"Killer dads"

Hi All.

My letter to The Age in response to their article "Killer dads - why they do it" Oct 07 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/10/06/1191091425494.html

I have included the full article below.

I feel sure my letter will not get published.

I feel sure The Age is controlled by feminist editors and that this article is one small jigsaw piece in a conscious, covert and orchestrated feminist campaign to promote the negatve male stereotype in a fear campaign to stymie the movement for equal parenting time.The sexism and denial in this article are apparent. The sexism of the DV campaigns are also obvious.Am I paranoid ?

It is important to note that many many women who identify themselves as feminists support equal parenting time (I know because I have spent months collecting signatures for the F4E Petition, and talking to many women in the process).

But the radical feminists who control feminist/women's organisations and many senior positions in government and the media generally do not.

Cheers, Geoff

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The Age
Letters to the Editor
letters@theage.com.au

Preventing such murders

It is a shame that while your article emphasised the pathology of "killer dads" (Oct 7) - six per year, you could have also explored the pathology of "killer mums" - 13 a year by your own data.

And when you consider that 15 more children are killed by step-fathers, then it is apparent that children are 467% safer with their natural fathers. Why does the Family Court system then award residency to the mother in 80% of cases ?

More importantly your article didn't even raise the most likely reason for the Farquharson tragedy. Typically a father's chronic anger and frustration is due mainly to his restricted access to his own children, to losing most of his assets, and then being forced to pay Child Support to a mother who is often better off financially than the father (as in this case).

The Family Court system sets the stage for such tragedies.

A Presumption of Equal Parenting Time would dramatically reduce the incidence of suicide and murder associated with family separation, not to mention resolve the need for "custody battles".

Why does the government and media insist on avoiding discussion of this obvious option ?

Geoff Holland
Cairns, Qld
prism@optusnet.com.au
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Killer dads – why they do it

Fathers who murder their children exact the ultimate revenge on an estranged partner, writes Karen Kissane.

He is a bottler. He holds in his anger and other emotions. He might seem to be an easy-going, appeasing sort of man but he is what psychologists call "over-controlled", a person whose silent fuming might one day explode into violence.

Add to this a marriage break-up in which he is the spurned partner — and a new partner for his wife before he has adjusted to his changed circumstances — and the rage can fester into vengeful obsession.

"Obsession deprives people of a sense of proportion to such an extent that, in the end, they can countenance their own death and the death of others they love in pursuit of that obsession," says Professor Paul Mullen, psychiatrist and clinical director of Forensicare, the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health.

A man who has become obsessed with revenge against his partner and who is pathologically jealous of her can allow his children to become caught up in his delusions. His feelings about her fidelity can morph into doubts about the paternity of the children.

"Men may become convinced that the children are not theirs, and part of the killing of the children is the acting out of this rage at the (supposed) infidelity, and at being saddled with children who are 'not yours' when in fact they are yours," Mullen says.

The killing is also about destroying the whole relationship and the products of that relationship, he says. And it is payback against the woman who has rejected him, the children's mother.

"Apart from anything else, he's telling her essentially that she's responsible. This is one of the ways they get back: 'Look at what you've made me do."'This might be part of the answer to the question now being asked about Robert Farquharson: How could he do it?

A Supreme Court jury on Friday found that Farquharson deliberately drove his three boys, aged from two to 10, into a dam near Winchelsea on Father's Day 2005. His wife had left him 10 months earlier and had begun a relationship with another man.

Cindy Gambino told the court that her ex-husband had been a good father and was a "softie" who always agreed to do what she wanted over matters such as whether to have another baby.

The court was also told that Farquharson was angry about the break-up, child-support payments and the fact that his former wife had the better car and a new partner. One of his oldest friends said that a couple of months before the killings, Farquharson had spoken of an accident involving the children in which they would die, so that his former wife would suffer for the rest of her life. It would happen on a special day — such as Father's Day — so that she would be tormented every year on the anniversary, he allegedly said.

Farquharson pleaded not guilty. He claimed that he blacked out in a coughing fit and the car veered out of control and into the dam. He is yet to be sentenced, and his lawyer has said he will appeal against the verdict.

Dr Lynne Eccleston, director of the forensic psychology program at Melbourne University, says killing children "is the ultimate harm (angry men) can inflict on the woman that they think has wronged them, for whatever reason. It's a higher order of revenge, because the woman is left alive to deal with the grief — that is his intention.

"She says such men often have a detailed plan that they perfect over a long period, "working up to the time when they will finally take action".

The killings are often related to relationship breakdown. A man who has pre-existing emotional problems and poor coping skills can also become angry because he feels his rights as a father have been taken away.

Forensic psychologist Professor Bob Montgomery, of the University of the Sunshine Coast, says most men who try to kill their children have distorted thinking as a result of severe depression.

They believe they are failures and that they have failed their children. They see no way out other than suicide and taking the children with them so that they are not left to suffer further."In most cases, the guy tries to kill himself as well," he says.

Cases such as Farquharson's are much rarer. "If (a father is) just killing the children and making no attempt on himself, he has a different motivation, like, 'You took my kids away from me — well, I'm going to take my kids away from you,"' Montgomery says.

"That's a very much smaller group. They are sad reflections of the view that children are your possessions, your property, rather than people who have their own rights and interests."

A psychologist who had been treating Farquharson told the court that his depression had seemed to improve.

Montgomery says it is common for deeply depressed people who have decided upon suicide or murder to experience a lift in mood because, in their disordered minds, they believe they have a way out of their problems: "Now I know what to do, I don't feel so bad."

Cases such as Farquharson's arouse intense interest because they seem so rare and so unnatural as to be bizarre. In fact, says Mullen, they are not such an unusual form of homicide: "The commonest form of multiple killing is not serial killing, as you would think from watching the telly. It's family slaying — the man who kills his partner and his children."

It is also not uncommon for such a killer to have previously been viewed as a good parent.

"When you look at the mothers who do this, you often find they were noted by their friends and neighbours to be particularly caring, assiduous parents who spent more time with their children than other parents did."

Ten per cent of all Australian homicides involve children as victims. If the child is under six, the killer is most likely to be in the child's care network, says Ken Polk, professor of criminology at Melbourne University and co-author with Christine Alder of the book Child Victims of Homicide.

The most typical male killer of children is the batterer who attacks a step-child because he finds the child difficult, partly because he does not have reasonable expectations of the child's behaviour for his or her age.

Biological fathers are much less likely to kill their children, but this does happen in an emotional game in which "the child is a pawn — you sacrifice the pawn to get to the main piece, and that's the woman", Polk says.

For every man who goes on to kill, there are many more who carry an angry sense of grievance that makes them want to lash out.

"We get lots of calls from men who are very recently separated and hate the world and are furious at the perceived conspiracy against them," says Danny Blay, manager of No to Violence, the Male Family Violence Prevention Association.

"And we know that women and children are most at risk of violence from their former partner or father during the early stages of an acrimonious separation."

There are lots of men … who, for one reason or another, are in a place where they don't see a way out and are wanting to punish the people who they see as putting them in a predicament, rather than taking at least some responsibility for their predicament themselves and asking why it is that their partner wants to leave, or why they have been denied access to their children."At the same time, Blay says, most men who are violent within their family are mostly good people, aside from this aspect of their behaviour.

"They are not psychopaths. They form intimate relationships and have friends, they are engaged at work, members of the footy club."

In Farquharson's case, he confided his thoughts of murder to an old friend who did not believe he was serious and who is now tormented by what happened. What would Blay's advice be to anyone who finds themselves listening to a friend talking this way?

If a man is seething and looking for support, says Blay, accept his distress and express empathy for it. Ask him about his plans.

"Get them to name what's in their heads and what they are going to do." Has he thought about what he will do with the kids this weekend? What are his feelings for his children and what does he want for their futures — next week, next month, when they are 30?

"Convey to him that you are really concerned about him, his partner and his children. Let him know that you'd like to help him find a better way out of his situation — that there are always better alternatives to violence."

In talking it through, there is an opportunity for the man to realise that his plans are not just a short-term fix to make him feel better, but they will potentially have long-term consequences on the people he loves, and him.

Blay says that if, in talking to the man, you discover that he has developed a detailed plan to hurt anybody, "I would be ringing the police immediately and trying to contact the people who have been threatened. We must always prioritise the safety of people over any personal allegiance or loyalty we have to our friend, relative or client and, at the same time, we would be doing them an enormous favour (to report them)."

For telephone counselling, contact
Men's Referral Service, 9428 2899 or 1800 065 973 (free call).
Women's Domestic Violence Crisis Service,1800 015 188.
Lifeline, 13 11 14.

CHILD HOMICIDES 2005-06
35 children under 15 killed — 11 under 12 months.
92 per cent killed by a family member.
The killer is a parent in 32 out of 34 recorded family relationships.
13 homicides involve the mother killing her child and 21 are committed by male family members.

Only six of these men are custodial parents. Four are non-custodial parents and nine are step-parents of the child victim(s).

Source: Homicide in Australia: 2005-06 National Homicide Monitoring Program Annual Report, by Megan Davies and Jenny Mouzos, Australian Institute of Criminology

Family Court reforms

An article from the Age and my letter to the editor, which to my knowledge was not published. Do editors feel they have a community responsibility to publish the least number of letters concerning Equal Parenting and reform of the Family Court issues ?


The Age 26 April 2007

Taking some of the pain out of family breakdowns

THE Family Court has had a short but tumultuous history. Since its inception as part of the 1975 Family Law Act — initiated by Labor attorney-general Lionel Murphy with the aim of allowing failed marriages to end with dignity and minimum expense — the court has indeed simplified divorce proceedings, but it has also witnessed battles between parents, lawyers and judges, often with tragic consequences.

It has been described, with reason, as the most dangerous and violent court in the country. The most extreme clashes have resulted in death and serious injury. In the 1980s, Family Court judge David Opas was shot dead when he answered his doorbell; Pearl Watson, the wife of a second judge, died when a bomb exploded on her doorstep; and Judge Richard Gee was hurt in a bombing. Indeed, there have been numerous cases resulting in death or injury in violent episodes outside family courts around Australia.

While these incidents are tragic and deplorable, it is not surprising that the personal and financial devastation that so often follows the dissolution of a marriage has had such consequences — especially when drawn-out legal negotiations have left numerous fathers feeling abandoned by the courts and mothers struggling to raise their children with inadequate support from their former partners. But in recent months the Family Court has undergone radical changes in its processes and the results have been encouraging. As The Age reports today, the spirit of the Murphy reforms may finally have been embraced.

The formality of a trial, dominated by lawyers whose approach often exacerbated tensions between the parties, has been replaced by a conference in which the judge has a conversation with the parents and allows each to speak directly of his or her experiences, attitudes to parenting and hopes for the future. Even its straightforward title — the less adversarial trial — indicates the fact that the traditional British "adversarial" system has been replaced with a European-style inquisitorial system in which the laws of evidence are less stringent. The focus of the judge's inquiry is on the children and the arrangements that will best meet their needs.

This process is the subject of Finding a Better Way, a report to be launched tomorrow by Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant. Written by La Trobe University academic Jennifer McIntosh, it is a study of the effects of the process on children and parents who participated in trials of the new system in 2004 and 2005. The results are encouraging. Children whose parents were divorced under the new system emerged happier than children whose cases were processed in the traditional way; their parents argued less and were more likely to have co-operative arrangements for sharing the children than other parents. Dr McIntosh concluded that the new system "demonstrated a greater capacity to respond to and safeguard the psychological vulnerabilities of the co-parental relationship, post separations than the traditional, adversarial process". In general, parents have also been positive about the new approach: whereas 70 per cent of parents involved in the previous approach felt the process had a negative effect on them as parents, just 28 per cent of those in the new process felt this way.

This does not mean an end to disputes about custody and child support — there remains much to be done to ensure that all parents meet their responsibilities in these matters — but the Family Court has taken a huge step towards civilising what was too often a demeaning process for all involved. The great strength of the new system is that for the first time the law insists that the interests of the child be paramount and that both parents have, as far as possible, equal rights and responsibilities. The system is not perfect — for example, there are legitimate concerns about ditching the rules of evidence (particularly the abolition of the ban on hearsay) — but with goodwill, strong support systems and careful adjudication, children will be the real beneficiaries of these changes. As one QC said: "Someone has to keep an eye out for the interests of the child."

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The Age Letters to the Editor 26 Apr 2007

Judges must also get out of the way

Finally ! It has taken 30 years for the Family Court system to acknowledge what Dads have been arguing all along - that their adversarial system is grossly inappropriate ("Taking some of the pain..." 26 Apr 07). In fact, by amplifying conflict they have been damaging children and acting contrary to the child's best interests.

However, they still don’t get it ! While the Family Court now admits that trials have been “dominated by lawyers whose approach often exacerbated tensions between the parties”, they still do not see that judges also need to get out of the way.

The new Family Relationship Centres are the way to go, but until they are mandatory, until they have authority, transparency and accountability, and until they are based on a Presumption of Equal Parenting Time, they are not going to be able to keep separating partners out of court.

A judge has no right to decide how much access a child has to each parent when the parents are together. Assuming there is no child abuse - by far the majority of cases - what gives judges the right to make arbitrary judgments on access just because the parents have separated ?

Geoff Holland
Cairns, Qld