Professor Challenges courts behavior on child abuse

Professor Freda Briggs, challenged the courts on their reactions to child abuse with recent decisions resulting in sending children to abusers.

Professor labels courts ignorant and naïve

Posted Apr 12 2010, 07:43 PM by Lawyers Weekly

Child protection expert, Professor Freda Briggs, has slammed Australian courts for their ignorance and naivety in child sexual abuse cases, calling for statutory training of all family court judges and magistrates.

As a member of the National Council for Children Post-Separation (NCCPS) expert advisory panel, Briggs said Australian courts are now becoming renowned worldwide as turning a blind eye to paedophiles and child sexual abuse within the family.

She adds that, according to police experts, Australia’s reputation for handing out soft sentences has resulted in paedophiles purposely travelling to Australia from other countries where they would face a 25 year sentence for a similar offence.

Expressing concern about Australia’s approach to the issue of child protection, Briggs said there is an alarming lack of understanding and knowledge among family court judges and magistrates regarding child sexual abuse and its ramifications.

Briggs is concerned about the number of children who are being ordered by family court judges into residency or contact with parents who are acknowledged to be child sex offenders, placing the children atrisk of abuse.

According to Briggs, judges and magistrates need to be made aware, on a continuous basis, of the most recent research findings regarding child sexual offenders, their modus operandi and the effects of abuse on children.

Providing examples of how this lack of knowledge amongst the family courts of Australia has led to a number of offenders being given less than appropriate orders, Briggs quoted Californian Judge Peggy Fulton Hora, who recently expressed amazement that Australia does not impose mandatory training for newly appointed judges.

“The need for mandatory education has never been more obvious than in recent weeks. First, a family court judge in Tasmania thought it was appropriate to make little children responsible for their own protection from a convicted child sex offender who was acknowledged to be a risk.

“Seemingly the judge thought that daylight protects children from sexual abuse…Clearly this man needs to be educated about the grooming methods used by child sex offenders,” Briggs said in a statement.

Giving other examples highlighting the need for training and education, Briggs emphasised that judges need to “learn about domestic violence and its effects on children’s brain development” and that “only around 1.8 per cent of reported child sex offenders are convicted in this country”.

Endorsing and supporting Briggs’ concerns and calls for training, the NCCPS has asked for the AttorneyGeneral to address this issue immediately.

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Filed under: child abuse, family courts

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Family Values?

Churches were behind forcing shared parenting whilst undermining the concerns over safety of women and children. Preachers all over Australia raised, “fatherless” and divorce as a great concern without addressing some of the reasons why family courts order no contact for fathers.

First, most judgments resulting in no contact for fathers is usually because there is undeniable evidence that the father was in fact abusive. These cases are rare and extreme. More no contact cases usually involve mothers who have raised abuse with some evidence, countered by junk science claims that the mother had coached the child into making up the abuse. Whilst most research supports false allegations to be a very small factor in Family Courts, accusing mothers of coaching and reversing custody has become a very popular trend on addressing unsubstantiated abuse. Over the years, Family court statements have confirmed that they do not have the facilities to adequately address child abuse and this is sadly how they deal with it. A majority of cases that involve reversal of custody to the alleged abuser include women who have experienced some form of violence against them.

The movement behind the laws that attract these trends are these churches. In a method to compete with the rise of radical islam, they have explicit instructions on how to abuse wives. Its called, “Christian Domestic Discipline”. Here are some quotes:

A sound lashing is five to ten strokes with your hand, or three to five strokes with a strap; some wives need more. To avoid brusing do not strike the same area in repetition. Gauge your decision to proceed based on your wife’s readiness to repent.

If one’s children find out, it is not end of the world. Most children understand more than adults give them credit. In particular, children understand spanking far more than they understand bitterness and divorce.

There is an information highway created which runs from a woman’s bottom to her mind as the evil spews from her mouth. It is the husband’s responsibility to fill with love and assurance. Otherwise, he has simply engaged in an act of torture.

There are three basic ways to control a wife, as follows:

1. Ignore her – This method ruins the marriage.
2. Burden her with chores, responsibilities, and work – This method makes her prematurely old.
3. In a no nonsense fashion, discipline her personally, privately, and memorably – In responsible hands, this method can work miracles.

Whilst the site claims not to be encouraging domestic violence and is consensual, the consent is limited to the beginning and void during and after. It even encourages silencing women about abuse. In one news article, it is a growing trend in Christian marriages.

Parent Alienation Awareness Day

If a group of pedophiles and abusers named their cause, “Abusers Awareness Day”, no one would help champion their goals.

There needs to be a little bit of propaganda to blanket their true goals.

Richard Gardner gave them that blanket by promoting ideas that society should punish those to speak against abuse as, “sick” and “requiring therapy”. He coined the term, “Parental Alienation Syndrome”. Appalled by the pro-pedophile material that was circulated on a large scale, researchers on child abuse and family violence worked even harder to debunk this content and for many years it has been frequently rejected by the American Psychology Association as a Syndrome. Regardless of the theory being discredited, it has still been used on court cases all over the world including a case where it was a defense for a brutal murder of a mother. Some backyard psychologists have even held workshops about, “Maternal Gate-keeping” and others have promoted theories such as, “Malicious Mother Syndrome”.

Whilst in most debates, we all amicably prefer to keep things gender neutral apart from where one gender is being targeted in a way no different to the apartheid in Africa, the slavery towards African Americans and of course the stolen generation of aboriginal children. Whilst the use of parental alienation syndrome appears to be one of those gender neutral terms, the literature and statistics of court cases where the reversal of custody cases involving abuse allegations suggests that the number one target is the mother. Enmeshed with child abuse cases are often intimate partner terrorism, mostly perpetrated by fathers and a deep lack of community support towards mothers who try against many odds to protect their children from further abuse and exposure to violence. The superficial surface of parent alienation suggests that their goal is to stop “false accusers” despite statistics stating over and over again that false accusers are a minority of cases and in fact most of the false allegations are use by fathers. Empirical research has defined this as part of a series of behaviors that follow the intervention of a intimate partner terrorism relationship. This is where the real problem lies, with little support thanks to the erosion of domestic violence and child protection services, mothers experiencing false accusations towards them have drifted unknowingly towards the movement that is solely there to continue these abuses against her and the children.

Supporters of this theory have even gone as far as promoting it as a form of child abuse and sadly many court cases involving child abuse and intimate partner terrorism with evidence are treated as alienation resulting with the child being transferred to the abuser. The influence of this theory has been so great that other aspects of the system where the perpetrator could be convicted are thwarted.

Whilst Parental Alienation attracts pedophile lobbyists, batterers and abusers, they also attract mistaken victims. These victims are in turn used to become the front of the organisations eliminating the promotion of any true need for children and victims of violence and appear as though they are gender inclusive. The laws, case statistics and culture of the courts are a true reflection of the backyard psych therapists and abuse excuser’s causes. Some organisations are obvious in their agenda, whilst others confuse the situation.

Given the clusters of abusers that are attracted to the cause, it is important to encourage police abuse units to investigate the members of these groups as they do with pedophile rings. This could help stop abuse occurring. Other things that can be done is reporting professionals who use the theory as a form of diagnosis to psychologist registers, law bars and social worker accreditation organisations. The use of junk science destroys the credibility of professionals who do not practice backyard therapies and such reports are welcomed to peak bodies. By alerting other parents of the dangers of these organisations, parents can then become aware of the potential risks they could expose the children to by engaging with potential abusers activities and prevent abuse from occurring.

Here are a list of confirmed pedophile organisations that promote Parent Alienation:

http://www.reformsexoffenderlaws.org/digest.php

http://www.nnseek.com/e/alt.support.boylovers/parent-alienation_s.html

http://www.boychat.org/messages/1195439.htm

http://www.ipce.info/library_3/files/pasyndrome.htm

http://pedophileophobia.com/Richard%20Gardner.htm

http://www.nambla.org/matters.htm

http://www.sohopeful.org/intl/facts/files/Investigative%20System/IPT%20Journal%20Manipulating%20the%20Child%20Sexual%20Abuse%20System.pdf

Pedophile Haven or Family Court?

News.com.au, have done Australians proud for revealing this to the media. The family Court laws prevent disclosure of the abuse against children, but this journalist was courageous enough to reveal the true status of children under these orders.

Outside of the Family Court, a child care center manager would be jailed for negligence if they provided anywhere similar to the dodgy family court operations that continue to promote abuse and suppress the outcries.

Girls ordered to spend weekends with sex offender father

• From:The Australian
• March 14, 2010 10:22pm
• 178 comments

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• Judge says girls need protection at night
• Eldest is afraid to stay overnight at father’s
• Man was convicted of child porn offences

A COURT has ordered two young girls to spend weekends with their sex offender father provided he puts a door on their bedroom they can lock.

Judge Robert Benjamin, in the Family Court’s Hobart branch, ruled that the girls “need some protection from (their father), particularly at night”.

However, the risk of sexual abuse was “diminished when they are awake and alert”.

Judge Benjamin said that the father, who was convicted of downloading child pornography, must have an “adult friend” stay with him when the girls stayed overnight.

He added that until the youngest turned 14, the girls must “share the same room so they can have the mutual support of one another”.

A Family Court counsellor said that the girls, aged ten and eight, “are at an age and maturity when awake, dressed and together it would be unlikely the father would act inappropriately toward them”.

Read full story

Family Law and Family Violence: Band-aid For A Gaping Wound

According to the Herald-Sun, the chief Justice of Australian Family Court has proposed changing laws on mediation privacy. The current reasonable grounds for a practitioner to even suspect child abuse reflects the ongoing negligence towards victims of family violence. In fact the law is more tailored towards protecting perpetrators.

67ZA Where member of the Court personnel, family counsellor, family dispute resolution practitioner or arbitrator suspects child abuse etc.

(3) If the person has reasonable grounds for suspecting that a child:

(a) has been ill treated, or is at risk of being ill treated; or

(b) has been exposed or subjected, or is at risk of being exposed or subjected, to behaviour which psychologically harms the child;

“Ill treated” is not defined in the current family law act. This opens the floodgates for pseudo-abuse allegations where a protective parent is deemed abusive for discontinuing visits with the perpetrator.

“Psychological harm” refers often to parent alienation syndrome – A diagnosis that has never been scientifically recognized and largely rejected by the scientific community. The DSM committee has just recently rejected another call for its inclusion. It is no wonder when the creator of this syndrome promoted pedophilia and other abuses whilst deemed the protective parent as unstable.

So Australian Family courts are directed to pursue and punish the abused, than to protect them. The transfer of information is rather more of a compilation of pseudo evidence against the parent who wishes to protect the child. This is in reality about the avoidance of accountability so that the victim will be so traumatized and and entrenched in the pro-abuse culture, that there is little chance the victim will take legal action against the court. Protective parents also bring in far more revenue than the abuser as they are more likely to continue litigation providing court staff with a guaranteed financial future at the expense of a few deaths.

If you want help stop abuse in the family courts, click here.