Hello,
Sorry for the long post but I’ve been reading on here for a long time and working things out. I wanted to make background clear hence the long post, there are questions at the bottom. Even answering just one question could prove to be very helpful.
First I want to say thank you to people who provide this site and those who give help, etc. here. Have been looking for a couple months and has been very helpful.
I’ve read all about the best interests of the child and section 60 family law etc. Read a little of Jen McIntosh (don’t remember the spelling) as this case involves a baby. Read a bit about what I might expect at family court. Talked to a couple lawyers. Have spent huge hours researching information/examples on internet.
My story has all the usual bull*&% involved, I'm the father, have had child abuse claims put against me- proven unsubstantiated, interim ADVO against me with ex listed as PINOP (not children), am only allowed my ex to see my child while supervised and not allowed to see my stepdaughter. She is a manipulator and plays the victim very well.
We were together for 2 years.
I moved into her house a few months after we met and lived there for around a year and a half.
I was helping raise her daughter and her daughter knew me as her dad as she hadn't seen her biological father in a long time and didn't remember him (I know that sounds f*%$ed up now that I'm the guy who has had my kid withheld from me but I truly believed her stories that he was a very bad man and beat her etc... probably same stories she will tell people about me in the future).
After around 1.5 years together our son was born.
There were many arguments throughout our relationship and she had called the police probably at least once every 3-4 months but never accused me of being violent or anything, would just tell police we were arguing and I never really had my say, I'd just tell police yes we were arguing and I won’t be going back to see her tonight and didn't feel the need to go into it any further.
Yes I know I should have never stayed in the relationship but as they say 'you can’t be wise and in love' plus when times were bad I often stayed for our stepdaughter.
We seperated when our son was about 4 months old and I moved out of the house. I now live alone. Our son is now 8 months old.
After seperating I was only allowed to see the children if I went to her house but this lead to arguments as she was still angry with me and I didn’t want to have to be there and couldn’t understand why our son had now became her son.
When we lived together I had a very big part in looking after our son and step daughter, she worked a lot.
A few weeks after our seperation she rang me up and accused me of abusing our step-daughter- not exactly sexual abuse but it was a disgusting allegation which she never reported. i think she wanted to keep it up her sleeve for family court. I called police who wouldn’t investigate it but it was eventually investigated by child protection police and FACS and found to be unsubstantiated. She has made conflicting statements in regards to this allegation (after she was contacted) and other conflicting statements in her ADVO statement compared to other things she has told police when she has called them.
I am a primary school teacher.
I was still only allowed to see our son by going to my ex partners house while our stepdaughter was there, leaving me open to more false accusations.
Police were called a few times by her or her friends in the last couple months of our relationship when we would argue. She still maintains that I was never violent with her but after police took out an ADVO on her behalf she gave a statement saying she gets scared when we argue and frustrated that I don't let her speak. Told of a few things I do to 'control' her to. I got an interim ADVO as police were worried about the escalating behaviour - call frequency had increased as we were arguing about access to the children. Haven’t contacted her since. She has sent me messages, including one basically abusing me for going to police about her allegations.
ADVO includes comments from police who turned up for a few visits and said I was assertive, aggressive etc. towards them which I know isn’t good but I just felt a lot of stress and felt like everyone was against me and I had nor rights.... not rights to my child but in regards to police calls from her and accusations etc. I’d had some pretty shitty run ins with police due to her including, for example, the time when I called them to report her accusations of child abuse and one officer said ' what you just call the police anytime she says something you don’t like do you?' I found that quite shocking after all the times she’s allowed to call them because we argued and I already left the house to get away from it and i thought this was a very serious allegation towards a male and a school teacher.
I agreed to weekly 2 hour supervised visits with our baby son as this is all she will allow. Visits are going well but it’s a pretty disgusting feeling to finish a day at work, working unsupervised with 5-7 year old children as their classroom teacher only to then go and see my son after work at a contact centre with strangers supervising me with my own son.
She hasnt allowed me to catch up on missed visits which is against the contact centre's service agreement. She has also informed them the 2 hours is getting to be too much so she will be cutting it back to 2 hours a fortnight which means our son will be going 2 weeks without seeing his father between visits (he is 8 months old).
We began paying half of the $100 fee for the 2 hours, she later reduced her payment to 1/4 with me paying 3/4 as she "couldnt afford it". I have been informed that now that the visits will be reduced to only once a fortnight she will also no longer be paying any portion of the fee for supervised visits leaving me to pay in full for something she has no reasonable reason to force me into.
My family had offered to take my son to see me but they’re only allowed to see him if they go to her house or go to supervised visits with me. The AVO is not her excuse for kids not seeing me. I’ve asked to use drop off centre but she said she wants us in a "supported and supervised" environment.
We went through pre-mediation process but that was called off as it wasn’t considered suitable (I assume due to ADVO and child abuse claims).
I have lodged applications for interim and final orders and have first appearance in May. She has not yet been served. I will be self-represented but will be seeking lawyer’s advice along the way. She will be well represented I believe as she has a lot of disposable income. Didn't have much help with affidavit etc. from lawyer but looked up a lot of info online and took it partially finished to legal aid lawyer who I thought gave some unusual advice anyway other than to see a private lawyer which was good advice but unaffordable at the time.
I’m a school teacher.
She works 40-45 hrs+ from her home.
We live within 7-10 mins drive from each other.
I'm hoping to increase my time with my son until split custody 50/50 between his mother and myself.
Things I'm worried will affect interim orders at first hearing. The questions are in bold.
1) Agreeing to supervised visits sets a precedent or somehow implies I’m admitting I’m a danger to our son?
Judge might think in interim it is okay to continue 2 hour weekly supervised visits as its "working" now.
2) 'Status quo'? By time we're at court it will actually be 2 hours a fortnight and he might say that’s fine for interim?
Accusations of abuse of step-daughter. While these accusations have been shown to be unsubstantiated and I was told by FACS that the child couldnt say a bad thing about me I don’t know what this will mean in family court.
I will be getting info about these investigations by subpoena before our first court date to show it’s no longer an issue (I hope and believe it’s not an issue I mean).
FACS staff told me it won’t look good for her that she never reported it (off the record).
The principal at my school told me off the record that I had been cleared by the departments' performance and conduct committee as information that an investigation took place was passed to them by FACS and I continue to work unsupervised with young children.
3) Could it still be claimed by a magistrate that it may have happened?
at least in interim until her conflicting statements are seen at which point he'd assume she’s full of it?
or will magistrate take it as it didn't happen if police and FACS have closed their investigations?
Family violence/domestic violence.
She has not claimed any physical violence but claims she was scared when we would argue. I have many abusive texts from her and some video footage of her going off at me and throwing my things around and running at me and jumping on me to try and forcefully take my phone etc. I only started to film to protect myself. She has a lot of video footage of me yelling like a nut but never shows what happened before she started filming or why I’m acting that way.
Would've been like 8 arguments in front of baby since he was born but many in front of our stepdaughter. When did 2 adults arguing become family violence anyway? no need to answer that one
I don't think I know a couple I haven't seen argue.
On ADVO she claims I’ve never been violent to her and always been a good dad to our stepdaughter but she claims i pushed over her friend, an older heavier lady who would hurt herself just by falling over let alone being pushed. Police attended the scene this day after complaints from her friend that we were having a domestic argument but when police came they never mentioned me supposedly pushing her friend over.
I’m worried judge or her lawyer will say we argue too much to co-parent. We successfully co-parented her step daughter but that was when we were in a relationship.
4) Is it going to be an issue that we have both admitted to arguing in front of the children and having a 'rocky' relationship and I have an ADVO against me?
5) Will it look good/affect judge’s orders that supervised visits are going well and i have never missed one?
He knows me and is happy/content when with me during visits.
6) Will it look good/affect judge’s orders that she has missed visits without reasonable excuses and refuses to catch them up as per the service agreement we both signed? (signed voluntarily, not court ordered)
7) Will it look good/affect judge’s orders that she is cutting back these visits from weekly to fortnightly after 3 months of weekly visits?
8) If documents aren’t served to her until 10 days before first hearing is there a chance she could get adjournment of first date even if it’s within the allowed timeframe by FCC?
I don’t want to serve her papers earlier than necessary as I believe she will most likely stop visits with my son once she receives court papers.
I haven’t looked in to previous case law much yet. Unsure how to search specifically on Austlii for cases involving babies, abuse claims, ADVO situations etc.
Im confident in speaking and researching but wonder how much case law is going to effect this case. I realise all cases are different in family law and would hope that any case law that her lawyer knows, the judge would also know and he would be taking these precedents into account or is it up to me to point it out to him?
9) I realise its not the judge's job to do my job but would assume he would know most case law involving similar cases and would use this when deciding whats in the best interest of the child?
10) Will her lawyer be quoting case law at first hearing or can that only happen later?
11) What should i expect to happen/be said at first hearing?
I’ve never been in family court before.
Sorry for the long post but I’ve been reading on here for a long time and working things out. I wanted to make background clear hence the long post, there are questions at the bottom. Even answering just one question could prove to be very helpful.
First I want to say thank you to people who provide this site and those who give help, etc. here. Have been looking for a couple months and has been very helpful.
I’ve read all about the best interests of the child and section 60 family law etc. Read a little of Jen McIntosh (don’t remember the spelling) as this case involves a baby. Read a bit about what I might expect at family court. Talked to a couple lawyers. Have spent huge hours researching information/examples on internet.
My story has all the usual bull*&% involved, I'm the father, have had child abuse claims put against me- proven unsubstantiated, interim ADVO against me with ex listed as PINOP (not children), am only allowed my ex to see my child while supervised and not allowed to see my stepdaughter. She is a manipulator and plays the victim very well.
We were together for 2 years.
I moved into her house a few months after we met and lived there for around a year and a half.
I was helping raise her daughter and her daughter knew me as her dad as she hadn't seen her biological father in a long time and didn't remember him (I know that sounds f*%$ed up now that I'm the guy who has had my kid withheld from me but I truly believed her stories that he was a very bad man and beat her etc... probably same stories she will tell people about me in the future).
After around 1.5 years together our son was born.
There were many arguments throughout our relationship and she had called the police probably at least once every 3-4 months but never accused me of being violent or anything, would just tell police we were arguing and I never really had my say, I'd just tell police yes we were arguing and I won’t be going back to see her tonight and didn't feel the need to go into it any further.
Yes I know I should have never stayed in the relationship but as they say 'you can’t be wise and in love' plus when times were bad I often stayed for our stepdaughter.
We seperated when our son was about 4 months old and I moved out of the house. I now live alone. Our son is now 8 months old.
After seperating I was only allowed to see the children if I went to her house but this lead to arguments as she was still angry with me and I didn’t want to have to be there and couldn’t understand why our son had now became her son.
When we lived together I had a very big part in looking after our son and step daughter, she worked a lot.
A few weeks after our seperation she rang me up and accused me of abusing our step-daughter- not exactly sexual abuse but it was a disgusting allegation which she never reported. i think she wanted to keep it up her sleeve for family court. I called police who wouldn’t investigate it but it was eventually investigated by child protection police and FACS and found to be unsubstantiated. She has made conflicting statements in regards to this allegation (after she was contacted) and other conflicting statements in her ADVO statement compared to other things she has told police when she has called them.
I am a primary school teacher.
I was still only allowed to see our son by going to my ex partners house while our stepdaughter was there, leaving me open to more false accusations.
Police were called a few times by her or her friends in the last couple months of our relationship when we would argue. She still maintains that I was never violent with her but after police took out an ADVO on her behalf she gave a statement saying she gets scared when we argue and frustrated that I don't let her speak. Told of a few things I do to 'control' her to. I got an interim ADVO as police were worried about the escalating behaviour - call frequency had increased as we were arguing about access to the children. Haven’t contacted her since. She has sent me messages, including one basically abusing me for going to police about her allegations.
ADVO includes comments from police who turned up for a few visits and said I was assertive, aggressive etc. towards them which I know isn’t good but I just felt a lot of stress and felt like everyone was against me and I had nor rights.... not rights to my child but in regards to police calls from her and accusations etc. I’d had some pretty shitty run ins with police due to her including, for example, the time when I called them to report her accusations of child abuse and one officer said ' what you just call the police anytime she says something you don’t like do you?' I found that quite shocking after all the times she’s allowed to call them because we argued and I already left the house to get away from it and i thought this was a very serious allegation towards a male and a school teacher.
I agreed to weekly 2 hour supervised visits with our baby son as this is all she will allow. Visits are going well but it’s a pretty disgusting feeling to finish a day at work, working unsupervised with 5-7 year old children as their classroom teacher only to then go and see my son after work at a contact centre with strangers supervising me with my own son.
She hasnt allowed me to catch up on missed visits which is against the contact centre's service agreement. She has also informed them the 2 hours is getting to be too much so she will be cutting it back to 2 hours a fortnight which means our son will be going 2 weeks without seeing his father between visits (he is 8 months old).
We began paying half of the $100 fee for the 2 hours, she later reduced her payment to 1/4 with me paying 3/4 as she "couldnt afford it". I have been informed that now that the visits will be reduced to only once a fortnight she will also no longer be paying any portion of the fee for supervised visits leaving me to pay in full for something she has no reasonable reason to force me into.
My family had offered to take my son to see me but they’re only allowed to see him if they go to her house or go to supervised visits with me. The AVO is not her excuse for kids not seeing me. I’ve asked to use drop off centre but she said she wants us in a "supported and supervised" environment.
We went through pre-mediation process but that was called off as it wasn’t considered suitable (I assume due to ADVO and child abuse claims).
I have lodged applications for interim and final orders and have first appearance in May. She has not yet been served. I will be self-represented but will be seeking lawyer’s advice along the way. She will be well represented I believe as she has a lot of disposable income. Didn't have much help with affidavit etc. from lawyer but looked up a lot of info online and took it partially finished to legal aid lawyer who I thought gave some unusual advice anyway other than to see a private lawyer which was good advice but unaffordable at the time.
I’m a school teacher.
She works 40-45 hrs+ from her home.
We live within 7-10 mins drive from each other.
I'm hoping to increase my time with my son until split custody 50/50 between his mother and myself.
Things I'm worried will affect interim orders at first hearing. The questions are in bold.
1) Agreeing to supervised visits sets a precedent or somehow implies I’m admitting I’m a danger to our son?
Judge might think in interim it is okay to continue 2 hour weekly supervised visits as its "working" now.
2) 'Status quo'? By time we're at court it will actually be 2 hours a fortnight and he might say that’s fine for interim?
Accusations of abuse of step-daughter. While these accusations have been shown to be unsubstantiated and I was told by FACS that the child couldnt say a bad thing about me I don’t know what this will mean in family court.
I will be getting info about these investigations by subpoena before our first court date to show it’s no longer an issue (I hope and believe it’s not an issue I mean).
FACS staff told me it won’t look good for her that she never reported it (off the record).
The principal at my school told me off the record that I had been cleared by the departments' performance and conduct committee as information that an investigation took place was passed to them by FACS and I continue to work unsupervised with young children.
3) Could it still be claimed by a magistrate that it may have happened?
at least in interim until her conflicting statements are seen at which point he'd assume she’s full of it?
or will magistrate take it as it didn't happen if police and FACS have closed their investigations?
Family violence/domestic violence.
She has not claimed any physical violence but claims she was scared when we would argue. I have many abusive texts from her and some video footage of her going off at me and throwing my things around and running at me and jumping on me to try and forcefully take my phone etc. I only started to film to protect myself. She has a lot of video footage of me yelling like a nut but never shows what happened before she started filming or why I’m acting that way.
Would've been like 8 arguments in front of baby since he was born but many in front of our stepdaughter. When did 2 adults arguing become family violence anyway? no need to answer that one
On ADVO she claims I’ve never been violent to her and always been a good dad to our stepdaughter but she claims i pushed over her friend, an older heavier lady who would hurt herself just by falling over let alone being pushed. Police attended the scene this day after complaints from her friend that we were having a domestic argument but when police came they never mentioned me supposedly pushing her friend over.
I’m worried judge or her lawyer will say we argue too much to co-parent. We successfully co-parented her step daughter but that was when we were in a relationship.
4) Is it going to be an issue that we have both admitted to arguing in front of the children and having a 'rocky' relationship and I have an ADVO against me?
5) Will it look good/affect judge’s orders that supervised visits are going well and i have never missed one?
He knows me and is happy/content when with me during visits.
6) Will it look good/affect judge’s orders that she has missed visits without reasonable excuses and refuses to catch them up as per the service agreement we both signed? (signed voluntarily, not court ordered)
7) Will it look good/affect judge’s orders that she is cutting back these visits from weekly to fortnightly after 3 months of weekly visits?
8) If documents aren’t served to her until 10 days before first hearing is there a chance she could get adjournment of first date even if it’s within the allowed timeframe by FCC?
I don’t want to serve her papers earlier than necessary as I believe she will most likely stop visits with my son once she receives court papers.
I haven’t looked in to previous case law much yet. Unsure how to search specifically on Austlii for cases involving babies, abuse claims, ADVO situations etc.
Im confident in speaking and researching but wonder how much case law is going to effect this case. I realise all cases are different in family law and would hope that any case law that her lawyer knows, the judge would also know and he would be taking these precedents into account or is it up to me to point it out to him?
9) I realise its not the judge's job to do my job but would assume he would know most case law involving similar cases and would use this when deciding whats in the best interest of the child?
10) Will her lawyer be quoting case law at first hearing or can that only happen later?
11) What should i expect to happen/be said at first hearing?
I’ve never been in family court before.
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