-experiencing trauma and abuse and promote mental health recovery.
As a result, despite orders I made on 1 May 2009 giving alternate overnight weekend contact to the father after the first 5 days of hearing in the knowledge that the mother has made allegations which she alleged were supported by things the boys have said, the boys’ contact was stopped without seeking to alter my order. The father had virtually no contact with the boys for the next year up to the hearing. Dr N did not contemplate speaking to Dr R before writing this report. He was supposed to be a treating doctor, not an expert witness, so there was no impediment to the doctors consulting one another notwithstanding that Dr R was an expert witness.
Dr R’s earlier report is dated 20 March 2009. His most significant recommendations should be quoted to understand their context:
1.I recommend that the children continue to reside with the mother who is providing well for them and is competent and caring. However the dilemma is whether to recommend a change of residence because the mother may not be prepared to allow the children to have any more time with the father since she is so empowered. However, the father has taken action to protect himself because he fears being placed in jail because of the constant breaches of the AVO’s that have been established. The mother demonstrated her potential to defiantly breach the father even at the assessment in my office. I would certainly be tempted to, if the father were residing in Newcastle to recommend that the children be placed in his care and that there be contact established with the mother. However, without the father residing in Newcastle it is a little difficult to make that recommendation.
2.I recommend that the children have regular contact with the paternal grandparents. I believe that each fortnight the children could have contact with the paternal families perhaps alternating between the paternal grandmother one fortnight and the paternal grandfather the other fortnight.
…
5.If regular contact has been established with the paternal family and the telephone calls perhaps once a week are supported and proceed without any problems then I could recommend that the fortnightly contact continue at the end of the year when the father returns from his working commitments. If there are still major problems with the mother restricting contact with the paternal family then I would recommend that there be a change of residence in 2010 and the children reside with the father and there be weekend contact with the mother.
6.If there are any further allegations of abuse against the father that are deemed spurious or unsubstantiated then I think the child should not continue to reside with the mother as this is a form of abuse against the children.
On 8 May 2010 Dr R provided another report. His recommendation in it are:
1.I recommend that the children continue to reside with the mother whom I believe is very capable and competent as a parent. She now appears to shift in her attitude towards the father and is much more conciliatory and supportive of the father. Should she continue in this approach and should the AVO be dropped and further allegations of abuse not be pursued then I would feel optimistic that this arrangement would be successful.
2.I recommend that contact occur on a fortnightly basis and that there be some mid week contact on the alternate week as agreed between the parties.
3.I recommend that the maternal grandparents attend some counselling in order to help them adjust in order to become more conciliatory in order to support the children. Should the maternal grandparents not be able to support the children in having contact with the paternal family then it may be necessary for [the mother] to reside separately and distance herself from them and reduce their influence over children.
…
8.Should the conciliatory move from the mother be false and not genuine, then I believe it would be necessary to shift the children to the paternal family residing with the father and the paternal grandmother with a contact arrangement with the mother and her family.
These recommendations are in such conflict with the stance taken by DOCS through Ms Boyle that it is difficult to understand how the Court could make the principal order Ms Boyle seeks unless Dr R is given little or no credence. There are no other experts on whom the Court might rely. The Court is not bound to accept the opinion of an expert, even if it is based on all relevant matter and the credibility of his opinion has not been successfully challenged. Dr N’s opinion has been successfully challenged, and Ms Boyle does not rely on it. There would have to be a convincing basis for rejecting Dr R’s opinion so the drastic orders Ms Boyle seeks would be justified. The clear implication in these that the mother is continuing to attempt to distance the children from the father and grandparents and the equally clear appreciation of that possibility in Dr R’s reports, and the fact that he has provided for it in a less radical fashion when he must have considered and rejected the solution Ms Boyle advances as not being in the boys’ best interests leaves no room for the orders she asks for unless Dr R is discredited. I shall return to the expert evidence after canvassing the facts.
The boys’ parents have never been married to one another. They commenced living together in 2000 and finally separated on 17 April 2006. The proceedings were initiated by the paternal grandmother on 1 September 2006 when she filed an application in which both parents were the respondents. She wished to spend time with the children. Before the matter was transferred to the Family Court on 3 November 2006, the paternal grandfather, who is divorced from the paternal grandmother, had become an applicant.
The paternal grandmother is aged fifty-four years. She had lived in Newcastle for about a year prior to the end of the hearing before me. She previously lived the Lake Macquarie area. She has her own business and gave me the strong impression that her application had originally been prompted by her personal need for contact with her grandchildren, she later developed a wish to support and assist her son.
The paternal grandfather, Mr Luckwell Senior, is a retired boilermaker who is a littler older than the paternal grandmother. He has remarried and lives in Newcastle, about 4km south west of the paternal grandmother. He said he is readily available to do whatever he can for the children. He does not intend that they live with him though he would like see them frequently. Despite joining his ex-wife as an applicant, he believes the children should live with their father if the father ceases to live with the paternal grandmother. He has assumed that it does not matter whether the boys are regarded as living with their father or his mother while the father and his mother live together.
I regard the paternal grandfather as an impressive and truthful witness who holds strong beliefs and demands high standards of behaviour of himself and of others. He is a man of few words who says precisely what he feels and means when he speaks. I have little doubt that his interest in these proceedings has always been in achieving what he believes is best for his two grandsons. I do not believe he is willing to distort or misrepresent the truth to achieve his ends. His evidence is a revelation, especially if it is compared with the evidence of the other family witnesses. He says that whatever problems the boys have they are not as serious as the father, paternal grandmother and mother claim. He says they can be well contained by an adult with a mind to smoothing troubled waters rather than to aggravate problems. He says he has few problems with them and I believe him.
The father was aged nearly thirty-three years when the hearing was completed. He says he lives with his mother but has a committed relationship; they are engaged to be married, with Ms O who is aged about forty-three years and has two children, a girl aged sixteen years who primarily lives with her father but with whom Ms O has considerable contact, and a boy aged about 5 years who she co-parents with his father. Both children have a different father. Ms O has not been involved in parenting proceedings over her children.
She has had a romantic relationship with the father since November 2009. They have been engaged since April 2010, but neither have immediate plans to marry. They intend to reconsider their situation once these proceedings are completed.
Although in this age it might seem unlikely that they do not live together, I accept that Ms O does not live with the father. He sees a lot of her and usually stays at her home on the weekend. She has only met the boys a few times. She is a mental health support worker, who seems to be well balanced and inclined to try to reduce family conflict. She hopes the father and the boys will eventually live with her. I adjudge her to be an ideal potential surrogate mother for the boys. She is stable and mature and well intentioned.
I shall examine the father’s relevant character after providing an historical context to it.
The mother was aged thirty years when the matter concluded. She is not presently in employment but would like to return on a part-time basis when these proceedings are completed. For years she worked for DOCS or in situations where she has had to maintain close relations with it. Her parents are in much the same situation. They foster children and engage in respite care. The mother lives with her parents, both boys and her third child, J, born in October 2008. His father is Mr A who supposedly lives in regional New South Wales and who is said by the mother to have no more than a “friendly relationship” with her “in which neither of us contemplates anything more”.
She told me Mr A was not available to give evidence because he needed to “attend to some urgent family business in Gunnedah.” I did not and do not believe this story to be true. If he had sworn an affidavit then could not be made available at an appropriate time, I might have found otherwise, but urgent family business could not be the reason he swore no affidavit, so was not intended to be called as a witness. It is probable that Mr A was felt by the mother, or her advisors, to be unlikely to create a good impression. That is the probable reason he was said to be away on family business. He has a substantial criminal record and history of real violence, including to women.
It is important in appreciating the mother’s relevant character to know that she said in oral evidence, and I accept, that she had been in employment all her life since the age of fourteen years until six months before the May 2010 hearing. My understanding is that there have been additional short periods, usually related to the birth of one of her children when she has not been in a job. All the employment that I know of; her most recent employment, has been in positions where she would learn of the effectiveness of allegations of violence and sexual abuse to avoid contact between the children and their father. Apart from her relationship with DOCS, now a party in these proceedings, she has worked at a school. She is one quarter Australian Aborigine and strongly identifies as one. Mr A is also an Aborigine. She has often resorted to aboriginal aid bodies for assistance in relation to the children and or these proceedings. She has also made a victims compensation claim against the father. She claims to have post traumatic stress disorder.
This claim was made on 2006 and is based upon alleged violence toward her by the husband. It is supported by a report from Ms D dated 22 August 2006. She is a psychologist. The report is annexed to the mother’s affidavit sworn 14 April 2009. Its admission was not objected to. The report is based entirely on the history the mother gave her and a test called the Trauma Symptom Inventory. Ms D was not present for cross-examination because of the manner in which her report became evidence. It is, to me, of little value because it depends on the mother’s credit. If the mother is a credible witness whose evidence is accepted to the degree that justifies the completely undetailed and generalised history of violence Ms D reports, her report is not necessary. If it does not, her report is of no value in these proceedings.
I shall deal with the mother’s relevant character after relating the history of the proceedings. However, I think it is relevant that, according to the father whose evidence on this I accept, the mother told him she had been sexually abused by her step-grandfather from 1985-1992; that is from when she was five years old until she was twelve years old. That might explain some of what, as a layman, I think are significant character defects or is emotional disturbance.
The parents met in November 2000 and started living together in the mother’s parent’s home at the end of 2000. The mother’s mother had recently been discharged from a rehabilitation centre for alcoholics. When the mother was pregnant with B, the mother and father commenced to plan for their future. They commenced to build a home on the land owned by the mother’s parents. The father was working in two jobs; his unusual day job as a plant operator at and another helping the mother’s father deliver newspapers, to pay for its construction. The father was keen to get this home built because he felt stressed living with the mother’s parents due to the crowded accommodation. Nine people were living in the home. His anxiety was made worse by the death of his best friend when the father had been out with him in February 2001. It seems to me that the father seeks to use this loss and the stress of his living conditions to excuse his behaviour. It is a poor excuse.
The parties first separated for a short time in late 2001 and reconciled in early 2002. When B was born their home was not sufficiently complete to permit them to move in. This, according to the father, placed him under further stress which was worsened by the fact that B was not in good health. He commenced to feel unwelcome in the mother’s parent’s home. He believed his parents felt the same way when they visited. Only ten days after B was born, the parties separated again.
The father went to live with a male friend. The mother would visit the father at his home when it suited her. The father encouraged her because he wished to reconcile. He was becoming depressed and drinking to excess. In mid 2002 he was convicted of High Range PCA and disqualified from driving for two years. By about this time, the mother and B were virtually living with the father at his home.
By 28 September 2002, the mother had contacted DOCS to get advice about domestic violence. However, no evidence of specific acts are before the Court in relation to this contact. It is typical of the mother’s case that she claims many acts of violence against her by the father, but provides next to no detail or specific evidence of it. I regard the mother as being an exaggerator and habitual liar, and as being exceptionally willing and able to manipulate situations to her perceived advantage, especially by using politically correct do-gooders and people who have a duty to deal with social problems and the like, but not the time, inclination or ability to distinguish truth from fiction. I do not completely discount the allegations of violence. I think they have been greatly exaggerated in number, extent and effect by the mother and regard the limit of the father’s violence toward the mother as likely to be drunken verbal abuse, threats and occasional damage to property.
The father admits that in September 2002 he became depressed and commenced consuming excessive alcohol, but he does not admit being aggressive. Nevertheless, he could not have been acting too unacceptably for the mother because, in March 2003, her parents asked him to return to live with the mother in their home. Not long afterwards, they asked him to leave. The evidence before me satisfies me that their reason had nothing to do with any behaviour relevant to his parenting attitudes or abilities. When he left, the mother and B went with him. The mother soon became pregnant with H.
It was at about this time that the father was found by police to have traces of illicit drugs in his wallet. Not long after this, he admitted himself to hospital. He had punched a fish tank and cut his wrist. He realised he needed psychiatric help to control alcoholism, gambling and outbursts of extreme anger, so he sought it. He had been off work at the time with a workplace injury. Any psychiatric help he received must have been rudimentary because he was admitted to hospital on 28 February and discharged on 3 March. He was diagnosed as an abuser of alcohol, amphetamines and THC. He was not living with the mother at the time. Their separation was short lived.
When he returned to work he had been made redundant. As the mother was working full time for the public service, the father spent a great deal of time caring for B. The parents must have reconciled soon after the father’s release from hospital. The mother had a difficult pregnancy with H, especially in the three months prior to his birth, so B’s care fell to a large extent on the father. The father obtained a new job just prior to H’s birth, but his behaviour must not have improved because, in September 2003, the father’s mother ceased contact with the father and told the father that he was not to come to her home. In the same month, the father and his brother’s girlfriend were involved in an altercation, which resulted in the police being called. The mother was present and defended the father to the police against an allegation of assault by his brother’s girlfriend. The police took no action.
The likelihood is that the parents then separated and made up yet again, so by 26 September 2004 they were living together. They had an argument which resulted in police attendance. The father did not assault the mother and the mother advised the police she did not wish to obtain an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO). The father must have been volatile at this time because, only a month earlier, he has been in a fight outside a club.
Again, in late 2004, the father and mother were involved in an incident at the father’s father’s home when the mother claims the father assaulted her. She says he punched her 3 times “around the face, arms and shoulders”, which seems to me to have been exaggerated. He then began punching himself. It is likely that, at this time, the mother and father were not living together. When the mother attempted to drive him to his home, he attempted to open the door and jump from the moving car. When the mother locked the doors, he climbed out the window while she was stationary at traffic lights. He must not have been rational, she must not have feared him. The parents either separated then or soon afterwards. This incident is unusual for the mother, in that she did not involve the police.
The police were involved over an incident on 10 April 2005. The details seem to me to show much about the parents’ relationship. They were not living together at the time according to the mother, but were living together according to the father. She said they had been separated for about six months, yet saw one another daily and they had an arrangement for the father to see the children each day. On the day in question, the father says she had earlier taken him to a bowls club where he had been playing bowls and drinking. The mother must have at least wanted him to see the children, or wanted to see him herself, although he was so affected by alcohol that he could not drive. She collected him and drove him to her home. She was in the words of the police report, “going to allow him to sleep the night”. He was moderately affected by alcohol. An argument over a trifle then developed. I am not satisfied that one or the other was more at fault in it. The father left, but before he did, according to the mother, he threatened to return and “fucking get her”.
He denies this. He said she was argumentative so he left and went for a drive. The mother called the police who saw the father on his way back to the mother’s home and arrested him. His PCA reading was 0.16gm/100. His driving licence, which had recently been regained, was confiscated and he was ultimately disqualified from driving for 42 months and sentenced to seventy hours community service.
The police obtained an interim telephone AVO on 11 April but it was not converted to a final order. The application was actually dismissed by the Local Court on 14 April 2005, when the mother did not wish to proceed. It is important to know that the ground for seeking the order specifically says “protected person hasn’t complained of any previous assaults”.
The next incident I shall review is bizarre in the difference between the parent’s versions. The father says that about nine months after H was born, meaning in about April 2004, the mother, her mother, and her two sisters went to Bali on a holiday and left the father to care for the boys. Until then, the father and mother have been living together, but he claims she left him on her return. The mother’s version is that she went to Bali in about June 2005 with a female friend, the two boys and the father; the father because he would not sign the boys’ passports unless he could go too. She says that on the night of their arrival, at 2am, she and the father had an argument while the father was drunk. She took the boys and went to her friend’s room but the father knocked the door down to get in. Her friend allegedly returned to Australia that day because she was afraid of the father.
The mother’s affidavit seems to assert she made just one trip to Bali. The father’s affidavit makes it perfectly clear that the mother made 2 trips to Bali and that he is referring to her first trip. His affidavit, in paragraph 52, is to the effect that, later, while living together, the mother has a second holiday in Bali with the father and children. Although the truth could easily be established by production of the parents’ passports, this was not done. I think the father’s version of events is most likely to be closer to the truth. This does not mean he was not drunk or did not damage property while in Bali.
The date of the next relevant incident to be considered is not in doubt. The mother called at the police station at Maitland at about 9pm on 3 November 2005. She did not appear to be upset. She complained that seven hours earlier the father had telephoned her a number of times and had frightened her by telling her he would take the children and she would not see them again. He made threats such as “I am going to put you in a grave”. She came to the police station to apply for an AVO. It is of great significance that, in making this complaint, the mother told the police that she had left the father two years earlier because of domestic violence. She alleged that the father had often come to her home to see the children and that these visits had resulted in twenty incidents when the father had “harassed” her. No allegations of assault were made, and when asked to supply details of the incidents to the police the mother refused to give them.
Nevertheless, on 10 November 2005, the mother, on the police application, obtained an AVO against the father, who agreed to it but was not represented. His story, however, differs greatly from that of the mother. He thinks the incident occurred in November 2004. I have no substantial doubt that the incident he says occurred on Melbourne Cup Day 2004 actually occurred on Melbourne Cup Day 2005 and the AVO of 10 November 2005 is a consequence of it. Melbourne Cup Day 2005 was on 1 November.
The father says, and I believe him, that he was separated from the mother at the time. He took another woman to a Cup Day function. He discovered the mother found out about this two days later, on the 3 November, when he had a conversation with her, in which she said of his outing “I know you did. You are not seeing the boys ever again”. This is the day she went to the police to seek the AVO. The father was served with the application only a few days afterwards. By that time, he was on good enough terms with the mother for her to have accompanied him to Court. He denies assaulting the mother. I am not satisfied he had at that time hit, pushed or punched the mother as she alleged. He said he did not fully understand the terms of the AVO. I believe him.
On the night the AVO was granted the father telephoned the mother in breach of the AVO. He claims in his affidavit that all he wanted to do was arrange to see the children, and that he did not know to do so would be a breach. This is not true. What he actually said was abusive. What happened probably encapsulates the essence of the parents’ relationship. He said “I have not heard from you so you must not need me to look after the kids”. The mother told him he was in breach of the AVO so he replied “you’re a fuckin fat slut”. After this call ended, the father sent the mother a voice message which was “Listen to me. I am ringing the police. I’m a fucking hero”. He telephoned again and said “Fuckin ring the police you stupid slut, I can turn up at your place and do whatever I want and I’ll disappear and the police won’t find me”. He told the police he did not believe the first statement was a breach, but knew the other calls were.
These four statements, the mother’s reaction to them and her action in obtaining the AVO, seem to me to show the real relationship between the parents and much about their character. The mother needed and used the father. The father needed and used the mother. The father was knowingly and indulgently impulsively self-destructive, especially when he had been drinking to excess. The mother maintained the upper hand by manipulating the father’s weaknesses and, in attempting to control him, took revenge on him when these attempts failed. She was able to anticipate and incite him at will. She resorted to lies and exaggeration to the police and Local Court unconscionably.
It is a matter of degree whether and when the parents lived together during various periods from 2004 to April 2006. It does not matter exactly when, although they certainly lived together for much of the time and for the balance saw a lot of one another. They must have lived together in 2007 because both say they separated in that year.
The father was arrested and charged with the breach on 11 November 2005. On 12 November, he sent a text message to the mother which said “I know some good stuff on you now”. He was arrested again but was too drunk to be interviewed until later. He claimed to the police and in his affidavit he intended to send it to the woman he went to the Cup Day event with. He was not believed and charged with another breach of the AVO. I do not believe his excuse either. He was convicted and given a bond to be of good behaviour for two years and accept supervision of the Probation and Parole Service.
The mother soon tried to contact him by telephone. When he refused to speak to her she had her father deliver him a letter asking for a reconciliation.
After that, the mother and boys spent most nights with him at his home. She said she only did so because she was afraid of him because he had threatened and harassed her. I do not accept that she has been candid in making this excuse. She was not adverse to complaining to the police. She would have done so in response to threats or harassment. I believe the father’s claim that they either lived together or virtually lived together for much of the time after that, especially because it was convenient for the mother to have the father care for the boys when it suited her.
The father’s psychological condition in late 2005 is demonstrated by a visit he made to Maitland Hospital on 22 December 2005. He was seeking help but got no more than a letter to his GP, a reference to a drug and alcohol counselling and anger management service and a slight increase in the antidepressant he was already using with little success. He was conscious that he should do something about his depression, rages and alcohol abuse. His major outlet for his problems was clearly noted by the hospital to be aggression against himself by self-harm and against inanimate objects.
By April 2006 the father was still drinking too much. When he attended a birthday lunch for B with members of the mother’s family, he brought beer with him. The mother was upset about this and after lunch, instead of returning to the father’s home with the children, she went with them to stay elsewhere without telling the father of her intention.
The mother then received many telephone calls from the father. From 17 April 2006 to 30 April 2006, the father sent thirty-three text messages to the mother, culminating in thirteen on the final day of that period. During the same period, he left eighteen voice messages including eleven on 26 April. On 6 May he left a further five voice messages. There is no doubt he eventually knew he was harassing the mother. He also knew that it was a condition of the AVO of 11 November 2005 that he must not harass the mother or telephone her except to arrange access to the children. The messages probably only stopped because, on 6 May, the mother changed her telephone number. A few of the messages were directed at access arrangements. Most were not.
Nevertheless, the text and voice messages on 17 April and on the days which immediately followed could be regarded as no more than an overreaction to the mother leaving without any explanation and without informing the father of the whereabouts of the children.
Although the mother first reported these incidents to the police on 6th May 2006, the police failed to do anything until mid September 2006 when they arrested and charged the father with breach of the AVO. Their lack of enthusiasm is understandable in view of the mother’s habit of relying on the AVO conditions when it suited her despite living in the interim with the father, or staying with him for most of the time.
The change of telephone numbers seems to have spurred the father to change the manner in which his obsessive and self-destructive nature manifested itself. One of the children attended a family daycare centre. On 12 May 2006 the father was near the daycare centre when the mother arrived by car to drop the child off. He asked the mother to let him see the children. He told the police that all he wanted to do was “wave to my kids before school”. The mother alleged that when she had left he had followed her car on the motorised bicycle he used because he did not require a drivers license for it. She said he swerved in front of her car and also attempted to get in the back of the mother’s car where the other child was.
On the evening of the day he went to the kindergarten, the father went to the mother’s home. She was not there. He saw her father. The father was arrested and charged with breaches of the AVO of 10 November 2005, which specifically provided that he should not approach the daycare centre. He denied attempting to get in the moving car. The father was, on 19 May 2006, convicted and given three sentences, all suspended, the longest of which was 12 months imprisonment with the longest bond to be of good behaviour being for 12 months. He was required to accept supervision from the Probation and Parole Service and obey to accept its directions in respect to domestic violence education and alcohol rehabilitation.
The next incident which warrants discussion occurred on 21 June 2006 when the father was seen by the mother at 4pm when she drove past him on her way to collect the boys from preschool. She claimed to the police that the father was holding a beer bottle. When her car approached, she said he lifted it as though he was about to throw it at the car. He did not throw it. She claims she then stopped her car because she was too upset to drive and the father then began staring at her.
The father denied knowing the mother was in the car and acting as though he was about to throw the bottle when he was interviewed about this incident three months later, on 22 September 2006 then arrested and charged with yet another breach of the AVO. I do not accept his denial.
On 25 August 2006 the headmistress from the childcare centre telephoned the police. It was not, in my assessment, a coincidence that she did so. The Principal said she had concerns for the children, as B was showing signs of fear of his father and the teachers at the school believed the children’s development was being impeded because of their fear of their father. The headmistress reported that another teacher who lived near the father had seen him “throw things around” when he got angry. The police applied to vary the AVO by adding the boys to the protection it supposedly provided, despite not having a scintilla of real evidence to support the application.
There is no realistic doubt that the mother stage managed the Principal’s complaint. The mother made a statement to the police on 16 September 2006 to support the variation. In it she confirmed, for the first time known to the Court, that when B was 6 weeks old; that is, in mid 2002, four and a half years earlier, the father had pushed her while she was holding B, then when she handed B to a friend who was visiting her, punched her several times. She made a general complaint about assaults by him on her. She specifically alleged that once, he head locked her, punched her in the head several times and held her against a wall with his hands around her throat. This latter incident allegedly occurred in late 2004 or early 2005. It was well after the mother has started to complain to the police about the father’s harassment, yet she did not complain of assaults to the police for another eighteen months or more. By the time the application to vary was filed at Maitland Court House, it was not only based on the children witnessing the violence of the father, which was not specifically alleged, it was alleged that the most recent incident had been more than one year earlier and that the father bit B while assaulting the mother.
The mother also claimed that B had become afraid when he heard a whipper snipper or other small motor. He confused them with the sound of the father’s motorised bicycle.
The veracity of the mother’s allegations, and her alleged fears for her own and the children’s safety are undermined by her earlier failure to vent the claims she made at that time.
If it might be thought that the bottle throwing threat claims and the teacher’s report were rather tendentious, the next claimed incident must also be regarded similarly. On 1 November 2006, the mother went to Maitland Police Station and complained that the father has been in breach of a bail condition that he not come within a specified distance of Maitland Post Office. This was a condition of bail imposed on the father after he was arrested on 22 September 2006 for the alleged threat to throw the bottle at the mother’s car in June 2006. He had been bailed to appear at Maitland Court on 3 November 2006 to answer this charge. The mother’s allegation was that some shop assistants at a shop in Maitland Shopping Centre saw him, but when the police contacted them they did not provide any evidence.
The father had held a fulltime job since H was born in mid 2003. It was in the Maitland area. At the time he obtained it, he was living with the mother in the Maitland area within walking distance of his new place of employment. It is beyond my understanding how anybody who has the power to impose bail conditions could be so incompetent as to impose an exclusion zone in which the father’s workplace and the local shopping centre are included when the subject, by his actions rather than words is alleged to have threatened to throw a bottle at a passing car but did not do it. He was never charged, let alone convicted, of assaulting the alleged victim. The police, in their own records, Exhibit “AE”, say the alleged breach was of a “non violent nature” and that they “do not hold fears for the safety of the victim”.
Maitland Shopping Centre is 3.5km, according to readily available maps, from Maitland Post Office. Nevertheless, it is more probable than not that the father was stalking the mother when she saw him on the corner of two streets in Maitland, whether or not he had a bottle in his hand. The location of this intersection is on the way from the mother’s home to the preschool, but otherwise was out of the way of any route the father would need to use, according to the police.
The existing AVO was varied, probably in the interim, on 7 September 2006 to cover both children to prevent the father from approaching the Maitland Public School or the preschool. The original order was to expire on the 10 November 2007. The expiry date was not changed.
By 4 November 2006, the father had taken out an AVO against the mother, alleging the mother was stalking him and attempting to get him to breach the AVO which bound him. His suspicion about the mother’s wish to prove breaches by the father of the AVO was well justified. On 11 November 2006, the mother went to Maitland Police Station to complain about the father’s boss, alleging a breach of an AVO by him. In the process of complaining that the police were not doing enough to protect her, she said “why won’t you go through [the father’s] work records to show he was in breach of his bail by being at work when he was not supposed to be within […] km of town”. When informed that a breach of bail was not an offence, she said something like “I want you to go through his work records and have him charged with breaching his bail by being at work”. The balance of the conversation provides the mother’s motive for visiting the Police Station.
The policeman she was speaking to had enquired about the result of an appearance in court by the father in relation to breach of AVO charges. The mother informed him that the father had had his bail conditions changed so he could go to work without breaching them. It was then that the mother asked the police officer to go through the father’s work records. The mother left the police station dissatisfied and making threats that she would complain to the officer’s superiors about his “attitude”, which she said she did not like.
The police officer she dealt with, Sgt C, made a note saying “it appears that when [the mother] does not get her way or get the answers she wants then she tries to get even”.
The mother must have carried out her threat because, on 29 November 2006, Senior Constable P contacted the mother by telephone. He recorded not only what then occurred but, to his great credit, candidly expressed his opinion of the mother. It is better to permit the record he made to speak for itself. It is:
“I spoke to [the mother] and she started off by stating that [the father] had breached his Interim AVO by telephoning one of his children’s teachers. I have some knowledge of the matter and after speaking to [the mother] she was adamant that the AVO stated that he can not telephone any of the schools or the teachers of the two children. Their ages are 3 and 4. Questions were asked: When the calls where made, She did not know, Where there any threats made? She said, “No only that he was inquiring about whether he was attending Speech Therapy and how he was progressing”. She believed that [the father] was checking up on her. She was asked if the children were frightened or affected by their father ringing up their teacher, She said, “That’s not the point, he has breached the AVO” I said, “It says in the AVO not to approach the schools, I have never known it to say not to speak to teachers, unless he has been known to be violent against the children or the teachers”. She said, “He is not allowed to go to the schools nor ring them”. “I said, I will check this out first but it is not usually in the spirit of the Act to prevent a father from inquiring into the welfare of his children, only to prevent any physical or mental trauma that they might be exposed to”. She said, “I want to speak to Chief Inspector […], I want to complain” I said, “I expected that [the Chief Inspector] is not here at the moment you will have to deal with me”. She said, “I want him locked up”, I said, “[Ms Herridge], I don’t believe he has breached the AVO, Go ahead complain, I don’t believe that its in the best interest of the children to keep making vexatious complaints, most of the Police you deal with do the job properly and just because you don’t get your own way, every time you think that by complaining about officers they will jump your way, when you make the complaint, make sure you spell my name properly.” The last comments were delivered slightly agitatedly, I believe [the mother] has an ‘axe to grind’ with both Police and [the father]”…
…“[The mother’s] tone and manner was threatening to Police, do as I want or I will complain about you, manner. She did not like being told directly that it was considered by this officer that she is constantly attempting to use Police to harass [the father] to the possible detriment of her children”.
It is my assessment, after reading all the relevant police material in evidence, the affidavit evidence and seeing and hearing both the mother and father giving oral evidence, that the mother is not, and has never been, fearful of the father but that she has abused the system in place to protect people who are in genuine fear, and have a proper reason to be fearful, for the purpose of getting her own way and gaining a tactical advantage in these proceedings. To do so she must have manipulated B and H so they would be fearful of their father, not for any benefit to them. Such manipulated fear in the boys is the only explanation for the preschool teacher’s complaint, although it was no doubt made because of information the mother supplied and because of her urging. It is not, in my opinion, a coincidence that Senior Constable P reached much the same conclusion as I have about the motives, bona fides, and attributes of the mother. I regard her as attempting to use the Court in the same way as she attempted with more success to use the police and Local Court.
The mother’s tactics changed slightly as a result of her conversation with Senior Constable P. On 30 November 2006, the mother’s mother and sister reported to the police that they had seen the father shopping at a very large shopping centre in the Maitland area. The mother’s mother claimed that the father had breached the AVO by harassing the mother’s sister, because he has been seen from a distance to be at the same shopping centre. The police sensibly took no action. It is much more probable than not that this report was at the behest of the mother who was continuing her quest to gain a tactical advantage in these proceedings.
The proceedings now before me had been commenced in the Federal Magistrates Court on 1 September 2006, and served on the mother on 6 September 2006. The mother’s response had been filed on 17 November 2006. As a result of being arrested on 22 September 2006, a Friday, over the alleged bottle throwing threat in June 2006, the father spent the weekend in jail before obtaining bail on the Monday. That nothing had happened to harm the mother or put her in fear in the time between the alleged incident and the arrest or, for that matter, at all, highlights the injustice that the imprisonment imposed. At least, as the police had been so lax and incompetent, they could have had the sense to arrest the father on a day when he could be brought before the Court and bailed, but that must not have suited their convenience.
The bail condition of the exclusion zone made the father decide to live with his father south of Newcastle, and give up his home in the Maitland area. He retained his job, but because it was located only a short distance from the mother’s home, he decided to convert to the night shift so he would avoid accidently encountering her. As he has no car, and his father lived well over 30km from Maitland, and public transport was poor, he had to leave home for work at 8pm and would not return home until 10am. He soon decided to leave this job and work for his mother.
He had reconciled with her. This approximately coincided with the first time the matter came before the Family Court of Australia, which was on 14 December 2006. However, it was probably not coincidental that, on 12 December 2006, the mother again reported the father to the police. This time she claimed to have seen the father walking with his parents in Newcastle as she drove by in her car. Could it have been that she was stalking him as he feared she would? It is highly likely that she was seeking to do something to provide herself with a perceived tactical advantage at the hearing in two days. Quite bizarrely, she told the police she heard the father talking; presumably to his parents, and heard him say the word “slut”. It is difficult to understand why the mother would attend a police station, as she did, and largely waste her and police time with this fatuous complaint. It is a measure of her imbalance that she did.
On 14 December a judicial registrar made an order giving the paternal grandparents agreed time and telephone contact with B and H. The time was noted to be 4 hours once a month at the mother’s mother’s home and telephone contact to be each Wednesday.
The mother says that once the parties separated in April 2006, apart from two hours later that month, the father then spent no time with the children until 20 March 2008. In April 2006, B was four and H was not yet three. The complaint from the teacher was to the effect that B was afraid for the father by August 2006. If he was, and it is probable that he was, the fear is highly likely to have been created by the mother rather than the father. The same can be said for H.
The matter first came before me on 20 September 2007. I made consent orders which varied the contact between the paternal grandparents and the children, but made no order for the father to spend time with them. The orders I made allowed the paternal grandparents to spend one hour each alternate week with the children at McDonalds Restaurant, with the maternal grandfather to be present on the first six occasions. The orders were supposedly by agreement with a view to extending the time spent by the paternal grandparents with the children to a block of two hours each alternate week without the need for the presence of any other person.
The AVO which was in place against the father expired without being extended in November 2007. The reason there was no contact between the father and the children is that the father feared further allegations. His fears were justified.
At this stage, it is useful to advert to what the mother must have told the psychologist, Ms D, for the sake of giving the report dated 22 August 2006 to support the mother’s victim’s compensation claim. Ms D’s report stated that the father has been “physically violent on many occasion over the years, but she (the mother) never sought medical attention for the bruises”, and “[the father] has assaulted the boys’ when they lived together as well as on access visits and he tried to abduct the boys’ at the end of April 2006 for which he was charged”, and “[the father] has threatened to kill [the mother] and her sons on several occasions”, and most significantly that, on 17 April 2006, the father “became enraged and he became loud and abusive and then he assaulted her by punching her in the head when she dropped him home”. The latter claim is quite remarkable in view of the mother’s attendance at Maitland Police Station, alleging breaches of the AVO of 10 November 2005 on 17 April 2006, and until 6 May 2006 by sending texts and verbal telephone messages without mentioning the claimed assault of 17 April 2006. This establishes that the mother is quite prepared to lie and exaggerate for gain, including to bodies exercising quasi judicial functions, such as the Victims Compensation Tribunal. Her lies have been far more serious than those directed at that tribunal.
She told deliberate lies in accusing the father of sexually abusing B. When, on 15 August 2006, Ms D interviewed the mother, the mother said nothing about the father having sexually abused either of the boys. She said he assaulted them but made no more specific allegations.
On 1 July 2008, the mother took both boys to Ms Y a “clinical social worker”. They were, and she was referred to her by Victim’s Services. Ms Y made reports about “the Acts of Violence: Sexual Assaults about 2006” which she seemingly naturally assumed were perpetrated on the boys by the father, because the boys told her they were, a reason in itself to regard Ms Y as having no credence on anything of relevance to these proceedings, apart from on what the mother and boys told her.
It is what the boys and the mother told her that is of interest for the purpose of determining the future of these boys. Ms Y’s reported on 1 July 2008 that H told her “that he had been touched on the penis a lot by his father” and that the father “had put his penis his mouth and weed’’ (urinated or ejaculated) in it and “touched him on the penis and played with it”. She also reported that the mother said that B has initially disclosed these sexual assaults in May 2007, and that H has “substantiated” B’s claims by reporting that the same things had happened to him. As H was born in July 2003, and last spent time alone with the father, according to the mother, in April 2006, he would have been two years and nine months old when he claims these things happened to him, and must have, if they really did happen, have remembered them, at the least, two years and two months later. The alternative, which I regard as overwhelmingly likely is that the mother lied to Ms Y and coached H to say what he told her, but that Ms Y is too naïve, biased, and lacking in professional and analytical skills and required knowledge and training to realise this.
B was said by Ms Y to have “reported that he was the victim of numerous sexual assaults” by the father. No specific details were provided because none were reported. She said in her report that B has “reported that sexual assaults took place at the home of the father or that the father would take him out on ‘the houseboat’ and would touch him on the head, chest, legs and arms and give him ‘sloppy kisses’”. She added that he said that the father “would touch him on the penis and wriggle it around”, would “cover his mouth to stop him from screaming” and would “hit him on the head, chest, legs and arms and would put his fingers inside his bottom”.
Because of B’s age when most of these things are said to have happened, it is highly likely, for the same reason it is likely with H, that the mother has manipulated B into making these accusations. It is of importance to realise that B has intellectual deficits and, according to his teachers, cannot recall his lessons from one moment to the next. It is even more unlikely that B would recall in mid 2008 a range of incidents, some occurring before April 2006, when he was less than four years old.
In Ms Y’s reports other exaggerations and lies the mother told her such as that the father had made “several attempts at “grabbing”, meaning abducting, her sons. Of course, it would not have been difficult for the mother to manipulate the boys to make these allegations because of their ages and general lack of intelligence for their age, as well as the likely possibility that the father did touch their penises frequently; at least, one would hope so, because to maintain a proper degree of hygiene he would have had to wash their penises properly by drawing their foreskins back, something every loving carer ought to do for male children of the ages which are relevant here.
When the mother was interviewed by Ms T, the Family Consultant who provided the earliest Family Report on 16 November 2007 after interviewing the mother in late September and earlier in November, the mother’s story was different to what she has otherwise claimed to be the situation. She told Ms T that the children had spent time with the father since April 2006. She also told Ms T that, since then, B had disclosed sexual abuse by the father. There was no suggestion that H was involved.
The intellectual, medical and psychological difficulties of the children, including their difficulties with speech are canvassed in Ms T’s report. However, paragraphs 33 to 37 inclusive of Ms T’s report are of great value to the Court. They are:
33.Documentation regarding one of the children’s admissions to Maitland Hospital on two separate occasions suggests the mother was prone to exaggeration when reporting the children’s symptoms.
34.The mother’s reports of the father’s treatment of the children and the documentation made by the children’s treating psychologist are inconsistent. At no time did the mother allege in interview that the father hit or punched the children, rather she alleged he ‘flicked’ their ears and pushed on a pressure point on their collarbone. The psychologist’s report to the Victims of Crime Tribunal states the father hit and punched the children as well as flicking them. The mother alleges [B] disclosed the father “bent his doodle”. The psychologist’s report states the father “bent [B’s] doodle and touched them (both children)”. This report also states the father had sexual intercourse with women in front of the children. This was not mentioned by the mother in interview and she claims she never left the children overnight (after 11pm) with the father, rather she stayed overnight to protect them from his alcohol abuse and associated violence.
35.The mother alleges [B] disclosed the father “put his doodle in [B’s] mouth and weed in it”. The psychologist report does not mention the father “weeing in [B’s] mouth”. This report also stated the children have been exposed to the father’s drug use, this was not mentioned by the mother in interview.
36.The mother’s behaviour at the court on the day of the interviews was assessed as being over dramatic at times in regard to her alleged fear of the father and in regard to the children coming into contact with him. On one occasion she requested the door to the childcare room behind the secure area, where she and the children had been placed, be locked while the father was to walk by on his way to the interview room. The father alleges and the mother agrees as she was driving with the children in the lunch break, she instructed the children to “duck down” out of sight when they drove past the father. The mother claims this was because the father yelled at her that she was a “slut” and she did not want the children exposed to this. The father denies this, alleging the instruction was given to the children simply because they were driving past him.
36.It is not clear what the level of domestic violence was between the mother and the father during their relationship and post separation and it is not clear what the children witnessed. It is not clear whether the allegation of sexual assault is credible. However, it is clear that the father abuses alcohol and has become aggressive toward people and property in the past. This is enough to engender a level of anxiety or fear in the mother and the children if they have witnessed any of the above.
Yet, when the children saw the father at this consultation they were not afraid of him. Rather, B keenly anticipated seeing him and H, although initially “a little more reluctant” had, within 30 seconds of seeing him, moved to within close proximity to him and both then “appeared relaxed and eager to talk with the father”. Poignantly, H announced that the mother had told the children to duck out of sight when they saw the father in the street. When they were returned to the mother after seeing the father they “eagerly” tried to convince her he had been “really nice” to them. The mother’s reaction to the Family Consultant in front of the boys was of “shock and anger” that the consultant had brought them into contact with the father.
At the hearing the mother did not press any allegations that the children had been sexually abused by the father. In fact, she withdrew them. This does not mean that the allegations she made are irrelevant. One needs to consider whether she might make allegations in future, and whether she was motivated by the children’s best interest and a belief in the truth of the allegations she made.
A problem which was created by the withdrawal is that not all the children’s interviews with JIRT were put into evidence. However, there is a little material upon which I can rely. It is exhibit “DD”. It records that DOCS’ first involvement with these boys’ sexual abuse allegations was on 6 May 2005. It became involved because B said his fifteen year old cousin had “licked my do do”. The next involvement was on 3 May 2007. It indicated that the report JIRT received, presumably from the mother either directly or indirectly, painted a much different picture from that which the mother later told Ms Y and Ms T. It is that B or H had not simply volunteered information. The mother had asked H and B if anyone had touched their “do do”. B’s reply was “[the father] did, he bent it”. H said the father had come into his room and “put it in my face”. These claims were investigated by JIRT who took no further action. One would expect these revelations, if they are to have even a scintilla of credit, to have occurred at the time the mother reported them, more than a year after the father had last had care of the children. One must be quite sceptical about the mother’s motives in having asked this question in early 2007 if that is when she asked them. As I have already noted, H would have been less than three years old at the time he is alleged to have been assaulted.
The report of Ms T became available to the Court in November 2007. Although the matter was mentioned before me only a few days later, it was not appropriate to determine whether or not the children needed to resume contact with the father in accordance with Ms T’s recommendations. However, when the matter next came before me, the parties had agreed to a changed contact regime with the paternal grandparents. Contact was to be at least from 10am to 4pm on one Sunday per month at the paternal grandmother’s home without the need for any supervision, but with a restraint on bringing the children into contact with the father. This was despite further agreement for the father to spend time with children. However, this time; 2 hours per fortnight, was to be relatively strictly controlled and supervised. The supervisor nominated was a Ms W, a practising psychologist. Supervision was to be at her home, the place where she practised. The father was also required to complete an alcohol rehabilitation program and submit himself to random alcohol and illicit drug screening tests, the results of which were to be supplied to the mother’s solicitor and the independent children’s lawyer. There was also to be weekly telephone contact between the children and the father.
I do not know why the mother consented to such orders. Her prior history and the subsequent impression she gave me when she gave oral evidence on 17 May 2010 was that she persisted at all times since 17 April 2006 in opposing contact. Yet she claimed she had always wanted the children to have a relationship with the father, but it was the father’s fault that they had not seen him much because she had “listened to what my children have told me”.
In December 2007 the father had purchased a trailerable houseboat. He rebuilt it in the summer of 2007 while living at his father’s home. In March 2008 he finished the renovation and launched the boat into the water. He commenced spending his weekends on the houseboat. During the week he lived in a house. As a result of the March orders, he spent three periods with the children while supervised by Ms W, but the mother allowed him to telephone the children each morning and evening and went with him and the children to a motor cycle circus on 19 April where, she said, the boys enjoyed spending time with their father.
The last time Ms W supervised was 10 May 2008, which was a Saturday. On that day, the children were having contact with the grandparents and the father had a badly injured leg and was having difficulties getting around and could not drive. Despite my orders, the grandmother not only collected the children from Ms W’s home after the father had had contact with them, she drove the father to his houseboat while the children were with her. She says she asked the mother if she could, but claims the mother’s response was ambivalent, so she decided to do it anyway. I do not believe this flimsy and obviously concocted excuse.
The mother learnt of this and alleged that the grandmother had allowed the boys to go onto the houseboat with the father who then sexually abused them. The grandmother and father say that when he arrived at the houseboat the grandmother and children drove off without getting out of the grandmother’s car, although they waited while they watched the father row out to the houseboat. They also say that the father was not left alone with the children on that day.
In the father’s care, the children will be exposed to, and be able to enjoy, the lifestyle, culture and traditions of ordinary Australians of their father’s background. These are so well understood little more needs to be said of them. With the father, the boys will be more exposed to his family’s culture and people of the culture, but except to some extent by the paternal grandmother, will not be inhibited from their rejoicing in their Aboriginality.
The mother and her parents are quite hostile to non-Aboriginal Australians, particularly those of Anglo-Celtic background. The mother is probably as entrenched in her bigotry in this respect as she is in the habit of claiming those who will not do her bidding are against Aboriginals. Her parents, paradoxically her mother and obviously her father, gave me the impression they, too, are hostile towards non-Aboriginals. Her father was very defensive and hostile when being cross-examined.
In the mother’s principal care, because the boys are likely to lose their relationship with the father and his family, they will probably lose the right to enjoy the culture, lifestyle and traditions that the mother and her father have not adopted from people like the father’s family despite their pervasive presence. They will not be as able to have relationships with people of the father’s background who are close to them or share their culture with them. There is a real risk that the boys’ assertion that they are black; implying that they are not white, is a manifestation of the seed of alienation from the general Australian community already having been planted by the mother and her parents. If it has, it will greatly contribute to the boys’ disadvantage. One sees far too many tragic instances of this.
Both parents and all grandparents, except the paternal grandfather and his wife, have considerable deficits in their attitudes to the children and parental responsibility. One must make choices about the children’s parenting which result in the least disadvantageous situation for the boys. It is a pity that the paternal grandfather does not wish to have them live with him. However, because he is responsible and regards the father as the proper person to have the boys’ primary care, and appears to me to have a good appreciation of all the candidates for such care, his sponsorship of the father is not inconsequential. In fact, as between the father, his mother and the mother, the individual whose attitudes to the boys and to the responsibilities of parenthood are least worse is the father, with the mother having the worst attitudes.
The mother’s allegations of family violence have already been chronicled and rejected. There is still a family violence order which, as recently as May 2010, the father contested and had reduced in duration. In my assessment, it was largely made without justification and should not be permitted to inhibit what would otherwise be appropriate parenting orders.
The prospect of further proceedings relating to the children is high; especially if the mother does not succeed to the extent she wishes rather than formally seeks. Such proceedings are likely to raise tensions between the antagonists, and thereby adversely effect the children, especially because the mother and her parents, as they have already been in the habit of doing, are likely to use the children as tools in their quest to get their own way. While recognising this, I shall attempt he make orders which best advance the children’s welfare, while at the same time reduce the likelihood of the institution of further litigation over the children to the minimum which is consistent with their welfare.
There are two circumstances which I regard as sufficiently relevant which have not been canvassed already. The boys’ behavioural problems is one. They both seem to have them, although B’s are more extreme. As I have already said, Dr R seems to accept that he has a degree of ADHD. The father and his parents are much more sceptical, especially the father’s father. The father’s side of the family seem to suggest that the diagnosis of ADHD and reliance on Ritalin is a substitute for ill discipline in the mother’s household.
I am not in a position to say whether there is any substance in this claim. I do know that the diagnosis of ADHD and the use of Ritalin and the like to treat so called sufferers is still controversial with some authoritative opinion to the effect that it is over diagnosed, or does not exist and is sometimes “used as a crutch” by medical professionals loath to tell parents that their child is “ill-disciplined”, and that Ritalin is over prescribed and used “as a crutch by parents and/or teachers in response to children whose real need is better parenting or teaching” (Sydney Morning Herald, Editorial p12 (25.01.2011))
If B resides with the mother and she retains a say in his medical treatment he may revert to dependence on Ritalin. He is not taking it at present, so the mother cannot be regarded as more likely than not to resume its use. If B lives with the father or paternal grandmother, and the father has sole responsibility for relevant decisions, B is likely to remain free of Ritalin in the short term. In that time, his principal carer will be able to decide whether or not the change in parenting and other circumstances, possibly including school, warrants a continuing lack of need to return to reliance on Ritalin. I regard both the father and his parents as sufficiently responsible to then make the decision about Ritalin which will best advance B’s welfare.
Both boys attend schools selected by the mother. Both schools appear to me to be closely related and the one which B attends has a principal who is biased against the father. If the father, or his parents, succeed in having the boys moved from the mother’s principal care, it would be reasonable and appropriate for the boys to change schools, or for one of the boys to do so. If the decision is left to the mother, she is likely to want the children to remain at their current schools. She has faith in these and a rational reason for separating the boys. However, because of the prejudice at B’s school against the father, it may be necessary for B to leave that school and for H to leave his school because of the apparent relationship between the schools. If parental responsibility is given to the father, he should be able to choose any school he sees fit. I do not doubt his ability to make an appropriate choice.
I must determine whether or not to make an order for the parents to have equal shared parental responsibility for the boys. I should apply the provisions of s 65DAAA of the Family Law Act. By s 65 DAA(1), I must consider whether it would be in the best interests of each child to spend equal time with each of the parents, and at the same time consider whether orders to that effect are reasonably practicable. As I have said, to determine what residence order to make I must, because of s 60CA, regard the best interests of each child as the paramount consideration. This is why I have already canvassed s 60CC.
In the context of the facts I have so far referred to, a weighing of the factors required by s 60CC leads me to the clear conclusion that it would not be in the boys’ best interests to spend equal time with each parent. The boys’ best interests demand less than equal time with the mother. The spending of equal time is not reasonably practical. The parents live reasonably close to one another, so the problems of transport and attending a school or schools which are relatively easily accessible to both parents’ homes, are not a practical impediment to such an arrangement. But I must pay regard to s 65DAA(5)(b) and (c), the parents’ current and future capacity to implement the arrangements necessary to permit the children to spend equal time with each, and their current and future capacity to communicate with each other to resolve difficulties arising in implementing such arrangements.
I have canvassed their past history since separation already. It shows the mother has had no capacity to do anything which might allow any contact between the father and the children except on her terms. The father’s genuine attempts to communicate with her on parenting arrangements have, when it suited her, been met with claims of harassment and breaches of AVO orders, so that the father is now understandably unwilling to communicate with her. She is quite unlikely to change her attitudes and approach.
The father, because of his impulsiveness and aggression, although more able in all these respects than the mother, is barely able to implement the necessary arrangements if permitted, but is certainly insufficiently able to communicate appropriately with the mother to solve difficulties. In fact, his reaction to difficulties initiated by the mother; and they have mainly been initiated by the mother, is to behave badly and make them worse. He does not seem to have control over his impulsiveness and obsessive behaviour sufficiently in recent months to make me confident that, in the face of the mother’s behaviour designed to obstruct contact between him and the children, he can control himself sufficiently to avoid making matters worse. I accept that he has improved his level of reaction to such behaviour by the mother, but only by avoiding the problems of contact by denying the children the contact which I ordered he should have.
The father’s father has the capacities required to implement arrangements and resolve difficulties, but the paternal grandmother is lacking in these, as is demonstrated by Exhibit “SS”, the letter she sent to DOCS on 2 May 2010.
Accordingly, I am required by the Act to consider a regime providing each parent with substantial and significant time with the children because I could not make an equal time order, which I must say would also be impracticable because none of the parties to these proceedings wants an equal time order or would feel it would be satisfactory; not for the children’s benefit but to meet their own needs.
The Court must consider whether it would be in the boys’ best interests to spend “substantial and significant time” as defined by the Act with each parent, and whether such an order is reasonably practicable. If it is both, the Court must consider making an order which achieves this. The Act defines “substantial and significant time” in s. 65DAA(3). If, and only if, the ordered regime allows a child to spend weekends and weekdays when the child is on and not on school holidays with each parent, and also allows each parent to be involved in the child’s daily routine, and to take part in special occasions and events which are significant to the child, and allows the child to take part in events which are significant to each parent will there be such a regime.
For the same reasons I have decided the Court should not make equal time orders, I am quite convinced that orders for substantial and significant time with both parents are not in the children’s best interest and are not practicable. The recent occurrence at the theatre when H was performing in the dance concert is a very recent example of the problems which are likely to arise if the orders I make are not simple and clear cut and fail to keep the sides apart. Unfortunately, this is a case where I am convinced that, rather than encourage the families to learn to communicate and behave civilly in one another’s presence by making orders which bring them into contact with one another, the best course for the children is for the sides to be kept away from one another. I should not and shall not make an order for substantial and significant time.
I simply cannot in the circumstances find any reason to depart from Dr R’s ultimate view which depends on the findings of fact which I have come to, particularly that the mother and her family still maintain opposition to the father and his family having contact with the boys, and the mother’s continuing intention and likelihood to deploy, with the support of her parents and any public or private authority she can conscript, whatever is available to her to obstruct and prevent contact, including the father’s and his mother’s own lack of self-control, insight, understanding and other weaknesses.
I regard the boys’ only realistic chance of being raised with minimal manipulation and brainwashing and with the best chance of perceiving their situations realistically, and therefore with the best chances of achieving their optimum emotional and educational and, therefore, life potentials is if they live with their father, are able to see their paternal grandparents whenever the father chooses, other than at times the mother is to spend time with them. They should spend time with the mother, after a break from her of one month after these orders are made to allow them to settle down with the father, only on alternate weekends for the next two years, and thereafter also for half of each school holiday period and on the mother’s birthday and Mothers Day. I am conscious that such orders will undermine the children’s right to be involved with the Aboriginal side of their heritage and to learn of it, but I am satisfied that this is necessary to prevent both boys from becoming alienated from their father and believing he has sexually abused them, that the father has physically abused the mother and is “a bad man”, and thereby being put at a high degree of risk of emotional harm at the hands of their mother and her parents. Such emotional harm will undermine their educability and their prospects of a happy and successful life, or at least a life in which the boys enjoy their optimal potentials for happiness and success.
I regard it as appropriate is to reduce the influence of the mother and her parents over the children. I have seriously considered that they should be allowed no contact, but Dr R did not seem to accept that possibility. My reason for choosing weekend contact with the mother rather than single day contact with her, an option I have seriously contemplated taking, is to minimise face-to-face contact between the mother and her parents and the father and his mother. Weekend contact will allow the boys to be collected from school by the mother on Friday afternoon and returned to school on the following Monday. When the children are not at school at collection and return times, they will have to be collected from the paternal grandfather’s home or returned to it. I am confident that he has the personal resources to minimise any attempts by the mother, or other members of her family, to cause trouble.
I am quite concerned that Mr M, a past male intimate of the mother, and Mr A, who she retains a relationship with, although she may not live with him for much of the time, are aggressive and likely to be very resentful of the father, as are other friends the mother may have from time to time. Because of this, I should and shall order the mother to prevent male persons other than her father from coming within one kilometre of the paternal grandfather’s house when the children are to be either collected from or delivered to it. The mother and/or her mother and/or her father and/or her sister, and the father or his agent will have to collect the children from and deliver the children to the paternal grandfather’s home. To ensure the restrictions on collection and delivery by the mother and her family members are not flouted I should and shall cancel the time to be spent on each occasion the conditions for collection are not kept and shall cancel the immediately following time if the conditions for return are not kept. The mother and her family must be made to realise that they cannot do as they please when what they do might affect the boys adversely. The only way I think such realisation will occur is if the mother feels she will suffer a loss as a result of non-compliance.
In concluding that the above orders are those which will best advance the boys’ welfare, I have considered the paternal grandmother’s care as against that of the father. I regard her as more of a risk to the boys’ emotional wellbeing than the father because of her lack of insight, lack of self-restraint, and poor judgment and attitudes as demonstrated by the letter of 2 May, her breach of the order when she gave the father a lift to the houseboat, and her prejudice against Aborigines. I think the boys will be better off with their father. After all, the Act provides that children have a right to be cared for by both their parents rather than grandparents. This, to me, infers a preference for parents in comparison to grandparents if all other things are equal.
Of course, they are also not equal, because the father is the safer option than his mother. He has the potential to be able to raise the boys in the manner which is best for them. That the paternal grandfather supports the father is a factor in the fathers favour as it is that Ms O would make a very suitable surrogate mother for the boys. She is sensible, mature, not involved as much in the interfamily dispute and is well disposed to caring for the boys as required. She impressed me as one of the persons, with the paternal grandfather and possibly his wife, who would be the most suitable carers for the boys if they wished to care for them on a residential basis. Ms O wishes to do so. I cannot say much about the paternal grandfather’s wife because she did not give evidence. She was in court for most of the hearing and appeared to be unaggressive and pleasant.
I have not overlooked the fact that the father lives with his mother, and for so long as he does, is likely to leave the boys in his mother’s care when he is at work or, as is appropriate, engaging in leisure activities etc, which require him to have them cared for by someone other than himself. This is a case where the least worst choice must be made. I have the view that the boys’ best interests will be most advanced by the orders I have chosen. The father should be free to choose when each of his parents spend time with the boys. I do not require the paternal grandfather to be present at changeovers, but assume he will be present on most occasions.
In the circumstances, although there is a presumption that equal shared parental responsibility is in the best interests of a child, that presumption is strongly rebutted. The mother and father are quite unlikely to agree on any significant matters. The mother will probably see such disagreement as a way of overturning the orders of the Court and frustrating the father into resorting to self-defeating behaviour. Her level of self-absorption is such that she is not likely, in any event, to compromise when differences arise, so any hope of cooperation or compromise would be in vain. The mother has already made many decisions affecting the boys’ long term future which have shown either her bad judgment or deliberate agenda to further her needs in preference to the boys’ needs, or both. Because the father is not as inclined to do this and will have the boys living with him, it is much more preferable that he have sole parental responsibility for decisions and the implementation of those decisions which will have a long term rather than an immediate effect on the boys.
It is not appropriate for the boys to have contact by telephone with the mother for the first two years because of the opportunity such calls will give the parents to foment trouble. The father and mother need to be able to speak to or text one another by telephone from time to time to make arrangements relating to the mother’s contact with the boys or in emergencies. Telephone calls and texts between them should be limited to those circumstances. I shall make an order which specifically permits this in order to avoid the mother claiming any further AVOs, breaches of them or claims of harassment. Both parties should be able to record their calls to one another. There does not appear to me to be any need for the boys to be in telephone contact with the father while they spend weekends with the mother. Once they commence to spend longer periods with the mother, they should be able to speak to the father once each week during those periods. After two years they should also be able to speak to the mother once in each school week during school term and once each week in school holidays when they are with the father or his parents.
The parties should keep each other fully informed of medical treatment and any emergency treatment the children receive. Both should be fully informed about the children’s schooling. The mother should be entitled to attend parent teacher interviews but not to make special appointments to speak to school staff. She should be restrained from saying anything which directly or indirectly involves any allegations of violence or sexual abuse against the father or members of his family. Orders are necessary to prevent the mother from further subjecting those boys to questioning and examinations by health professionals and the like as well as by the Police and DOCS unless there is an emergency or the leave of the Court has already been obtained.
I should and shall make orders which accord with the above.
I certify that the preceding two hundred and seventy (270) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of the Honourable Justice Cohan delivered on 10 February 2011.
Associate:
Date: 10 February 2011
Key Legal Topics
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Family Law
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Civil Procedure
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Injunction
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