VIC FVIO - Directions Hearing - Am I required to negotiate at this hearing?

[SilverAngel]

FVIO - Directions Hearing....at the mention hearing, my ex husband asked to have our 16yo child removed from the FVIO applciation. I politely declined.

My question. At the directions hearing, I beleive the magistrate will ask if we have or will negotiate on this request. Am I required to explain why I do not wish to negotiate removing the child from the FVIO or will the magistrate accept a simple "No" and then move to a contested hearing?

Thank you for any guidance

 

[Atticus]

Since you seem to be representing yourself, I'm going to assume your daughter has not been included as a protected person by police or on the courts own initiative & that this FVIO is a private application by yourself.

It's unlikely a magistrate will be satisfied with just a simple "no" & will rightly require some grounds to support why your your daughter should not be able to continue some kind of a relationship with her father.

 

[SilverAngel]

@Atticus Thank you for replying.

Yes I can confirm I am self representing at this stage at least until we reach a contested hearing.

I thought as much, and will have a firm and valid response for the magistrate backed by evidence to support my stance.

For context. My ex found my adult dating profile online (obtained login details by hacking into my AppleID) that was quite detailed, including my sexual identity and sexual preferences. He has made many threats to share those details on social media and also share with our children aged 16 and 22.

He is hyper-focused and hell bent on telling our 16yo son. No child regardless of age needs to know this information about a parent.

Ex was also continually insisting to 16yo that he live with his father permanently (400km away) and this dominated every phone call or visit. This is not the childs wishes. This continued/repeated request gave child extreme anxiety/depression and panic attacks to the point that child has not attended school for most of the year, not attended his community activities and affected his casual job.
The father also continued to tell child that "I have information about your mother that you should know...and its not safe for you to live with her"

To add...the child knows of my sexual identity (both children actually know), is 100% supportive and told his father that it has no impact on either of them.

Since the interim FVIO was implemented, child has made significant progress in terms of mental health and returned to school Term 4 and has only missed 4 days due to illness.

So my stance on not wanting to negotiate to remove child from FVIO will be supported by this information regarding the significant change in mental health, just days after interim FVIO was impletmented. It was like a weight was taken off the child and he could relax, knowing dad was not going to be calling/texting and nagging about living arrangements or that won't have to have the aswkard conversation about his mothers sexual preferences.

I am hoping the above information is enough for the magistrate to agree to leave the child as a protected person on the order and allow it to move to the contested hearing.

 

[Atticus]

The threat to share personal & private details obtained by hacking your online profile with Anybody is serious. There are a range of conditions that a magistrate can include in an FVIO .... this could include specifically to not discuss or divulge certain things to anybody, including your son ... That may be an alternative to just a no contact at all condition, but you want to make it clear at directions that sharing your private information is damaging not only to you, but potentially your son & your relationship with him as well.

As far as permanent living arrangements & contact, I'm assuming there are no family court orders in relation to contact that compels you to make your son available, & at 16 years of age, his wishes around contact would be given a good deal of weight if orders were sought anyway.