Courts may be keeping violence in the home
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Australian Associated Press
Family violence against women and children is a national scandal, a rally was told on Sunday.
Former federal parliamentarian and advocate for the prevention of violence against women Phil Cleary says courts may be complicit in maintaining violence in the family.
"If those in the family courts can see no relationship between violence against women and violence against children they are part of the problem," Mr Cleary said.
"The violence is a blind spot, a dark spot and, quite candidly, it is a national scandal."
Mr Cleary's sister Vicki died 22 years ago at the hands of a violent partner who received less than four years' jail.
Dionne Fehring, whose two children from her first marriage, 17-month-old Jessie and 12-week-old Patrick, were murdered by her husband in 2004 after he was given custody of them while she was in hospital, told her harrowing story.
She has since remarried and has two children from her second marriage.
"I want women to see you can move on from these tragic circumstances - you don't have to be a victim," she said.
The former principal lawyer at the Women's Legal Service Victoria, Sarah Vessali, said the courts maintained "some kind of unrealistic belief that some kind of contact with a parent is better than no contact - no matter what that parent had done in the past".
She said that in many cases the issue of family violence is never raised in the courtroom in custody cases.
"Some of these people tell me that they have been actively discouraged from raising the violence, that they should be looking to the future and not to talk about the violence because that's historical," Ms Vessali said.
"Others say they have been disbelieved by so many people in the past that they don't even try to raise the issue any more."
Ms Vessali said legal aid funding had been cut, which meant more people were appearing in the Family Court unrepresented.
"They are trying to work out how (the) family law system, which is not straightforward ... and at the same time personally deal with the perpetrator of violence against you – it just doesn't work."
She said the contact centres, used by the court to enable children to meet the other parent in a safe supervised environment, are struggling to meet demand.
"The contact centres I have been dealing with have waiting lists six to nine months - that doesn't work because the other parent wants contact with the child now."
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