Family Court

A mother held a genuine strong belief that the father had sexually abused his stepdaughter (the mother’s daughter) when aged 13 years, but the father had been found not guilty in criminal proceedings.   The father had two children aged 7 and...

  The parents separated before the child was born.  The child who was aged 7 years at the time of the hearing had lived with the mother for six years before a family court issued an...

Parents of a child aged 12 years referred the child to an assessing psychologist following their separation as the child was not coping with the separation.  The psychologist asked the parents to sign a form agreeing that...

A father alleged that a boy aged 15 years had been beaten by the mother, and filed an affidavit that was allegedly written by the boy.  The judge found that the Court had not authorised the boy to...

Parents of children aged 9 and 7 years lived interstate after their separation.  The mother was the primary carer.  The end of the relationship was traumatic for the mother, and the mother’s distress was evident to...

The case involved an appeal against a decision by a trial judge in a Federal Circuit Court.  Allegations of sexual abuse were made about one child, and it was alleged that the mother had substance abuse...

The High Court ruled, “…it is a mistake to think that the Family Court is under the same duty to resolve in a definitive way the disputed allegation of sexual abuse as a court exercising criminal...

The case involved an appeal by the mother where she was found to have contravened an orders without reasonable excuse.  The mother’s treating psychiatrist gave evidence that the mother had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, with...