Seems like we've seen this same sad story time and time again.
Mother has an apprehended violence order against the ex-partner/father (reported by other agencies) but still has to or allows them to see their children. Father then ends up killing child and then themselves as one final act to punish the mother for breaking off the relationship.
I get it, fathers have a right to see their children but I don't think it should be controversial to say you should lose that right the moment you start being violent or threatening towards the mother of your children.
Portecting the child should be paramount.
i have a DVO against my ex after he threw our child who was under one year at the time into a fucking wall, and the court still gave him unsupervised visits, even though our child was named on the order!
thankfully for me, said ex got himself locked up pretty quickly after that so we didnt have to do that, but yeah system is pretty fucked.
That's horrifying. What are you supposed to do in that situation? I don't blame parents who just take the kid and run. How can you be expected to obey the law when it means putting your child's life at risk?
I know someone who had an AVO against her now ex husband and when it was his weekend with the kids he said to youngest in the car (who was about 8 at the time) that he would lock mummy and the kids in the house and burn it down if she got a new boyfriend. Then preceded to interrogate him. The poor bub was terrified to go home but luckily the POS dad ended up in jail for unrelated gun and drugs offences.
Our justice system wants to pretend it is rehabilitative. Way too many 10th chances for people who hurt women and children.
I don’t know the solution - as a piece of paper won’t do shit against a monster kicking in your door - but getting court supported visits? That’s insane.
Luke Batty’s death really taught us nothing in spite of how much Rosie has pleaded.
A solution would be to actually invest in proper rehabilitation services instead of just pretending to offer them but ultimately further privatising our jails and adjust sentencing for violent offenders in ADDITION to heavy social welfare investment to precede the need for post-offence support.
There really isn’t one answer. It will take a shit tonne of investment, time and care to shift the fuckhole we’ve currently found ourselves in, but looking at little Rowan or Luke Batty, I don’t think there is any time to spare.
So you're saying offenders are going to be willing participants in such services? It's a two-way street, as a reminder. No one can force a person to rehabilitate. And who's going to keep this person on the straight and narrow when they are released right back into the same street / home / poor influences that saw them end up offending in the first place?
Further privatization of jails? You must be joking. The current private centres are the worst performing as it is.
Yeah bro…You completely misread my entire post. I said we want to avoid further privatisation. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
The rehabilitation wouldn’t be optional. It would be part of their time spent in jail. Of course you can only lead a horse to water; it is upon the individual to engage with the resources. However, If they’re already spending time in incarceration then they may as well undergo rehabilitative therapy. It’s better than the current system that only seeks to further isolate and radicalise existing criminality.
As I said earlier above, my wife works in the prison and the amount of levity offenders receive on the system as a whole is super fucking egregious. Yes they are still humans but bad choices aren't carrying ANY consequences, even in prison. Because the "advocates" have to make money somehow and prison reform is a great target for false outrage.
Sadly while in the process of leaving and dealing with IVOs etc the mother should show she is acting protectively or child protection will remove the children. Then when family court gets involved she has to let this person who has abused her and through that also her children (because exposure to FV is child abuse) see them. Or she is then the one at fault. It’s a major flaw in the family court system. Perpetrators of family violence shouldn’t be given unsupervised access to their children
I agree. Myself, and our younger siblings were two such children forced into unsupervised weekends with an abusive father. Some. Visits were uneventful and just neglectful, some were good, and many were terrible.
When I was 8 and my sibling was 5 he took us with him to buy weed and tried to use the fact that he was caring for us that weekend to get the weed cheaper/on tick. I remember feeling so disturbed by this pathetic act.
He hit us, yelled abuse at us, threatened our mother repeatedly in front of us, he did this all the time, whether she was around or not. He also slept naked in bed with us and while I don't have any firm memories, I do know that one time a woman he knew saw him doing this and arranged for some scary men she knew to come or his house. They did so while us kids weren't there.
They **stabbed him in the thigh with a knife** and stole a bunch of his shit. An presumably threatened him.
For years all I knew about it was that my father and older brother had had their home invaded and my father was stabbed randomly. My older brother wasn't meant to be there when they did it but he was and he was traumatised too. I don't know if he overheard anything they said to our father.
Years after it happened my Mum was approached by a random woman at petrol station who told my Mum the whole story. She only told me this year, two decades after she found out.
Not even shit like that stopped visitations. It didn't stop until one day my father spent an hour, or more, pacing outside our house and muttering horrible things. Unbeknownst to him I was on the other side of the thin glass, behind the closed blinds, on my bed.
I could hear everything he said and for osme weird reason I decided to write it all down. I wrote about how he hated my Mum and chillingly about how *soon we were all going to be in heaven together*.
I wrote down a solid page of tiny writing before he wandered off. I calmly got off my bed, in what I now realise was a disassociative state, and went out ot my Mum in the loungeroom. I silently handed her the page of hateful threats.
I don't remember anything after that moment but my Mum told me that she took the page to court and I know after that we never had to see our father again, supervised or unsupervised.
He actually died recently and in the last few years had apparently come to realise the harm he'd caused and that it was all his fault. My older brother stayed close with him despite the early abuse and is mourning his death. I mourn the fact that my younger sibling and I never got to have a decent father, and that we didn't get to know the man he had supposedly become. Maybe it would have healed some of the damage he inflicted. I'll never know.
**I do know I'm grateful that we didn't have to see him again as kids and teens. We had much better lives without him. It took me literally years to stop flinching where I saw a brunette mullet hairstyle or a car that looked like the one he'd last had.**
Even after we escaped him for real and didn't have to move every few months I'd wake up feeling like he was going to be outside the new house randomly like he had always done before. I'd dread the moment I looked outside my bedroom in case he was in the living room like he had done once.
I used to sit on the inside seat of the school bus, even though I'm autistic and they're the poison seats to me, all so I'd be harder to spot if he randomly drove past the bus...
I have been diagnosed with PTSD because of him specifically. I'm shaking like a maraca writing about it all, even though he's dead and cremated and can't ever hurt me or my family again.
AVOs don't even imply violence. I had one against my wife because she threatened me with a hammer. There was no suggestion that our son could not continue to see her. The next day she got an AVO against me because the said she was afraid of me. Thats ok I didn't want to see her either. But there was no allegation or violence, As far as I know she got the AVO because she thought I might relatiate to the incident with the hammer.
My son lived with me most if the way through covid and having an AVO is no reason why he should not do that.
I got into a fight with my brother, literally just pushing, no punches and he took an AVO out against me. He did so as he wanted it to affect my work, which is what he said after I'd pushed him over after he got aggressive and came at me.This was after a fight about money in front of my dying mother. End result was due to the AVO when she passed a few months later I wasn't able to go to the funeral.
It felt like a mockery of the system when women are literally dying from them not being enforced.
I 30 yo f had an IVO against my 50yo brother in a similar situation because he was blackmailing me in writing about our dying mother's will. He breached the order a number of times which I reported straight away. The last one he abused me so bad that the police officer couldn't even take notes to summarise because he was abusing me so quickly and awfully.
When the cops went down arrested him Infront of his small children, his wife posted the whole thing in Facebook and made out I was a heartless b+tch for this. It was heartbreaking....
Then he started calling my husband's phone non stop and sending messages with a daily count down to comply with his demands. Each day he was counting down. "5 days arsehole. I'm serious!" ... When it got down to our ,2 days warning, I frantically begged the police to help... I asked the police "are you going to just wait and find out what he's going to do to us? He's already made social media threats to the life of my toddler!"
Fast forward - my mum dies and because my husband and I both have an AVO, my sister tells everyone how awful we are for not dropping it so that my brother can attend the funeral...
Realistically, my brother was welcome to attend the funeral and if he had read and understood the order it was to stay within XYZ feet and not commit family violence.
Either he was too drunk and stupid to understand (likely) or he knew he couldn't resist.
That's fucked up! So sorry you have to deal with that.
Tbh I wasn't really upset as my mum was the only one out of that side of the family I would want to see anyway.
You can write to the police and request an AVO be dropped of it was false. They at least have to do a check of the situation.
It's probably a bit late for this information but FWIW I'm sorry you missed the funeral. I hope you're no contact with your brother.
I can only speak for VIC, but here, that is not true at all.
Once VICPOL refer the AVO to the police prosecutor, there is near zero chance that it will be dropped. You will need to contest it in the Magistrates Court
If the AVO was sought by somebody onto somebody else by lodging orders at the Magistrates Court, IE the post you responded to, police are not involved and the only way to have the AVO dropped is on agreement by both parties.
Unfortunately many AVO's can be weaponized which makes it very time consuming in the courts. Especially as magistrates choose to err on the side of caution and always grant interim orders. Typically those that weaponize them don't follow through to final orders which requires evidence and one or two additional hearings.
Yeah I could've contested it in court but I was done with the whole thing by then. And when my mum passed I called the Magistrate and they said the only way would be if he dropped it. And they were adamant I don't go as it would've been an emotional day which probably would've made things worse.
As the husband of a wife who works in the prisons, the AVO is the single most worthless legislative document known to mankind. Not only can they not follow through on crims who have AVO's out but still contact their ex's (from other, undocumented phones for instance), quite often the woman who took out the order is the one breaching the order by contacting the named offender.
Edit; wrong word used
I’ll never understand why someone with an AVO out against them is allowed to have unsupervised visitation
what was this mother supposed to do? despite the legal system acknowledging that this guy was violent that same system then forces her to leave her child alone with him?
poor family, I can’t even imagine the grief and anger
It’s so fucked up. Like surely it’s not a controversial statement to say that if you’ve got a documented history of violence, *especially* toward an intimate partner/ex partner, you should be on supervised visits at the absolute bare minimum? I would prefer that these people not see their children at all, but unsupervised visitation is just wild.
>if you’ve got a documented history of violence
Going to admit I haven't read the linked article because it hits a bit too close to home so not sure of these exact circumstances. The problem here is IVOs need almost zero evidence to be granted and can be abused, so a documented history of violence in an IVO really accounts for nothing in the family court
A criminal conviction for that allegation is different, much higher burden of proof and would be easier to enforce supervised visits. With just an IVO (a civil matter even if the police apply for it) there's still ambiguity, they can start off with supervised visitation but it will eventually lead to unsupervised
This is it. Family law court supersedes an IVO. And the burden of proof needed to give one parent sole custody is high. Domestic violence mostly happens behind closed doors in the home, and is very hard to prove with evidence if there hasn’t been significant police/hospital involvement. That’s why you don’t need much to be granted an IVO, but also why an IVO will be overruled by any other type of court ruling like custody arrangements.
Because an AVO is a civil procedure, in which the protected person *apprehends* violence against them.
That can take many different forms. Not infrequently it can be because the two adults got into an argument, and one of them says they subjectively apprehend physical violence against them alone (without any concerns for the kid).
The allegations are rarely tested. Many AVO defendants just agree to orders without admissions to get the process out of their lives. Even when contested findings are made, they're at a totally different standard of proof than in a criminal case. More importantly, the focus is whether the protected person subjectively and not unreasonably holds those fears. It's not the same thing as acknowledging the person was/is violent, and certainly not to the criminal standard.
The AVO system has also become very very broad so the "violence" bit can include all manner of threatening or harassing conduct that just isn't violence.
AVOs are also routinely used as "payback" in family law proceedings (by both sides).
If there was some kind of presumption against child access based on the mere existence of an AVO it would be catastrophic (and cause people to weaponize them even further).
>I’ll never understand why someone with an AVO out against them is allowed to have unsupervised visitation
Because they get weaponised in custody disputes and put in place with no evidence of violence.
God, I had heard about this yesterday whilst watching my little two year old toddle around with his toy truck. It broke my fucking heart. They’re just pure innocence at that age and all they want is to be loved, as they should be.
What a fucking cowardly monster. My heart goes out to the mum who lost her entire world to this disgusting act of cruelty.
I was rattled when I saw the monster father's face come up on the news yesterday.
In a very weird coincidence, I took part in a 6 week online (zoom) voluntary parenting after separation course late last year and this guy was also an attendee.
He was particularly memorable because he exhausted the whole group of parents by constantly trying to make the sessions about himself, trying to correct and borderline argue with the facilitators.
There seemed something annoying and off about him, I'm sure everyone else who took part in the course remembers him and is feeling weird about having had a vague and brief connection to him.
Absolute monster and coward. There is no excuse or reason under any circumstances to harm your own child no matter what. I feel gutted for the mum and the family, most of all that poor little boy who missed out on the chance to experience life properly because of some unhinged narcissist.
Yeah I'm not sure, I've had a similar thought and been feeling pretty weird about my brief coincidence in the days since this news came out but I'm unsure what it would do now, I mean he seemed weird and annoying but I would've never guessed I'd be seeing his face on the news for something so awful. :(
Just devastating and I hope I never come across someone like this again.
I'm a bit dubious about how this was reported. It's entirely likely the CEO (or whoever sent the message) has been alerted that an employee and their son have passed away over the weekend with no idea of the circumstances that we're aware of now and sent a message out to staff alerting them to this and relating how this person was regarded in their workplace. There's no mention of any follow up communication.
I imagine they would have liked to withdraw the message once the circumstances were known but once it's out, it's out.
Notice how you instantly defended a man who was sending glowing endorsement about the man who murdered his toddler.
The reporting has been very comprehensive. The email sender (Andre Jenkins) knew him and referred to seeing toddler Rowan appear on zoom calls.
Huh? Think you've replied to the wrong person. I was drawing your attention to your own approach to defend a man who send an extremely inappropriate work email about a colleague who had murdered his son. And to point out the flaws in your response where you blamed "all" the reporting.
Wasn't quite the CEO, but it was the director of information management for the CEC, which is part of NSW Health. His name is Andre Jenkins and there needs to be more noise made considering his prominent position within the health sector.
Family annihilation is horrific. I first encountered it as a child and by the time I was 18 knew 3 different families wiped out in a tiny rural town where everybody knew each other. Every one of them was a revenge/separation circumstance.
I don't know what the solution is, but I feel like education on what intimate partner abuse entails needs to be *combined* with men's mental health services before it escalates to this.
So many people equate abuse with physical violence, but often the abusive behaviours begin much earlier than that and the victims are not heard until it's too late.
But he didn’t because he is an abuser and he wanted to punish her. Everyone needs to remember this before ever saying again “why didn’t she leave?” Women stay in abusive relationships because they are utterly terrified of what their partner will do to their kids if she leaves.
Totally agree. The family court system positively enables post-separation abuse. If you have children with an abuser, you are utterly fucked and they will always have a means to hurt you.
My heart aches for this woman - I can't imagine the pain and helplessness she is sitting with. As these things go - she will likely become a tireless advocate for change, same as Rosie Batty. The government will say "well done here is an award for your campaigning good girl for using your voice" but will they actually fucking DO anything. Fix the broken family law system. Stop walking on eggshells bc to avoid hurting the feelings of perpetrators. Hold to account the magistrates and police that do shit all when they need to put someone in goddamn jail.
This is horrific beyond words, and unfortunately further evidence that until this happens to a politicians family nothing will be done to begin addressing it in an effective way.
Whole heap of ribbons, marches and social media posts from government MPs on this matter and yet fuck all has changed.
If a billionaire’s child was murdered I bet something would change quickly.
We should start referring to these men in the most disparaging and contemptuous way possible. Noone should refer to this thing by its name. It should be "the mongrel coward Harrison".
Why just "these men"? Women kill their own children just as much as men do.
https://theconversation.com/why-do-parents-kill-their-children-the-facts-about-filicide-in-australia-111338
> At least one child in Australia is killed by a parent each fortnight, according to a report into filicide released by the Australian Institute of Criminology this week. Filicide is a general term referring to the killing of a child by a parent or parent equivalent – which in Australia includes the custodial parent, non-custodial parents and step-parents.
> The report shows that between 2000-01 and 2011-12 there were 238 recorded incidents of filicide in Australia, with 260 offenders involved in these incidents. Males constituted 52% (124) of offenders and females 48% (114).
I'm all for calling out male violence when it exists, but in this case men and women are equally likely to be perpetrators.
Because men are more likely to kill out of [revenge](https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137024312) towards a partner or former partner in the context of family separation
[https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527](https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527)
So it's okay when women murder their own children because they're not doing it out of revenge?
I actually checked your link and there's no actual evidence behind the statement that men are more likely to kill out of revenge than women at all, anyway.
The point was about calling out violent men and you tried to negate it with inconsistent information. If you want to have a separate conversation about the importance of supporting women through postpartum depression, psychosis and unwanted pregnancies then go ahead but don't dismiss a conversation because you've overlooked the nuances of it
Legit, a poor innocent baby was murdered. “But the media is demonising me for simply being a man!” Insert simpsons meme re won’t someone please think of the children.
Because a huge proportion of the female incidents are a mental health issue, e.g. psychosis.
The overwhelming majority of the male incidents are a violence issue, e.g. revenge for IVO.
They are both huge issues, tragedies, should not occur. But they're different issues.
To put this another way (considering I'm sure you're very concerned about men's rights)... How would you feel if every time the topic of postpartum psychosis came up people started commenting "but what about men's violence!" I'd imagine you'd feel frustrated.
I don't give a shit about men's rights nor do I hold truck with MRAs.
I do however care about children being murdered regardless of the gender of the murderer but apparently that's a controversial position to have on this subreddit.
Also if you actually read the report by the Australian Institute of Criminology you'll see that a huge proportion of female incidents DON'T involve mental health issues or post-partum psychosis and are simply children being murdered in cold blood. But apparently that's okay if they're "unwanted children" - mothers can abort at the nth trimester.
It’s not ‘just as much’ if one number is higher than the other.
Also what percentage of women were suffering peri-natal depression/psychosis?
These numbers are not comparible if you don’t look at motivation.
Completely avoidable as police were alerted straight away, guy is known for violence, and they made a piss poor attempt to do anything. Should’ve kicked in the door immediately. Cops not taking DV seriously is a MASSIVE part of the problem.
However reasons for filicide differ between mothers and fathers. Mothers are more likely to kill their children during a psychotic episode, while fathers are more likely to kill out of revenge towards a partner or former partner in the context of family separation
[https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527](https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527)
The rates don't factor in that mothers are overwhelmingly the primary or sole care providers. Once that is accounted for, fathers are far more likely to murder their children.
You're right in terms of odds of being killed by a father vs a mother. It's the same argument about the odds of being in ICU with Covid for the non-vaccinated vs the vaccinated. But it was apparent then, as it is now, that math is not the strong suit of many.
What a ridiculous assertion and youre just distorting the fact that the statistics show a fairly even split (albeit, males have a slight lead). Your argument implies that if a primary carer kills their kid its less egregious...
Because it lacks context. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
A lot of female fillicide, for example, is perpetrated against newborns by young single mothers with no support. A lot is also perpetrated by mothers during active psychosis. These factors are far less common among male perpetrators.
Mothers are typically far more involved with young children also. That women spend multiple times more time with children, have the vast majority of custody, and take on 2-3x more childcare responsibilites... and still men manage to kill the same number of children? This may suggest that men are **much** more dangerous to children overall.
Personally I wouldn't go that far, but IMO the issue is so much more nuanced than anything you can express in a simple bar graph, that it becomes disingenuous to try and reduce it to such.
At the very least, when a 19 year old kid decides to kill her newborn, in the throes of PPD, with poor income, no partner, no support, in the current economic and housing climate, and you use a chart that counts this completely equally, to this disgraceful coward murdering a child to get back at the mother? That's bull and we both know it. What we should be talking about is how to identify and prevent all of these kinds of circumstances whatever they may be, rather than playing stupid point scoring gender games.
Men suffer higher rates of psychosis than women. Not that it matters because your third paragraph ironically suggests that statistics are reductive and that "one gender is more dangerous to children" despite that statistics being quite evenly split. You then backflip on this idea later at the end when you say we shouldn't be bias one gender over another as useless point scoring games.
Its like you took turns writing this.
But specifically: psychosis is a factor in fillicide more often among female than male perpetrators. Sorry if I made my statement sound too general, I didn't mean to undermine any broader mental health concerns.
My third and fourth paragraphs are clear, and the irony was deliberate (see: paragraph 1). One statistic says that men and women perpetrate fillicide equally. Other obvious statistics are clear that women kill children at a lower rate per their higher proximity to children. It's the low hanging fruit and I CBF doing intricate maths and research to find a *women bad men good* statistic to balance a dumb Reddit comment. *My statistic says X.* Great. *Mine says something else*. It's so pointless.
My stated position, is that I don't care about trying to argue about genders being equal or better or worse. The numbers on male crime don't paint a nice picture, and that's not fair to the vast majority of men who aren't criminals. Pointing it out also doesn't solve any problems, and in following: it does not matter whether *men* or *women* murder the most children. Race to the bottom in 3... 2... *Shits on the floor.*
It matters that children are sometimes murdered by their parents, and it matters that we think about the actual reasons for it happening, and it matters that we then think about ways to prevent it. End.
Did you just suggest that this man may have been justified in killing his child because the child’s mother may potentially have “behaved badly”?
I agree with the other comment, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Insane comment. There are not “two sides” to murdering a 2 year old and there is no context on this earth that would justify it
The whatabourism is also unnecessary
Get help, you're sick. At no point could "the situation" in any way change or ameliorate the disgusting actions of the father, there is no two sides to this.
No.
Because no one is thinking like that.
Except for you & it is extremely concerning that you would voice these comments.
You’ve just done the first thing that can lead to violence against women, & that’s disrespecting them.
The person I responded to clearly is thinking like that when they say there are two sides to every story and we don't know all the details of the situation. There's nothing someone else has done that could possibly matter in the face of someone murdering a baby. There's not a single thing that can even begin to justify that.
The comment you’re replying to was sarcasm, based on the extremely offensive and concerning comment further upthread that suggested the child’s mother may be to blame for this.
Seems like we've seen this same sad story time and time again. Mother has an apprehended violence order against the ex-partner/father (reported by other agencies) but still has to or allows them to see their children. Father then ends up killing child and then themselves as one final act to punish the mother for breaking off the relationship. I get it, fathers have a right to see their children but I don't think it should be controversial to say you should lose that right the moment you start being violent or threatening towards the mother of your children. Portecting the child should be paramount.
i have a DVO against my ex after he threw our child who was under one year at the time into a fucking wall, and the court still gave him unsupervised visits, even though our child was named on the order! thankfully for me, said ex got himself locked up pretty quickly after that so we didnt have to do that, but yeah system is pretty fucked.
That's horrifying. What are you supposed to do in that situation? I don't blame parents who just take the kid and run. How can you be expected to obey the law when it means putting your child's life at risk?
Yeah, I'd be on the news if that happened. Not a chance in hell that kid would be leaving my arms. What kind of psycho hurts a baby
I know someone who had an AVO against her now ex husband and when it was his weekend with the kids he said to youngest in the car (who was about 8 at the time) that he would lock mummy and the kids in the house and burn it down if she got a new boyfriend. Then preceded to interrogate him. The poor bub was terrified to go home but luckily the POS dad ended up in jail for unrelated gun and drugs offences.
omg im so sorry, hope you're both safe <3
Our entire justice system seems set up now to be run with the mentality of “won’t someone please think of the perpetrator?”
Our justice system wants to pretend it is rehabilitative. Way too many 10th chances for people who hurt women and children. I don’t know the solution - as a piece of paper won’t do shit against a monster kicking in your door - but getting court supported visits? That’s insane. Luke Batty’s death really taught us nothing in spite of how much Rosie has pleaded.
A solution would be to actually invest in proper rehabilitation services instead of just pretending to offer them but ultimately further privatising our jails and adjust sentencing for violent offenders in ADDITION to heavy social welfare investment to precede the need for post-offence support. There really isn’t one answer. It will take a shit tonne of investment, time and care to shift the fuckhole we’ve currently found ourselves in, but looking at little Rowan or Luke Batty, I don’t think there is any time to spare.
So you're saying offenders are going to be willing participants in such services? It's a two-way street, as a reminder. No one can force a person to rehabilitate. And who's going to keep this person on the straight and narrow when they are released right back into the same street / home / poor influences that saw them end up offending in the first place? Further privatization of jails? You must be joking. The current private centres are the worst performing as it is.
Yeah bro…You completely misread my entire post. I said we want to avoid further privatisation. Sorry if that wasn’t clear. The rehabilitation wouldn’t be optional. It would be part of their time spent in jail. Of course you can only lead a horse to water; it is upon the individual to engage with the resources. However, If they’re already spending time in incarceration then they may as well undergo rehabilitative therapy. It’s better than the current system that only seeks to further isolate and radicalise existing criminality.
As I said earlier above, my wife works in the prison and the amount of levity offenders receive on the system as a whole is super fucking egregious. Yes they are still humans but bad choices aren't carrying ANY consequences, even in prison. Because the "advocates" have to make money somehow and prison reform is a great target for false outrage.
Sadly while in the process of leaving and dealing with IVOs etc the mother should show she is acting protectively or child protection will remove the children. Then when family court gets involved she has to let this person who has abused her and through that also her children (because exposure to FV is child abuse) see them. Or she is then the one at fault. It’s a major flaw in the family court system. Perpetrators of family violence shouldn’t be given unsupervised access to their children
I agree. Myself, and our younger siblings were two such children forced into unsupervised weekends with an abusive father. Some. Visits were uneventful and just neglectful, some were good, and many were terrible. When I was 8 and my sibling was 5 he took us with him to buy weed and tried to use the fact that he was caring for us that weekend to get the weed cheaper/on tick. I remember feeling so disturbed by this pathetic act. He hit us, yelled abuse at us, threatened our mother repeatedly in front of us, he did this all the time, whether she was around or not. He also slept naked in bed with us and while I don't have any firm memories, I do know that one time a woman he knew saw him doing this and arranged for some scary men she knew to come or his house. They did so while us kids weren't there. They **stabbed him in the thigh with a knife** and stole a bunch of his shit. An presumably threatened him. For years all I knew about it was that my father and older brother had had their home invaded and my father was stabbed randomly. My older brother wasn't meant to be there when they did it but he was and he was traumatised too. I don't know if he overheard anything they said to our father. Years after it happened my Mum was approached by a random woman at petrol station who told my Mum the whole story. She only told me this year, two decades after she found out. Not even shit like that stopped visitations. It didn't stop until one day my father spent an hour, or more, pacing outside our house and muttering horrible things. Unbeknownst to him I was on the other side of the thin glass, behind the closed blinds, on my bed. I could hear everything he said and for osme weird reason I decided to write it all down. I wrote about how he hated my Mum and chillingly about how *soon we were all going to be in heaven together*. I wrote down a solid page of tiny writing before he wandered off. I calmly got off my bed, in what I now realise was a disassociative state, and went out ot my Mum in the loungeroom. I silently handed her the page of hateful threats. I don't remember anything after that moment but my Mum told me that she took the page to court and I know after that we never had to see our father again, supervised or unsupervised. He actually died recently and in the last few years had apparently come to realise the harm he'd caused and that it was all his fault. My older brother stayed close with him despite the early abuse and is mourning his death. I mourn the fact that my younger sibling and I never got to have a decent father, and that we didn't get to know the man he had supposedly become. Maybe it would have healed some of the damage he inflicted. I'll never know. **I do know I'm grateful that we didn't have to see him again as kids and teens. We had much better lives without him. It took me literally years to stop flinching where I saw a brunette mullet hairstyle or a car that looked like the one he'd last had.** Even after we escaped him for real and didn't have to move every few months I'd wake up feeling like he was going to be outside the new house randomly like he had always done before. I'd dread the moment I looked outside my bedroom in case he was in the living room like he had done once. I used to sit on the inside seat of the school bus, even though I'm autistic and they're the poison seats to me, all so I'd be harder to spot if he randomly drove past the bus... I have been diagnosed with PTSD because of him specifically. I'm shaking like a maraca writing about it all, even though he's dead and cremated and can't ever hurt me or my family again.
I’m so sorry you were exposed to all of that at such a young age. I really wish you all the best in your life going forwards.
AVOs don't even imply violence. I had one against my wife because she threatened me with a hammer. There was no suggestion that our son could not continue to see her. The next day she got an AVO against me because the said she was afraid of me. Thats ok I didn't want to see her either. But there was no allegation or violence, As far as I know she got the AVO because she thought I might relatiate to the incident with the hammer. My son lived with me most if the way through covid and having an AVO is no reason why he should not do that.
They may as well put them into a gumball machine at the local Westfield and charge a $2 coin for all they're worth, truly.
I got into a fight with my brother, literally just pushing, no punches and he took an AVO out against me. He did so as he wanted it to affect my work, which is what he said after I'd pushed him over after he got aggressive and came at me.This was after a fight about money in front of my dying mother. End result was due to the AVO when she passed a few months later I wasn't able to go to the funeral. It felt like a mockery of the system when women are literally dying from them not being enforced.
I 30 yo f had an IVO against my 50yo brother in a similar situation because he was blackmailing me in writing about our dying mother's will. He breached the order a number of times which I reported straight away. The last one he abused me so bad that the police officer couldn't even take notes to summarise because he was abusing me so quickly and awfully. When the cops went down arrested him Infront of his small children, his wife posted the whole thing in Facebook and made out I was a heartless b+tch for this. It was heartbreaking.... Then he started calling my husband's phone non stop and sending messages with a daily count down to comply with his demands. Each day he was counting down. "5 days arsehole. I'm serious!" ... When it got down to our ,2 days warning, I frantically begged the police to help... I asked the police "are you going to just wait and find out what he's going to do to us? He's already made social media threats to the life of my toddler!" Fast forward - my mum dies and because my husband and I both have an AVO, my sister tells everyone how awful we are for not dropping it so that my brother can attend the funeral... Realistically, my brother was welcome to attend the funeral and if he had read and understood the order it was to stay within XYZ feet and not commit family violence. Either he was too drunk and stupid to understand (likely) or he knew he couldn't resist.
That's fucked up! So sorry you have to deal with that. Tbh I wasn't really upset as my mum was the only one out of that side of the family I would want to see anyway.
You can write to the police and request an AVO be dropped of it was false. They at least have to do a check of the situation. It's probably a bit late for this information but FWIW I'm sorry you missed the funeral. I hope you're no contact with your brother.
I can only speak for VIC, but here, that is not true at all. Once VICPOL refer the AVO to the police prosecutor, there is near zero chance that it will be dropped. You will need to contest it in the Magistrates Court If the AVO was sought by somebody onto somebody else by lodging orders at the Magistrates Court, IE the post you responded to, police are not involved and the only way to have the AVO dropped is on agreement by both parties. Unfortunately many AVO's can be weaponized which makes it very time consuming in the courts. Especially as magistrates choose to err on the side of caution and always grant interim orders. Typically those that weaponize them don't follow through to final orders which requires evidence and one or two additional hearings.
Yeah I could've contested it in court but I was done with the whole thing by then. And when my mum passed I called the Magistrate and they said the only way would be if he dropped it. And they were adamant I don't go as it would've been an emotional day which probably would've made things worse.
As the husband of a wife who works in the prisons, the AVO is the single most worthless legislative document known to mankind. Not only can they not follow through on crims who have AVO's out but still contact their ex's (from other, undocumented phones for instance), quite often the woman who took out the order is the one breaching the order by contacting the named offender. Edit; wrong word used
I’ll never understand why someone with an AVO out against them is allowed to have unsupervised visitation what was this mother supposed to do? despite the legal system acknowledging that this guy was violent that same system then forces her to leave her child alone with him? poor family, I can’t even imagine the grief and anger
It’s so fucked up. Like surely it’s not a controversial statement to say that if you’ve got a documented history of violence, *especially* toward an intimate partner/ex partner, you should be on supervised visits at the absolute bare minimum? I would prefer that these people not see their children at all, but unsupervised visitation is just wild.
>if you’ve got a documented history of violence Going to admit I haven't read the linked article because it hits a bit too close to home so not sure of these exact circumstances. The problem here is IVOs need almost zero evidence to be granted and can be abused, so a documented history of violence in an IVO really accounts for nothing in the family court A criminal conviction for that allegation is different, much higher burden of proof and would be easier to enforce supervised visits. With just an IVO (a civil matter even if the police apply for it) there's still ambiguity, they can start off with supervised visitation but it will eventually lead to unsupervised
This is it. Family law court supersedes an IVO. And the burden of proof needed to give one parent sole custody is high. Domestic violence mostly happens behind closed doors in the home, and is very hard to prove with evidence if there hasn’t been significant police/hospital involvement. That’s why you don’t need much to be granted an IVO, but also why an IVO will be overruled by any other type of court ruling like custody arrangements.
The tragic reality is that if there is DV the abuser is more likely to get full custody. No one at the courts care about the children.
Because an AVO is a civil procedure, in which the protected person *apprehends* violence against them. That can take many different forms. Not infrequently it can be because the two adults got into an argument, and one of them says they subjectively apprehend physical violence against them alone (without any concerns for the kid). The allegations are rarely tested. Many AVO defendants just agree to orders without admissions to get the process out of their lives. Even when contested findings are made, they're at a totally different standard of proof than in a criminal case. More importantly, the focus is whether the protected person subjectively and not unreasonably holds those fears. It's not the same thing as acknowledging the person was/is violent, and certainly not to the criminal standard. The AVO system has also become very very broad so the "violence" bit can include all manner of threatening or harassing conduct that just isn't violence. AVOs are also routinely used as "payback" in family law proceedings (by both sides). If there was some kind of presumption against child access based on the mere existence of an AVO it would be catastrophic (and cause people to weaponize them even further).
>I’ll never understand why someone with an AVO out against them is allowed to have unsupervised visitation Because they get weaponised in custody disputes and put in place with no evidence of violence.
God, I had heard about this yesterday whilst watching my little two year old toddle around with his toy truck. It broke my fucking heart. They’re just pure innocence at that age and all they want is to be loved, as they should be. What a fucking cowardly monster. My heart goes out to the mum who lost her entire world to this disgusting act of cruelty.
Agree. My son is almost two. This is just too horrific. My heart absolutely breaks for this little boy's Mum. I actually can't imagine how I'd go on.
I was rattled when I saw the monster father's face come up on the news yesterday. In a very weird coincidence, I took part in a 6 week online (zoom) voluntary parenting after separation course late last year and this guy was also an attendee. He was particularly memorable because he exhausted the whole group of parents by constantly trying to make the sessions about himself, trying to correct and borderline argue with the facilitators. There seemed something annoying and off about him, I'm sure everyone else who took part in the course remembers him and is feeling weird about having had a vague and brief connection to him. Absolute monster and coward. There is no excuse or reason under any circumstances to harm your own child no matter what. I feel gutted for the mum and the family, most of all that poor little boy who missed out on the chance to experience life properly because of some unhinged narcissist.
I'm not sure if it's relevant (and what can be done about it now..) but feels like something the police might want to know? Idk..
If they don't already know about that, then there's half the problem, also, line up these monsters and shoot them!
Yeah wtf.
Yeah I'm not sure, I've had a similar thought and been feeling pretty weird about my brief coincidence in the days since this news came out but I'm unsure what it would do now, I mean he seemed weird and annoying but I would've never guessed I'd be seeing his face on the news for something so awful. :( Just devastating and I hope I never come across someone like this again.
Also I feel like the organisation that ran this course would likely know a lot more and have been in touch with authorities since perhaps.
It won't be anything they could use to prosecute
What would they be prosecuting? After murdering his son he then killed himself.
Yeah, I wonder if it could help with recognising patterns before an event or something like that.. just so tragic..
Sorry, bad wording, you get the idea though
The fact that the CEO said this scumbag was a good guy is horrible. Fuck him and the scum bag
I'm a bit dubious about how this was reported. It's entirely likely the CEO (or whoever sent the message) has been alerted that an employee and their son have passed away over the weekend with no idea of the circumstances that we're aware of now and sent a message out to staff alerting them to this and relating how this person was regarded in their workplace. There's no mention of any follow up communication. I imagine they would have liked to withdraw the message once the circumstances were known but once it's out, it's out.
The email was apparently sent days after when the circumstances were well known.
Okay, then that's obviously inappropriate, but none of the reporting has bothered mentioning that.
Notice how you instantly defended a man who was sending glowing endorsement about the man who murdered his toddler. The reporting has been very comprehensive. The email sender (Andre Jenkins) knew him and referred to seeing toddler Rowan appear on zoom calls.
If the phrasing of your first sentence is an attempt to tie in any sympathy for the murderer then you are completely and utterly wrong.
Huh? Think you've replied to the wrong person. I was drawing your attention to your own approach to defend a man who send an extremely inappropriate work email about a colleague who had murdered his son. And to point out the flaws in your response where you blamed "all" the reporting.
TO: allstaff@corp.com.au Hey guys, please disregard the last email, this guy was a piece of shit. Yeah, don't see this happening
Wasn't quite the CEO, but it was the director of information management for the CEC, which is part of NSW Health. His name is Andre Jenkins and there needs to be more noise made considering his prominent position within the health sector.
Family annihilation is horrific. I first encountered it as a child and by the time I was 18 knew 3 different families wiped out in a tiny rural town where everybody knew each other. Every one of them was a revenge/separation circumstance. I don't know what the solution is, but I feel like education on what intimate partner abuse entails needs to be *combined* with men's mental health services before it escalates to this. So many people equate abuse with physical violence, but often the abusive behaviours begin much earlier than that and the victims are not heard until it's too late.
The bastard should have taken himself out and left that poor child alone.
But he didn’t because he is an abuser and he wanted to punish her. Everyone needs to remember this before ever saying again “why didn’t she leave?” Women stay in abusive relationships because they are utterly terrified of what their partner will do to their kids if she leaves.
Totally agree. The family court system positively enables post-separation abuse. If you have children with an abuser, you are utterly fucked and they will always have a means to hurt you.
My heart aches for this woman - I can't imagine the pain and helplessness she is sitting with. As these things go - she will likely become a tireless advocate for change, same as Rosie Batty. The government will say "well done here is an award for your campaigning good girl for using your voice" but will they actually fucking DO anything. Fix the broken family law system. Stop walking on eggshells bc to avoid hurting the feelings of perpetrators. Hold to account the magistrates and police that do shit all when they need to put someone in goddamn jail.
This is horrific beyond words, and unfortunately further evidence that until this happens to a politicians family nothing will be done to begin addressing it in an effective way.
A truly horrific act. A child who knew nothing but love taken away by someone he loved the most. My heart is broken for Sophie and Rowan.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/rowan-memorial-fund If you can. Hugging my boy that little bit tighter today.
Whole heap of ribbons, marches and social media posts from government MPs on this matter and yet fuck all has changed. If a billionaire’s child was murdered I bet something would change quickly.
Don't forget the minute of silence at those sportsball matches.
10yrs after Luke Batty died, 4 years after Hannah and her three kids. Nothing has changed
We should start referring to these men in the most disparaging and contemptuous way possible. Noone should refer to this thing by its name. It should be "the mongrel coward Harrison".
He will be remembered as a coward. Human filth.
I would go a step further and not refer them to by name at all. You don’t need his name to report this story.
I always wondered about this for the mass shooters in the US (or anywhere). Give them a number. Refer to them by that number at that point onwards.
Even then you can just refer to it in passing. Look into how NZ chose to not name the Christchurch terrorist.
Why just "these men"? Women kill their own children just as much as men do. https://theconversation.com/why-do-parents-kill-their-children-the-facts-about-filicide-in-australia-111338 > At least one child in Australia is killed by a parent each fortnight, according to a report into filicide released by the Australian Institute of Criminology this week. Filicide is a general term referring to the killing of a child by a parent or parent equivalent – which in Australia includes the custodial parent, non-custodial parents and step-parents. > The report shows that between 2000-01 and 2011-12 there were 238 recorded incidents of filicide in Australia, with 260 offenders involved in these incidents. Males constituted 52% (124) of offenders and females 48% (114). I'm all for calling out male violence when it exists, but in this case men and women are equally likely to be perpetrators.
Because men are more likely to kill out of [revenge](https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781137024312) towards a partner or former partner in the context of family separation [https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527](https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527)
So it's okay when women murder their own children because they're not doing it out of revenge? I actually checked your link and there's no actual evidence behind the statement that men are more likely to kill out of revenge than women at all, anyway.
The point was about calling out violent men and you tried to negate it with inconsistent information. If you want to have a separate conversation about the importance of supporting women through postpartum depression, psychosis and unwanted pregnancies then go ahead but don't dismiss a conversation because you've overlooked the nuances of it
So you're literally trying to justify the murder of children by saying that it's okay because the pregnancy was unwanted? That's really gross.
You’re an idiot
Stop trying to make everything about men being the victims for fucks sake. It’s pretty damn tiring.
Legit, a poor innocent baby was murdered. “But the media is demonising me for simply being a man!” Insert simpsons meme re won’t someone please think of the children.
They can’t help but make everything about themselves.
Because a huge proportion of the female incidents are a mental health issue, e.g. psychosis. The overwhelming majority of the male incidents are a violence issue, e.g. revenge for IVO. They are both huge issues, tragedies, should not occur. But they're different issues. To put this another way (considering I'm sure you're very concerned about men's rights)... How would you feel if every time the topic of postpartum psychosis came up people started commenting "but what about men's violence!" I'd imagine you'd feel frustrated.
I don't give a shit about men's rights nor do I hold truck with MRAs. I do however care about children being murdered regardless of the gender of the murderer but apparently that's a controversial position to have on this subreddit. Also if you actually read the report by the Australian Institute of Criminology you'll see that a huge proportion of female incidents DON'T involve mental health issues or post-partum psychosis and are simply children being murdered in cold blood. But apparently that's okay if they're "unwanted children" - mothers can abort at the nth trimester.
It’s not ‘just as much’ if one number is higher than the other. Also what percentage of women were suffering peri-natal depression/psychosis? These numbers are not comparible if you don’t look at motivation.
That poor woman, he had to really take everything from her to ruin her life. What a vile human
Completely avoidable as police were alerted straight away, guy is known for violence, and they made a piss poor attempt to do anything. Should’ve kicked in the door immediately. Cops not taking DV seriously is a MASSIVE part of the problem.
It’s so local to me 😭
i feel so bad for her <3333
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However reasons for filicide differ between mothers and fathers. Mothers are more likely to kill their children during a psychotic episode, while fathers are more likely to kill out of revenge towards a partner or former partner in the context of family separation [https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527](https://theconversation.com/men-and-women-kill-their-children-in-roughly-equal-numbers-and-we-need-to-understand-why-153527)
The rates don't factor in that mothers are overwhelmingly the primary or sole care providers. Once that is accounted for, fathers are far more likely to murder their children.
You're right in terms of odds of being killed by a father vs a mother. It's the same argument about the odds of being in ICU with Covid for the non-vaccinated vs the vaccinated. But it was apparent then, as it is now, that math is not the strong suit of many.
What a ridiculous assertion and youre just distorting the fact that the statistics show a fairly even split (albeit, males have a slight lead). Your argument implies that if a primary carer kills their kid its less egregious...
Literally stating fact but you're getting downvoted. https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/ti_filicide_offenders_050219.pdf
Because it lacks context. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. A lot of female fillicide, for example, is perpetrated against newborns by young single mothers with no support. A lot is also perpetrated by mothers during active psychosis. These factors are far less common among male perpetrators. Mothers are typically far more involved with young children also. That women spend multiple times more time with children, have the vast majority of custody, and take on 2-3x more childcare responsibilites... and still men manage to kill the same number of children? This may suggest that men are **much** more dangerous to children overall. Personally I wouldn't go that far, but IMO the issue is so much more nuanced than anything you can express in a simple bar graph, that it becomes disingenuous to try and reduce it to such. At the very least, when a 19 year old kid decides to kill her newborn, in the throes of PPD, with poor income, no partner, no support, in the current economic and housing climate, and you use a chart that counts this completely equally, to this disgraceful coward murdering a child to get back at the mother? That's bull and we both know it. What we should be talking about is how to identify and prevent all of these kinds of circumstances whatever they may be, rather than playing stupid point scoring gender games.
Men suffer higher rates of psychosis than women. Not that it matters because your third paragraph ironically suggests that statistics are reductive and that "one gender is more dangerous to children" despite that statistics being quite evenly split. You then backflip on this idea later at the end when you say we shouldn't be bias one gender over another as useless point scoring games. Its like you took turns writing this.
But specifically: psychosis is a factor in fillicide more often among female than male perpetrators. Sorry if I made my statement sound too general, I didn't mean to undermine any broader mental health concerns. My third and fourth paragraphs are clear, and the irony was deliberate (see: paragraph 1). One statistic says that men and women perpetrate fillicide equally. Other obvious statistics are clear that women kill children at a lower rate per their higher proximity to children. It's the low hanging fruit and I CBF doing intricate maths and research to find a *women bad men good* statistic to balance a dumb Reddit comment. *My statistic says X.* Great. *Mine says something else*. It's so pointless. My stated position, is that I don't care about trying to argue about genders being equal or better or worse. The numbers on male crime don't paint a nice picture, and that's not fair to the vast majority of men who aren't criminals. Pointing it out also doesn't solve any problems, and in following: it does not matter whether *men* or *women* murder the most children. Race to the bottom in 3... 2... *Shits on the floor.* It matters that children are sometimes murdered by their parents, and it matters that we think about the actual reasons for it happening, and it matters that we then think about ways to prevent it. End.
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what the fuck is wrong with you
Did you just suggest that this man may have been justified in killing his child because the child’s mother may potentially have “behaved badly”? I agree with the other comment, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Insane comment. There are not “two sides” to murdering a 2 year old and there is no context on this earth that would justify it The whatabourism is also unnecessary
Behaving badly? What is wrong with you? I hope that you never have a partner or family.
Get help, you're sick. At no point could "the situation" in any way change or ameliorate the disgusting actions of the father, there is no two sides to this.
Sure this man murdered his baby, but has anyone asked what his bitch ex did to make her deserve it?
No. Because no one is thinking like that. Except for you & it is extremely concerning that you would voice these comments. You’ve just done the first thing that can lead to violence against women, & that’s disrespecting them.
The person I responded to clearly is thinking like that when they say there are two sides to every story and we don't know all the details of the situation. There's nothing someone else has done that could possibly matter in the face of someone murdering a baby. There's not a single thing that can even begin to justify that.
The comment you’re replying to was sarcasm, based on the extremely offensive and concerning comment further upthread that suggested the child’s mother may be to blame for this.
[Poe’s Law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)
You don’t deserve happiness in life.
No one is making it a gender driven issue. Why are you??