Jesus said "What God has joined together let man not separate", according to Mark 10:9.
The first principle Section 43(a) of the FAMILY LAW ACT 1975 protects the institution of marriage.
Section 60B supports children's right to know and be cared for by their parents.
Section 68F defines how a court determines what is in a child's best interest.
The High Court of Australia in the matter of M & M 1988 decided it was not in the best interest of the child to determine whether or not she had been abused by her father. Mr M. was never prosecuted by the D.P.P. of S.A. (Mr. Paul Rofe). If Mr. M. is guilty of abusing his daughter he should be prosecuted. If he is innocent he should be allowed to see his daughter and the Lying Doctors (not the Flying Doctors) should apologise for their defamation and the resulting loss of contact.
In the matter of: B & B 1996 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child was considered by the Full Court of the Family Court of Australia, but the appeal was still thrown out.
The Australian Government refuses to remove these incapacitated judges under its powers of Section 22 of the FAMILY LAW ACT 1975. Now a generation of children must suffer these atrocities until these judges die of old age.
On 17th November 1997 Doctor Watson sent an Optional Protocol communication alleging Australia had violated Articles 14 and 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by allowing the Kangaroo Courts to bastardize children.
Section 121, FAMILY LAW ACT 1975 restricts publication of court proceedings, with penalties upto 12 months imprisonment.
For any comments or opinions please:CLICK
Nigel and Fiona were both in their early 20s in 1979 when they married in Australia, Fiona�s homeland. Nigel was raised in NZ where most of his family still live. Nigel is a highly educated professional man who had a high-paying job. The couple had three children: Jeremy born in 1982; Helen born in 1985 and Sasha born in 1987.
The marriage lasted 10 years, but in 1989 Fiona left Nigel, taking the children with her. Nigel was distressed by the marriage breakdown and the loss of his children. From the outset, he tried to maintain contact with his son and daughters. Within a few months Fiona had applied for and been granted an ex-parte (�one side only�) order for interim custody and a non-molestation injunction. There had been no suggestion that Nigel had ever been violent towards his family, and in 1994 a judge noted that there was no reason for this to have been made ex parte and that Nigel had good reason to feel aggrieved. Nigel was granted daytime access during the weekends, and managed to spend time with his children regularly, although from the beginning, Fiona was not happy about him seeing them. She kept a diary relating to the access and comments made by the children and by Nigel, and admitted that she only wrote negative comments in the book. During 1991 Nigel kept up all access visits despite Fiona�s opposition.
In November 1991 Fiona spoke to an �expert� on child sexual abuse. That evening she asked her two girls a series of leading questions, which started with "Has daddy ever touched you in a way that you don�t like?". The girls were in the bath at the time. Helen indicated that he had touched her bottom with his hand but denied that he had touched her vagina. Sasha pointed to the area of her vagina, and when her mother asked "does he put his wee-wee down there?" the girl supposedly said yes. Fiona immediately contacted the police. A medical examination was arranged by the Child Protection Services Unit and the children were examined by a paediatrician.
On examination of 4 year old Sasha, he found no scarring or other abnormality except on the hymen which he said was irregular and thinned with a horizontal opening of 5 mm. He concluded that this was physical evidence of interference.
On examination of 6 year old Helen, he recorded some redness and a slight amount of discharge. Her hymen measured 7-8 mm horizontally and appeared thin along its bottom edge. He concluded that this was also medical evidence of interference. He suspected that the discharge was caused by the sexually transmitted disease Chlamydia, and gave both girls antibiotic treatment for this infection. However the results of swabs he took showed no evidence of any disease, including Chlamydia.
Sasha underwent 4 interviews by a Child Protection Service social worker, only one of which was observed and recorded by a police officer. Details of how the allegations had arisen and a transcript of the videotaped interview was examined some years later by a well-respected psychiatrist. He expressed grave concerns about the flawed nature of the initial disclosures and the strong possibility that the mother�s questioning and subsequent conduct had contaminated the girl�s testimony. He was also gravely concerned about the suggestive nature of the interview. In 1994 a judge agreed that the social worker who interviewed Sasha �repeatedly focused her attention on her father and what he might have done to her. The repetitive nature of the questioning was excessive to the extent of being badgering�. Although Fiona claimed that Sasha had said yes to her question "does he put his wee-wee down there?" Sasha never made that allegation in any of her interviews, and the vague claims she did make involved genital touching were in response to leading and suggestive interrogation.
Jeremy was interviewed twice by this social worker. Helen was interviewed twice by a senior clinical psychologist, with her second interview recorded by a police officer. Neither Jeremy nor Helen at any point made any allegations that they had been sexually abused. When told that the examination showed that she had been sexually interfered with, Helen said "the doctors are lying". Her denial was attributed to Roland Summit's �child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome� and she was not believed by the health care professionals involved in the case.
On the basis of the medical findings, it was decided that the girls must have been raped. In March 1992 Nigel was arrested and charged with unlawful sexual intercourse and indecent assault of both his daughters. He denied and has always continued to deny any sexual offending.
All access was stopped. He had no contact with his children either supervised or unsupervised during 1992, despite his applications to the courts. After a year on bail awaiting trial, in early 1993 the Crown entered a Nolle Proseque (�refuse to pursue�) to each of the counts which he had been charged. They did not give any reasons for dropping all the charges, but the denial by both girls that their father had raped them is likely to be a factor.
Nigel immediately set about trying to re-establish contact with his children. The Family Court issued an interim order allowing an hour of access once a month supervised by a church pastor. Each member of the family was then interviewed by a court-appointed clinical psychologist. She found that although Helen and Sasha were now convinced that Nigel had sexually abused him, they still wanted access with him. She recommended that the supervised access with all three children present at the same time be continued.
A year later she interviewed the family again. Helen repeated her belief that her father had sexually abused her, but she loved him and wanted to see him very much. Sasha was now doubtful that he had ever abused her and said "I have been telling Mum that I lied". She said she could not remember any incidents in the past but she was sure that her father had not hurt her. Again the psychologist recommended that access be limited to regular but brief (1 to 2 hours only) access of the 3 children together in a room under supervision of a pastor.
A year after all criminal charges against him had been dropped, Nigel sought to have unsupervised access to his children on alternate weekends. His application was considered in a 5 day hearing. Nigel had by now exhausted both his funds and his confidence in lawyers and so represented himself. He challenged the methodology used by the Child Protection Services Unit and the doctors� evidence that he had sexually abused his children. A psychiatrist testified that the children�s stories were potentially contaminated by the actions of their mother and through the leading interviewing by the authorities.
The judge agreed that the psychiatrist�s criticisms were valid. However he concluded that the medical evidence indicated that the children must have been sexually abused. He found that on the balance of probabilities Nigel had not committed this abuse, although he noted that there was no evidence that anyone else had had the opportunity to do this. Despite this, in a rather contradictory fashion he decided that �there is an unacceptable risk of sexual abuse of the children if unsupervised access is granted at the present time�.
The court-appointed psychologist demonstrated clear bias against Nigel. She claimed that he put his needs before the children, and said that this was demonstrated by the videotape recordings he had made of a supervised access meeting for the court. The judge considered this was hypercritical of her. She gave as an example of him putting his own needs first his asking Jeremy to enquire of his mother as to whether he (Nigel) could come to watch Jeremy play in a forthcoming cricket match. The judge felt that �it is an entirely natural thing for a father to take an interest in his son�s sporting activities and for a son to want a parent to be there watching him. ...What possible objection could there be to have her husband discreetly watching his son play cricket?". The psychologist thought this was a selfish request by Nigel. Another example she gave of Nigel putting his own needs first was his entertaining his children by playing guitar to them for a short period of time (he is an accomplished player). The judge felt that it was quite acceptable for him to play his children some music. In fact the judge noted that the conditions of access (three children of different ages and interests all being confined to a room with no outings allowable) made it challenging to keep their attention, and he gave Nigel credit for the variety of ways he managed to maintain their interest, which the psychologist appeared to discount.
Despite his recognition of the difficulties and limitations imposed by such access, the judge ordered that it continue unchanged, because there was an unacceptable risk that Nigel might abuse his daughters. He did not even allow Nigel to have unsupervised access with his son Jeremy, about who there had never been the slightest allegation of abuse. Six months later, in December 1995 Fiona applied for and was granted sole guardianship of the children. She would not accept as suitable any of the supervisors put forward by Nigel. The last time he was able to see his children was March 1997.
The decision that there was an unacceptable risk that Nigel might abuse his daughters was based on the medical evidence said to indicate that past abuse had occurred. In 1983 the medical literature reported that a horizontal hymen size greater than 4 mm in a girl aged under 13 years was an indicator of sexual abuse. Doctors used this study as the basis for statements that children they examined with hymenal openings larger than 4 mm must have been interfered with.
More recent examination of the study this claim was based on has revealed that it is seriously flawed. These days a horizontal hymenal opening of 5 mm in a 4 year old and 7-8 mm in a 6 year old is considered to be a normal finding. There is a great degree of variation with regard to the shape of hymen opening(s), and the irregularity and attenuation described is quite possibly a natural variation on normal. Similarly, redness is frequently found in this region for a number of reasons, and a finding of some inflammation is not confirmation of "previous interference". In other words, the medical findings described by the paediatrician do not indicate a past history of rape after all.
Nigel has tried many avenues to get this flawed medical evidence reconsidered. However no court will accept jurisdiction to hear new evidence. The Magistrates Court, the High Court and the Appeal Court of the Family Court all have refused to review the decision. The file was said to be officially closed. The Attorney-General, Australian Human Rights Commission, the Ombudsman and the Governor-General have said they cannot help.
To date, Nigel has been involved in 99 court hearings with respect to this matter. He is not prepared to walk away from his children. He has even spent time in prison for contacts with his children which breach court orders. For example, just after Fiona was appointed sole guardian of the children, Nigel went to their home when they were out and left three packets of �pebbles� sweets and 3 fifty cent coins on the front verandah with some sea shells arranged to spell the words �Daddy was here�. This was considered a breach of the Summary Protection Order issued by his ex-wife which specifies that he should be restrained from approaching her in any way. When contacted and interviewed by the police, Nigel admitted that he had gone to the premises to give his children some presents. He was aware of the Protection Order against his wife but he believed his family court access rights overrode this, as it was the children he was communicating with, not her. Never-the-less, he was arrested and imprisoned for this action.
By November 1997 Nigel had exhausted all possible domestic remedies. He therefore petitioned to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the grounds that that Australia had violated Articles 14 and 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by their court actions regarding his children. Article 14 states that everyone charged with a criminal offence shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and to be tried without due delay. Article 23 deals with the protection of the family. Nigel explained to them that he is a victim of the violation because he has suffered false allegations of rape which have resulted in his children being denied contact with him by the family court. It appears that this petition has resulted in a communication between the UN and the Australian government, because the file has been re-opened, and a date has set in late 1998 for a further hearing, presumably regarding the children having access to their father.
We wait to hear the outcome of the 100th hearing in Nigel�s continuing fight to father his children.
Get your own Free Homepage