Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Judge Her Honour Kara Best urged the profession to “soften its gaze” to help stop the justice system from failing women and children at a recent International Women’s Day event in Brisbane.
“So what we know through the work that the Court does in recognising risk at the outset is that some 77 per cent of notices of risk that are filed at the beginning of a family law matter reveal an allegation as to the exposure or incidence of family violence.
“Thereafter, the statistics are nearly as high in relation to allegations of abuse, exposure to risks of abduction, mental health difficulties and alcohol and drug abuse.”
Judge Best said the evidence further reflected that many of these risks occurred together.
“We know that maladaptive behaviours tend to flow from being subjected to long-term violence and coercive control,” Her Honour said.
“We know that many perpetrators then use that maladaptive behaviour in a victim; the fact that a mother for example might be drinking too much or using another drug which is not appropriate, as a way of targeting and controlling any prospect of them leaving or thinking that they would retain the care of a child or could potentially get a job or in any way move forward in their life away from the abuser.
Just because there are problems on both sides, they need to be individually assessed and assessed in detail rather than writing off both parents as being problematic and a risk to their children.
“That is rarely the case. It is rarely the case that both parents are at risk of the same nature or severity.”
Source: Judge urges profession to ‘soften your gaze’ when dealing with DFV – Proctor