Tothill and Crowther

This matter concerned an application before Dawe J in the Family Court of Australia. The dispute involved the parents of a child, B, born in 2011, regarding the child's schooling and residence. The father had filed a contravention application, and the mother had filed an Application in a Case.

The court was required to determine several issues, including whether to suspend a previous order concerning the child's schooling, the extent of the mother's parental responsibility for choosing the child's school, and the conditions under which the child's residence could be changed. The court also had to consider the father's contravention application and the mother's application.

Dawe J reasoned that it was appropriate to suspend paragraph 4 of a previous order pending the final hearing. The court granted the mother sole parental responsibility for choosing the child's school in D Town, subject to her providing particulars of the proposed school to the father's solicitors by a specified date. The mother was also ordered to inform the Independent Children's Lawyer of her residential address in D Town, with the Independent Children's Lawyer not being required to disclose this address to the father without further court order. The mother was further ordered to return the child to the D Town area or a location closer to E Town by a specified date and was restrained from changing the child's principal place of residence from the D Town area, except to a location closer to E Town.

The court further ordered that the father's contravention application be referred to the Registrar for a hearing date, noting that Justice Berman was disqualified from hearing it. The father's Application in a Case filed on 10 March 2016 was dismissed and removed from the active pending cases list.