Monday, February 19, 2007

Allegations of sexual abuse

Allegations of sexual abuse
The Affidavits of the my ex-partner and her mother contained allegations (strong insinuations) of sexual abuse by me toward my son. The insinuated allegations are false. Having such false allegations made against you is extremely distressing.

In my case I was very lucky to be able to demonstrate they were false. I imagine in many other cases fathers are not so fortunate. This is not to say that real cases of child abuse do not occur (by both mothers and fathers). However, we just tend to ignore the problem of mothers making false allegations with impunity.

My ex-partner agreed, during my cross-examination of her, that her allegations were very serious. I then asked why she had not raised these serious matters during her interview with the Child Psychologist who was writing the Family Report. She replied that she didn’t have enough time. I held up a copy of the Family Report which showed that the interview had lasted 1hr 45 mins. I would have pressured her to admit that she had fabricated the allegations except I was concerned the judge might think I was bullying her as it was already plain to everybody by her blushing and body language etc that she had lied, and in fact committed perjury. When the maternal grandmother later, in a rambling incoherent response to a question, began talking about sticking pencils up the bottom, the judge, thankfully, demanded that she only speak to what was in her Affidavit.

The judge, however, made no comment to my ex-partner for having committed perjury – not even a slap on the wrist.

I must say here that I am grateful that the Child Psychologist, Marilyn Venus, (a committed feminist), had obviously not prompted my ex-partner during the Family Report interview, or asked leading questions such as “have you ever been concerned about the father’s behaviour toward the child ?” I imagine the Child Psychologist had read the Affidavits prior to the interview. It shows that there does exist some level of integrity sometimes.

At this point I should also say that staff at the office counter of the Family Court (Cairns) were always friendly, patient, and made an effort to be helpful.

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