Marsden & Winch

This matter concerned an appeal by the father against findings made by Faulks DCJ regarding the risk he posed to a child. The father sought to rely on earlier findings that he did not pose an unacceptable risk of sexually interfering with the child or the child's friends. He also contended that expert evidence concerning his risk of re-offending referred only to exhibitionistic behaviour towards adult women, not adolescent girls.

The central legal issues before the court were whether the father's risk of re-offending was confined to adult women, and whether his problematic exhibitionist behaviour predated a specific event in 1996. The court was required to assess the credibility of the father's assertions against expert reports and historical records.

The court found that the expert evidence did not confine the father's risk to adult women, with one expert agreeing that the risk pertained to adults and "unrelated teenage girls." Furthermore, the court found that the father's assertion that his exhibitionist behaviour began after 1996 was inconsistent with contemporaneous notes made by a psychologist in 1998, which indicated the behaviour commenced in his early twenties. Evidence from the child's mother also corroborated that the problematic behaviour predated the death of the father's mother in 1996. The court concluded that the father had minimised his history of behaviour.