AFCC: The Man behind the Curtain

     AFCC was at one stage a judges slush fund of where bribes perverted the course of justice in California's family Court.  Not only did it serve as a platform for corruption, but was also became the loudspeaker of Dr Richard Gardeners work in the 70s and 80s.  The trail of devastation for victims was left behind with few who held accountable and more who profited upon these ills.  Dr joan Kelly, co-founder of AFCC and CRC  Authored "Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome"  as an attempt to revive Gardeners theories, so that it were more acceptable to its readers with the same custody outcomes, but omitting the obvious quotes that revealed the motives behind his work.  She was also on the advisory panel of Children's Rights Council along with Warren Farrell who was featured in penthouses, "Incest The Last Taboo".  He states,


"the incest is part of the family's open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve -- and in one or two cases to join in."


   Parental Alienation Syndrome created lavish lifestyles for those who promote and advocate for its existence for many years and so it is no wonder attempts to revive it were made.  The reason why it was beyond controversial, was the fact that this syndrome led to many deaths.  Nathan Grieco a 14 year old boy who did not want to see his father and alleged abuse by him.  Gardner was an expert in his case and ordered what he referred to as, "Threat therapy" where he threatened the child with jailing the mother if he failed to go.  Shortly after, Nathan committed suicide.    


Thanks to one of the many decent fathers who spent $100,000 investigating California courts for his daughter to unravel why his grandchild was rendered motherless without reasonable cause, we know that this organization was used in this manner.  

     Much is left unanswered on why the environment of most family courts contain an automatic contempt for mothers, but hopefully this article will shed some light.  CANOW, provided an extensive report on the activities of the AFCC and how it was creating a system of abuse and corruption.

     The AFCC have denied promoting pro-child abuse and violence against women material, yet the content of their conferences tell a different story.  Below is a training session where it trivializes empirical studies that verify the damaging effects of not only exposing the victim to the perpetrator, but also children.  It distracts away from the safety of women and children to mislead practitioners into believing that there is a guaranteed method to separate those who are "just being abused" to those at imminent risk of death.  There is no credible method in the world and to boast such a tool is clearly negligent.

Just in case the inevitable becomes obvious with the increase of deaths due to negligence, they provide an answer to that too.  Below is a course on how to avoid accountability and continue backyard methods on treating victims of family violence and child abuse.  

  Here is a prime example of how Gardeners perspectives are very much alive and unchallenged in this organization.  The whole topic is dangerously superficial, misogynist and trains professionals to look at the mother as the issue, instead of looking into why she might be 
concerned about the child being alone with the father.  

Again, another training session on how not to be accountable and promotion of Gardeners theory.

More promotion of Gardeners concept where the victim is perceived as mentally ill and distorted as the perpetrator.  

Instead of providing a genuine focus on prevention of risk and subjecting victims to further trauma, professionals are trained on how to avoid accountability and attribute further injustice to their clients.  

Below is advertisements on the typical fathers rights agenda translated in the language of academia.  Despite years of research on the harm of infants spending minimal to little time with their mothers, below is advertisement on how to encourage maternal deprivation.  

Below is a conference from AFCC last year with more about maternal gatekeeping. Whilst "Violence Against women" topics are omitted from these conferences, "Maternal Gatekeeping" appears to be a popular event.    

More disturbing was this article found on an AFCC website instructions on how to use the legal avenues on forcibly adopting out children if the mother does not comply.

Below is a questionnaire targeting alienation.  Note how child abuse factors are not assessed.

This is one of AFCCs conferences on "Differentiating" domestic violence cases.  In other words, a how to expose the children and women to violence unless it is extremely obvious that they are at imminent risk of death.  When they refer to "Situational Violence" this means that if there is only one recorded incident, then they can justify ignoring the victim of further concerns and continue exposing them to risk.  At present, evidence of one episode of violence is not enough in family court law.  They require several incidents of brutality before they decide to order supervised contact and in some cases, nothing is done at all.    

For anyone who has had contact with fathers rights groups, they are anything but silent.  Again it is another example of the organizations lacking neutrality leaning towards the context of the mens movement.  The presenters here are mimicking intimate partner terrorism victims to skew the experience and thus generate encouragement to foster undue control over women parallel to the nineteenth century child custody experience - where children were the property of men.   

Again like every other fathers right organization, they are promoting shared parenting without considering much on the consequences.

AFCCs Influence on the Psy-Law Community in United States 
In "News Today", the article claimed that there was "new research on maternal gatekeeping" that, "Mom needs to know when to let go".  Again, its deemed the mothers fault for fathers taking less of an active role pre and post separation.  When the mother does in fact resist visits, its usually for a good reason.  Surveys on mothers have often reflected contrary to these beliefs that mothers do want their children to spend time and know the father, but not when it he poses a threat to them.  


The influence of AFCC in united states is ingrained in the Family Court system.  Lundy Bancroft explains this well in his publication:



JANET JOHNSTON'S TYPOLOGY OF BATTERERS AND THE AFCC RISK ASSESSMENT:
THE QUEST FOR SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
Efforts are underway nationally to ease the complexity of assessing risk to children from
visitation with batterers by placing batterers into distinct types, based largely on the work of
Janet Johnston. For example, a risk assessment distributed nationally by the Association of
Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) draws heavily from Johnston's work. The types Johnston
posits are as follows:

Type A: "Ongoing or Episodic Male Battering"
Type B: "Female-Initiated Violence"
Type C: "Male Controlled Interactive Violence"
Type D: "Separation and Postdivorce Violence"
Type E: "Psychotic and Paranoid Reactions"
(These types are called by slightly different names in the AFCC risk assessment, but are exactly
the same in other respects.)
Type A is considered the real batterer; he is very frequently and severely violent, and he
uses violence to control his partner.
Type B is violence that is initiated by the victim; she gets hurt because she is smaller, but her behavior is the problem.
Type C is violence caused by
"mutual verbal provocations," and again the woman is the victim only because she is physically
smaller; she is considered equally abusive.
Type D is violence that results from the stress of
separation and is completely uncharacteristic for the abuser.
Type E is violence resulting from a mental health problem.
This typology contains more problems that can be covered here. The types were preconceived,
with researchers instructed to assign each case to one of the categories. The research
has little external validity; her types have no relationship to any patterns observed by domestic
violence professionals in the clinical setting. Relying on these categories leads to serious errors in crafting visitation plans. Risk to children can be assessed, as we will see, but not by this
approach.

  The great majority of batterers do not fit any of Johnston's types, because they exert
"chronic pervasive control," but it is not accompanied by the most severe or frequent violence.
The most common batterer is one who uses violence two or three times a year, whose partner has never been hospitalized with injuries, and who shows no evidence of sadism. Nevertheless, his partner and children exhibit trauma symptoms due to their fear of the abuser, the repeated denial of their basic rights, and the pattern of psychological attack. Assessing the risk to these children from unsupervised visitation is a complex process, and the danger varies greatly from case to case.
  These categories encourage us to assess the victim rather than the abuser. The "A" type of
batterer is considered the only real batterer; he is described as having a victim who is severely
traumatized, who is passive and withdrawn, and who rarely starts arguments or challenges the
batterer. A woman who is stronger, angrier, or generally more unpleasant to interact with, would
be likely under Johnston's approach to be seen as mutually abusive and provocative, the "C" type of relationship; she would thus be considered largely responsible for the man's violence. In
reality, most abused women, even those who are terrified, do not give up all forms of fighting
back, and continue attempting to protect their rights and the rights of their children. The more
that the victim refuses to submit to the abuser's control, the more likely he is to escalate his
violence. Under Johnston's typology, the more courageously a woman attempts to defend herself and her children, the less responsibility the abuser has for his actions. Using this approach serves the batterer's interests well, but endangers the children. The result of this approach is that some of  the most dangerous abusers, those who are the most determined to dominate at all costs, are ironically declared to be the lowest risk to their children.


AFCCs Influence on the Psy-Law Community in Australia
If you think that this organization would not have much influence on the culture of the Family Courts, think again.  The Australian Institute of Families, a research body for the family court quotes references from their conferences throughout their publications and many of its members have presented and joined the organization.  The Family Court of Australia advertises upcoming conferences to the family law community and many judges and court personnel have been members and presenters to the conferences.  


  An appalling example of how the australian government dealt with our indigenous community.  Rather than provide more services to ensure the safety of women where statistics of family violence are much higher, this program was funded based upon "Maternal Gatekeeping".  A term used to divert the focus away from the reason why she is concerned about the child being left alone with the father.  


Sadly Child Protection in Western Australia jumped on the band wagon to preach on how they not only believe that fathers are safer with children than mothers, but that they are "Maternal Gatekeepers".  


In the Australian governments family relationship clearinghouse were a series of articles for and against the use of parental alienation syndrome in family court context.  The fact that it was even listed in the library endorsed junk science and may have mislead readers into believing that such a syndrome was prevalent above child abuse and family violence.   On the last pages of the CANOW report, the American Psychiatry Association verifies that PAS is not a syndrome, that it is not being considered for the diagnostic and statistic manual in the near future as there is no real scientific validity.   


On Lawlink.gov in NSW, a link to Parental Alienation Syndrome is listed which refers to Gardeners books.  By even linking to it is another endorsement from the Australian government that using junk science to conceal family violence is acceptable.  Considering that not only does the syndrome target victims of domestic violence as "alienators", it also promotes sending the child to the abuser.  


Internationally, AFCC has grown and so have fathers rights movements coinciding this culture.  one of the major problems is that a majority of its material erodes protections made available for victims and cultivates a closed patriarchal environment that mothers are at the mercy of.  Whilst outside these courts, women's freedoms are welcomed and accepted, but behind closed doors, she is perceived as a shameful act.  The Family Courts are the last institution that practices values belonging to the nineteenth century.  They do not respect nor value the lives of women and children in their research that could be easily compared to the propaganda authored by nazi researchers that were used to endorse genocidal goals.  The courts need to rely upon more balanced institutions research such as the world health organization that acknowledges violence against women as a major problem, but also provides research on both genders without hidden agendas. 


   Organizations that research violence against women and children need to be wary that due to the fact that abusers are cross class and cultures, they will work towards undermining their protection by any means and monopolizing laws and psych culture, they are able to continue unchallenged.  That is why it is crucial that every organization considers the opportunities that intimate terrorists may have in engaging in terrorism on a larger level whether it be in groups of like minded or by abusing the powers within professions.  This needs not only to be researched, but desperately addressed, before we have more laws that hurt women and children.

False allegations in Child Custody Cases

For the past few years, mens groups have been going on about how most child abuse allegations are false and often concocted by the mother. They say how "easy" it is, are able to demonstrate in detail on how such an act can occur. It is then, no surprise that the latest research on false allegations demonstrate from a neutral ground that a majority of the accusers are in fact male.

The response of course has been to diminish its credibility by labeling the research as "bias", whilst at the same time stating that the information from mens groups is somewhat superior to forty years of scientific credibility that points toward all factors including child abuse and intimate partner terrorism are indeed prevalent, underreported and serious.

For years this perpetuated belief has managed to thrive within the community and influence vital laws that were implemented to protect children. The results of this study can be found here and the results are:

Consistent with other national studies of reported child maltreatment, CIS-98 data indicate that more than one-third of maltreatment investigations are unsubstantiated, but only 4% of all cases are considered to be intentionally fabricated.Within the subsample of cases wherein a custody or access dispute has occurred, the rate of intentionally false allegations is higher: 12%. Results of this analysis show that neglect is the most common form of intentionally fabricated maltreatment, while anonymous reporters and noncustodial parents (usually fathers) most

frequently make intentionally false reports. Of the intentionally false allegations of maltreatment tracked by the CIS-98, custodial parents (usually mothers) and children were least likely to fabricate reports of abuse or neglect. - Nico Trocm´e a, Nicholas Bala b

a University of Toronto, Faculty of Social Work

Further countering the claims that such research is bias is that the researchers are male and the report itself reads from a gender neutral perspective. Clearly, the true gender bias is embedded within the culture of male violence, community justification and the courts endorsement of providing orders that maintain the environment where children are mostly at risk.

It is logical to conclude that considering the challenges of both the child and the mother raising the concerns, reports are sadly underreported. Knowing that courts are set up in such a way that re - trauma is inevitable and the possibility of costs being raised against the victim if enough evidence is not provided, can be a major barrier to a natural course of justice.

Most victims see the course of justice as not a place for revenge of the act/actions itself, but rather an endeavor to ensure that no other members of the community become victimized.

Child Abuse in custody cases are far more complex as the laws that surrounds it is tailored to the assumption that the level of conflict derives from equal ground, that there seems to be a problem coming from those "maternal gatekeepers". This is not only a superficial view that lacks insight into the problem, but a harmful on to say the least.

If a survey was conducted on how many mothers were given consideration as to why they had pursued legal avenues to prevent contact, I would hypothesize that the result would be small. Given the mass of judgements I have read and the large number of "unsubstantiated" cases, I believe I would be correct to imply that the access to justice for mothers in custody cases raising issues of protection is very low.

Family Law: The Genghis Khan Way

Genghis Khan, a well known historical figure who conquered a substantial portion of Asia during the 1200s. If he had done so today, he would have been known as a perpetrator of mass genocide.

After defeating the Tatars, Genghis Khan ordered the slaughter of all people taller than a cart handle, ensuring the loyalty of the next generation. Genghis Khan’s conquests include 30 countries with well over three billion people.

The mongols used psychological warfare which made them superior in winning battles. They destroyed cities and spared a few to spread news of their terror. Deception was also used to surprise their enemy by splitting into three groups prior to the battle and seemingly appearing out of nowhere giving the visage that his army was larger than it was. Other techniques included were luring the opponent into vulnerable positions by appearing from a hill and then disappearing into the woods whilst aligning their soldiers to come from all sides.

In our modern world, humanity has evolved to far more superior methods of genocide. United nations definition of genocide is:

General Assembly Resolution 260A (III) Article 2

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Over the years statistics have revealed what has been defined as a femnicide: the killing of women and girls. What has not yet been highlighted enough is the silent slaughter of women and children affected by family violence. Whilst family violence has been described as a gender neutral term, the statistics of gender and research on gender power reveals a very ugly side of patriarchy that is thriving upon these brutal conquests.

In recent times, we have had a very open and vocal group who define themselves as, "Mens Rights Advocates". They are against current protection laws, research and present statistics that reveal this silent epidemic of violence against women and children. Even the terminology has become an information war as propaganda is spread online and through other sources of media to dilute the public awareness of intimate partner terrorism that effects one third of the population of women. The impact of their presence has resulted in the rise of murder - suicides in the US, maternal deprivation in the UK and a rise in family violence in Australia.

Just about everywhere these mens groups have had a presence, the erosion of support for women and children in funding of services, advocacy in the media and protective laws have become prevalent. The definition of intimate partner terrorism is very true to many survivors who have endured it.

"Intimate terrorism is the kind of intimate partner violence that involves a batterer who terrorizes and takes complete control of his partner through the use of violence in combination with other control tactics such as threats and intimidation, economic control, psychological abuse, isolation, and the assertion of male privilege. In heterosexual relationships, intimate terrorism almost always involves a man terrorizing a woman, although in rare cases men are terrorized by their women partners. Although intimate terrorism is much less frequent than is situational couple violence, it is estimated that more than two million women are victims of this kind of abuse in the United States each year—and this is the intimate violence that is most likely to destroy lives." -A Sociologist’s Perspective on Domestic Violence: A Conversation with Michael Johnson, Ph.D. Interview by Theodora Ooms, CLASP

The United Nations defines terrorism as:

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstances unjustifyable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideaological , racial, ethnic, religious, or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them;

The Lone fathers association, Barry Williams began with a protest at parliament steps where 300 men threatened to invade parliament if they did not provide men with equal benefits as mothers.

Almost a decade later, a member of the Family Law Action Group(Flag), was charged for bombing the family courts.

The president of the FLAG, submission can be found here.

Links to Fathers Online, Directed by Warwick Marsh can be found here.

Links to the Shared Parenting Council can be found here.

In 2002, a man by the name of John Abbott, set up a militant fathers group called the Black Shirts to stalk and harassed women whom were divorced. He claimed to have 300 fathers on his registry.

He was ordered not to harass women for five years or face a four month jail term. One year later the shared parenting bill was introduced.

The Shared Parenting Bill itself is designed in such a way that corners victims of child abuse and domestic violence. Here is how it has this effect:

1. "Unsubstantiated" allegations of violence or child abuse is interpreted is "False".
2. "The burden of proof" is solely upon the parent to provide the evidence.
3. The definition of violence was altered from, "fearful of" to "reasonably fear" resulting in every victim being scrutinized with a confirmatory bias of being mentally ill.
4. A paper reduction section was introduced to limit crucial evidence to being submitted.
5. "meaningful relationships" was physically placed above consideration for welfare of the child.
6. Restraining Orders were used as evidence against the victim.
7. Resident Parents were forced by order to provide their address even when it was not safe to do so.
8. Police station visits are seen as "hostile" environments for children.
9. Taking Children to see a counsellor over abuse is considered, "Medical abuse".
10. Evidence gathering itself is interpreted as "abuse" and in cases where substantial evidence was provided, the parent was more likely to be punished for accessing services to provide evidence.
11. Victims cannot relocate without a court order or permission from their perpetrator. They have the same ratio as a patient in brain surgery in success and if they speak of family violence, it is much less of a chance.

So in the Legal framework, like Genghis Khans psychological warfare, perpetrators have their victims surrounded.

The same tactics of confusing the enemy is the illusion that the custody is shared. Along with the changes, mens advocates assisted with indoctrinating psychologists with the following junk psychology:

Parental Alienation Syndrome

Malicious Mother Syndrome

Münchausen syndrome by Proxy

No scientific body in the world has accepted any of these as real syndromes. Yet, this is in reality a diversion for researchers as the information has been spread like a virus all over the internet. They have become obstacles to be debunked, whilst rogue psychologists are providing their expertise affecting real life court cases. In the mean time, the more and more each stakeholder is convinced that these syndromes are real, the more the perpetrators have seized their team-players in their monopoly resulting in the isolation of their victim.

Arming their members with the information on how to conquer intervention order cases, the mens movements also engage in providing "advocates" to arrive on the scene with police in domestic violence call outs.

Click on the images to enlarge.

The three different groups reflects Genghis Kahns strategy of positioning three or more groups coming from different places to illude the enemy into believing that they are surrounded. This is very much the case for groups seeking to defend women and children. In the list of family law submissions, the groups represented had the same people contained, but authored by different members. The number of groups obscured the decision makers into believing that there was more support than there actually is. This is the same as the military strategy that Khan used when his forces were less than the opponent.

The desire to "conquer" women and children's rights is prevalent and evident in the campaigns and strategies used resulting in the success of the shared parenting bill. The results where women who were determined to protect children lost custody is also part of the genocide definition. In United States, where similar cells have been more established, shared parenting was in reality an entrenched pathway with numerous traps which led to the surge in men securing children as they secured property. Of course if their perceived assets did not perform to their liking, the mother and child are often punished with enforced isolation from each other commonly known as, "Maternal Deprivation".

An even more concerning trend, jihad supporters have also aligned themselves with these groups in United States. Apart from the christian based fathers rights groups, both groups are parallel in their beliefs and fit the criteria in furthering the goals of terrorism. Terrorist network operatives have successfully infiltrated South East Asia(Abuza, 2004), by building alliances with groups aggrieved with government. An example of this is the successful alliance of the Khmer Rouge that assisted in infiltrating Cambodia. It seems like a more unlikely scenario in the western world, however these mens movements are well suited in furthering their interests. They have already done the hard work in unraveling the stability of government to conform to their goals and have similar beliefs in regards to the rights of women and children.

Family Court Money Trail: Blood Money

"Affirms that the term "violence against women" means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life, and including domestic violence, crimes committed in the name of honour, crimes committed in the name of passion, trafficking in women and girls, traditional practices harmful to women, including female genital mutilation, early and forced marriages, female infanticide, dowry-related violence and deaths, acid attacks and violence related to commercial sexual exploitation as well as economic exploitation" -Elimination of Violence Against Women

In the first article of the Family Court Money Trail, the greed of the courts culture was the focus. Currently, the amount of money that is reared in supports a court that enforces contact with violent parents. School started this year in Australia with a five year old girl that was thrown off the bridge after the father was granted shared parenting. A mother was killed after she was ordered by the court to return to UK with her child. Who could not forget pumpkin? The 3 year old found wandering around a train station after her mother was brutally murdered. Perhaps if the court had taken his previous violence serious, pumpkin might still have had a mother today. Think about it. How much did the judge earn to write of her mothers life so cheaply? How much money did the Darcey's lawyer earn to pressure her mother into signing the orders that led to her death? Meanwhile, the family courts, the lawyers and court reporters are raking it in. They call it, "income" - I call it, "Blood money".

Lets not forget the services surrounding the courts that file letters to go with affidavits, assist with parenting plans and "help strengthen families". They are the "Family Relationship Services", the "Parenting courses" and the "Dads programs". Despite one third of the female population, there are few family programs that have been funded to assist domestic violence victims. Support services in family programs now overrepresent men and women staying with them.

In the Community Investment Program, the programs targeted mostly young women and parenting:

However there was more funding and more programs available specifically for fathers. This includes the notorious "Dads In Distress" who promote the junk science, "Parent Alienation Syndrome". They further diminish the notion that it is mostly women experience violence and so already have the values and culture that is not responsible in services for violent men:

According to the Ausdv Clearinghouse there are concerns regarding the reduction of funds to domestic violence services that are crucial to women:

Lang (2002b) has acknowledged that working with men

can take resources away from women’s empowerment

and can detract from working with women. Most

advocates of preventive work with men emphasise that

this work should not take scarce resources away from

women. However, given limited funding, the reality is

that gender mainstreaming and targeting men has led

to women’s services being cut back (Charlesworth 2000;

Sawyer 2003; Bacchi 2004).

$100 million has been allocated to fund family relationship services. In the media

release it states:

"The funding will support a range of measures such as early intervention services including counselling, skills training, mediation, as well as post-separation services including family and couples’ counselling, specialized family violence services, dispute mediation and parenting support."

Below is a list of the Family Relationship service programs funded under the, "Community Intervention Program" that does not mention any funding for specialized family violence services:

In the media release announcing the program it states;

"The projects include a strong focus on supporting vulnerable children and families, and building cohesive and strong communities."

On one of the organizations site it funds contains a statement on its website asserting that women and children are the property of men:

Yet in article 2, the convention of the rights of the child states,

Article 2

1. States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.

2. States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.

A much more elaborate system in United states stemmed from a similar system we have here today, where mens programs began to dominate with a drive to ensure that children became the property of fathers in custody outcomes and that all such challenges concluded in their favor.

Australia is not so far behind America in the child custody regard, however the potential for programs and services to be used to privilege men in favor of custody regardless of their behavior is high. Considering that there is already some evidence of this occurring especially in cases where there has been child abuse and or domestic violence. Reports that services masquerading under the guise of mens behavior change led by mens rights advocate are prevalent.

According to the National Alliance For Family Court Justice funding of community programs were misused,

"The National Alliance for Family Court Justice, has lobbied against deadbeat and abusive fathers for many years and for reasons including their fraudulent use of federal Department of Health and Human Services fatherhood programs for funding their custody litigation."

Convicted Sex Offender Granted Custody of Four Children

For some time, politicians have been avoiding the topic of how far they will go in handing the children over to the father. The situation here speaks for itself. Whilst the article does not draw attention to previous cases like this, it is not uncommon for courts to allow convicted sex offenders unsupervised contact with children. For as long as the courts, family reporters and children's lawyers rely upon the junk science of Parental Alienation Syndrome(also referred to as "Parent Alienation"), cases like these will continue to rupture the lives of children.

Pedophile granted child custody

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DAVID NANKERVIS

June 13, 2009 11:30pm

A FAMILY Court judge has granted custody of four children to their father - a convicted pedophile and rapist.

The mother of the four youngsters, all aged under 15, requested custody at a recent Family Court hearing in Adelaide.

The unsuccessful application was made not long after the children's father was found guilty in the Adelaide District Court of multiple sex offences against a minor.

A transcript of the Family Court hearing shows the presiding judge was aware of the father's convictions and that he was on bail awaiting sentencing.

Further details, including the names of the family, cannot be legally reported. The mother and her current husband also both have criminal records.

However, child support groups have condemned the idea that a convicted pedophile could be granted custody of any child.

Victim Support Service SA said the community would be "alarmed" at a situation where a pedophile was allowed to care for children.

"Our organisation would be worried too about that, and we would want to know about the reasoning and rationale behind such a decision and what steps are in place to protect any child in such circumstances," the service's chief executive Michael Dawson said.

"I would think it is inappropriate for someone with a previous history - through conviction of crimes against children - to be provided with the opportunity to supervise children.

"From my personal experience, I've never heard of any such case before."

The Australian Childhood Foundation also expressed serious concern about the risks pedophiles pose to children, particularly in an unsupervised environment.

"Convicted pedophiles can't work as a teacher, be a foster carer or footy coach, because society recognises that past behaviour is the best indicator of future risk," foundation chief executive Joe Tucci said.

"So as a matter of principal, children shouldn't be in unsupervised contact or custody of an adult with convictions for sexual assault against children."

Mr Tucci said courts should err on the side of caution and treat convictions of sexual assault against children as a "red light" when deciding what is in a child's best interest.

A spokeswoman for the Family Court said judges could only award custody of a child to those parties who applied for it.

"If a judge has concerns about a child's welfare, they cannot make an order that a child be put in the care of the state," the spokeswoman said.

"A judge can ask but not compel a state welfare department to intervene if they believe a child is at risk of abuse or neglect."

The Department of Families and Communities said the Family Court may advise it of any "child protection concerns (the court has) about a child".

"Families SA assesses the notification like any other and takes action if necessary," a department spokesman said.

"Also, the Family Court may make a formal request that the Department of Families and Communities become a party to a case.

"If DFC accepts the request and becomes a party, it then makes representations to the court about what is in the best interests of the child or children."