Like gold dust these days’: domestic violence fact-finding hearings in child contact cases

Fact-finding hearings may be held to determine disputed allegations of domestic violence in child contact cases in England and Wales, and can play a vital role for mothers seeking protection and autonomy from violent fathers. Drawing on the author’s empirical study, this article examines the implications for the holding of fact-finding hearings of judges’ and professionals’ understandings of domestic violence and the extent to which they perceive it to be relevant to contact. While more judges and professionals are developing their understanding of domestic violence, the ambit of when and how it is considered relevant to contact has grown increasingly narrow, which suggests that many disputed allegations of domestic violence are disregarded and women and children continue to be put at risk from violent fathers. This bifurcated approach is likely to have significant implications for recent developments in this area of family law which are considered in this article

Domestic and family violence and parenting: Mixed method insights into impact and support needs : State of knowledge paper

Parenting can be a challenging task under any circumstances, but especially so in an environment of abuse and control. This paper has identified that research on parenting in the context of domestic and family violence (DFV) is limited. In particular this paper is concerned with the impact of DFV on parenting, and pays particular attention to the tactics a perpetrator may use to disrupt the mother-child relationship and what helps to strengthen or heal this relationship. </p

Review of exposure draft of the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005

An Exposure Draft of the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005 (Cth) (the Bill) was released by the Federal Attorney-General on 28 June 2005. The Attorney-General asked the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs (the Committee) to review the draft Bill and report by 11 August 2005. The Committee in turn invited community submissions by 15 July 2005. The Bill amends the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (FLA) by implementing a number of recommendations of the 2003 ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’ report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs and subsequent government proposals put forward in the 2004 ‘New Approach to the Family Law System’ discussion paper, with funding being announced in the 2005–2006 Federal Budget. In essence, the changes ‘aim to bring about a cultural shift in how family separation is managed: away from litigation and towards co-operative parenting’. The following comprises a submission made to the Committee responding to the proposed changes, slightly expanded where necessary to provide background information on the proposals