Family Court report writer cautioned by watchdog after breaching parent’s privacy – ABC News (from 2019)

In the family law system, psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers can give evidence and impact cases, but a review has found no-one is keeping them in check. The Attorney-General knows it’s a problem and there are calls for him to fix it.

The cases highlight what court insiders and legal experts say is the lack of proper scrutiny of private psychoanalysts — described by some parents as “Gods of the court” — because their opinion can affect family legal battles and custody rulings.

A long-awaited report into the Family Court by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) urged the Federal Government to tackle concerns about the quality of these court-appointed experts by introducing mandatory accreditation and lifting the veil of secrecy around them.

Andrea* said her distressed 13-year-old son would “smash his head on a brick wall” after attending appointments with the same family report writer during a long Family Court battle.

Andrea said her son wanted to stop the appointments because he was being threatened by the psychologist.

She said she was too frightened to complain about the family report writer.

“She can say anything in the witness box and that becomes evidence,” Andrea said.

Andrea said the psychologist gave evidence in their trial and the judge ordered her son to spend time alone with his father.

But the teenager then obtained a family violence intervention order against his father in a state magistrates court.

In the case of the Sydney psychiatrist, up to a dozen parents made complaints to the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC), accusing him of “placing the public at risk” with his Family Court reports.

In August last year HCCC commissioner Sue Dawson wrote to one of the parents stating the psychiatrist “did not have judicial immunity” and an investigation would be conducted.

But in a letter to one of the parents in April, the New South Wales medical watchdog changed its position and said it “did not have the power” to investigate.

The Sydney psychiatrist was a report writer in the matter of *James — a case the ABC has previously reported on — in which the Family Court gave custody to a father accused of sexual abuse.

Alison*, one of the HCCC complainants, claimed the psychiatrist’s reports followed a pattern of “minimising” allegations of family violence and abuse.

“In almost every one of these cases he talks about ‘if the spurious allegations continue or are not recanted, the child should be removed’.

The ALRC report in March found that psychiatrists and psychologists in private practice who provide family reports played a “crucial” role in legal cases.

But it found there was no effective way of holding them to account if they failed to meet professional guidelines set by the court.

Source: Family Court report writer cautioned by watchdog after breaching parent’s privacy – ABC News

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