I agree ..... Crazy length of time with no contact based on an untested allegation, especially given that if nothing changes at first mention, it will likley be months on top of that before an actual hearing is listed .... & these were just allegations contained in an on line application, didn't even have to face a magistrate ....... System is stuffed when kids can be ripped off a parent & you have to wait months just to get to a first mention
VIC IVO allegations
- Thread starter Gameofthrones
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I still think proposing supervised children visits may be a useful suggestion. You are not minimising the allegations, but creating a way for visits to be safely supervised. You get neutral third party reports on your behaviour that may help with your case, and also allows for ongoing contact with the children. If she refuses supervised visits, it only adds to your argument for an expedited mediation and court application.
Supervised Contact Under Parenting Orders
Supervised Contact. Find out more about supervised contact and parenting orders here, or call our Legal Advice Hotline 7am-9pm, 7 days on 1300 636 846.
www.gotocourt.com.au
Actually, you did say you are seeing/gonna see someone at Relationships Australia, they do supervised contacts as well. Your local one might already have information about such services.
www.relationships.org.au
Children's Contact Service — Relationships Australia
The Children's Contact Service provides safe and positive contact arrangements for children whose parents are separated.
The system has been stuffed for some time. It's rotten to its core with its bias and lack of justice.
From the moment I received my interim IVO, I wanted to fight it because it was BS. But as I said, I had to wait 3 months for the first mention. I advised my duty lawyer I wanted to fight it at the mention. Because of the fact that I had initiated family court proceedings by the time the IVO came around (because it was the only way I could make progress), the magistrate ordered another further mention a few months later to see if things might make progress in the family court (and child protection, given the ex also essentially made false allegations to them). So that was 6 months right there, from receiving the interim IVO to being stuck at two consecutive mentions without any progression to a contested hearing. The whole 'wait and see' approach from the magistrate seemed to be lip service anyway. What were they even proposing to do, given my ex was refusing to entertain any relaxing of any of the restrictions, removing the children from the order, or accepting a undertaking.
Oh and while at the mention, I got called into a meeting room by someone, thinking it was the duty lawyer. Turns out it's the mens DV counsellor offering me courses and brochures to 'change my violent behaviour'. An outright assumption that I was guilty. When I told them I was innocent and intended to fight it, he still kept trying to sell his services and I had to actually tell him I'm not interested. DV is seen by the courts and society as women = victims and men = perpetrators. There's lip service to 'men can be victims too', but it's not reflected in any of the targeted services offered, that's for sure.
At the second mention, I indicated yet again through the duty lawyer that I wanted to contest it but that the interim IVO was vague about the details I was actually accused of. The magistrate ordered further and better particulars from the ex to be given about 6 weeks prior to the directions hearing.
So after 9 months, I finally got to a directions hearing but the further and better particulars hadn't been given despite orders to do so, so I turned up at the directions hearing still not even knowing what I should be defending myself against and therefore how to proceed. The magistrate asked how many witnesses I wanted to call (to identify how long the contested hearing should take, I guess?), but how could I identify how many witnesses when I didn't even know what supposed events I was accused of, and who may have witnessed them? Regardless, the magistrate forced me to proceed to a contested hearing (4ish months later) without having access to these further and better particulars. She ordered once again that my ex provide them by a certain date.
That date yet again came and went, and then with just a couple of weeks prior to the contested hearing, I received her 'further and better particulars', which was nothing more than a few letters sent between various agencies (police statement she made, child protection letter, daycare centre letter etc) and the entire collection of text messages (50 pages?) exchanged between my ex and I over a long period of time, with no indication about which part was at all relevant to her case.
At no point were there any consequences to my ex not providing further and better particulars by the date ordered, nor for the lack of actual useful detail contained IN them when she finally did. My understanding is that in theory, the contested hearing should relate to only what is contained in the IVO and in the further and better particulars and should not suddenly raise new information that wasn't previously available to both sides, but I suspect in reality, those supposed rights would yet again go out the window in a contested hearing for an IVO because they're simply not as formal as criminal cases. More injustice for the accused.
Meanwhile she was being represented by the police, and I wasn't even allowed to use the duty lawyer for the contested hearing. They provided duty lawyers for the mentions and directions hearing but would not do so for an actual contested hearing. I tried contacting Legal Aid and a few community legal organisations and none of them had the resources to represent me for the contested hearing. Basically my only choice was to self represent (without the ability to cross examine my ex, which is rather vital to actually contest an IVO!?) or pay $1000s for a private lawyer to fight a BS IVO, along with experiencing a few minor miscarriages of justice in terms of the law along the way. The deck is stacked against the respondent in these things and procedural fairness goes out the window just to keep the DV juggernaut chugging along.
Oh and like I said previously, I ended up getting a deal made (on the day of the contested hearing) to have the children finally removed from the order 14 months late. By then, family court proceedings had moved on far enough for the police to be satisfied that the family court was best placed to deal with the children. I would have loved to have had the chance to contest the IVO and I feel I would have had a good chance at pointing out how frivolous it all was, but I'd been given advice that equal shared parental responsibility could be jeopardised by an 'adverse finding of violence' in the magistrate's court, and it just wasn't worth it in the end. But that's just another example of the deck being stacked against you, when winning an IVO would have pretty much zero implication for the person who made the false allegations against you, but losing could jeopardise your family court case in circumstances where your ex literally admitted to hitting you.
Anyway, I know this is a bit rambly. It's very hard to summarise all the injustice I've experienced in the system over the last 2 years or so. I'm sure if I delved a bit deeper, I could uncover yet more, but I'll leave it there.
From the moment I received my interim IVO, I wanted to fight it because it was BS. But as I said, I had to wait 3 months for the first mention. I advised my duty lawyer I wanted to fight it at the mention. Because of the fact that I had initiated family court proceedings by the time the IVO came around (because it was the only way I could make progress), the magistrate ordered another further mention a few months later to see if things might make progress in the family court (and child protection, given the ex also essentially made false allegations to them). So that was 6 months right there, from receiving the interim IVO to being stuck at two consecutive mentions without any progression to a contested hearing. The whole 'wait and see' approach from the magistrate seemed to be lip service anyway. What were they even proposing to do, given my ex was refusing to entertain any relaxing of any of the restrictions, removing the children from the order, or accepting a undertaking.
Oh and while at the mention, I got called into a meeting room by someone, thinking it was the duty lawyer. Turns out it's the mens DV counsellor offering me courses and brochures to 'change my violent behaviour'. An outright assumption that I was guilty. When I told them I was innocent and intended to fight it, he still kept trying to sell his services and I had to actually tell him I'm not interested. DV is seen by the courts and society as women = victims and men = perpetrators. There's lip service to 'men can be victims too', but it's not reflected in any of the targeted services offered, that's for sure.
At the second mention, I indicated yet again through the duty lawyer that I wanted to contest it but that the interim IVO was vague about the details I was actually accused of. The magistrate ordered further and better particulars from the ex to be given about 6 weeks prior to the directions hearing.
So after 9 months, I finally got to a directions hearing but the further and better particulars hadn't been given despite orders to do so, so I turned up at the directions hearing still not even knowing what I should be defending myself against and therefore how to proceed. The magistrate asked how many witnesses I wanted to call (to identify how long the contested hearing should take, I guess?), but how could I identify how many witnesses when I didn't even know what supposed events I was accused of, and who may have witnessed them? Regardless, the magistrate forced me to proceed to a contested hearing (4ish months later) without having access to these further and better particulars. She ordered once again that my ex provide them by a certain date.
That date yet again came and went, and then with just a couple of weeks prior to the contested hearing, I received her 'further and better particulars', which was nothing more than a few letters sent between various agencies (police statement she made, child protection letter, daycare centre letter etc) and the entire collection of text messages (50 pages?) exchanged between my ex and I over a long period of time, with no indication about which part was at all relevant to her case.
At no point were there any consequences to my ex not providing further and better particulars by the date ordered, nor for the lack of actual useful detail contained IN them when she finally did. My understanding is that in theory, the contested hearing should relate to only what is contained in the IVO and in the further and better particulars and should not suddenly raise new information that wasn't previously available to both sides, but I suspect in reality, those supposed rights would yet again go out the window in a contested hearing for an IVO because they're simply not as formal as criminal cases. More injustice for the accused.
Meanwhile she was being represented by the police, and I wasn't even allowed to use the duty lawyer for the contested hearing. They provided duty lawyers for the mentions and directions hearing but would not do so for an actual contested hearing. I tried contacting Legal Aid and a few community legal organisations and none of them had the resources to represent me for the contested hearing. Basically my only choice was to self represent (without the ability to cross examine my ex, which is rather vital to actually contest an IVO!?) or pay $1000s for a private lawyer to fight a BS IVO, along with experiencing a few minor miscarriages of justice in terms of the law along the way. The deck is stacked against the respondent in these things and procedural fairness goes out the window just to keep the DV juggernaut chugging along.
Oh and like I said previously, I ended up getting a deal made (on the day of the contested hearing) to have the children finally removed from the order 14 months late. By then, family court proceedings had moved on far enough for the police to be satisfied that the family court was best placed to deal with the children. I would have loved to have had the chance to contest the IVO and I feel I would have had a good chance at pointing out how frivolous it all was, but I'd been given advice that equal shared parental responsibility could be jeopardised by an 'adverse finding of violence' in the magistrate's court, and it just wasn't worth it in the end. But that's just another example of the deck being stacked against you, when winning an IVO would have pretty much zero implication for the person who made the false allegations against you, but losing could jeopardise your family court case in circumstances where your ex literally admitted to hitting you.
Anyway, I know this is a bit rambly. It's very hard to summarise all the injustice I've experienced in the system over the last 2 years or so. I'm sure if I delved a bit deeper, I could uncover yet more, but I'll leave it there.
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I find that engaging with that DV process is helpful, despite it all being lies and falsehoods.
Learning about the different ways aggression and violence is perceived is helpful. I found that people who have proactively seeked Relationships Australia, Mensline etc and doing groups seem to get more support and get more engagement from the system. They are able to discuss the issues around any perceived aggression (even if it is not true!), and are able to progress the issues and children contact much quicker. You can perceive it as "blame", but it is not about blame, but about learning the DV lingo and the being able to articulate strategies to keep them and the system happy.
You might be right Poidah, but I really had nothing to gain from it IMO, any engagement with DV counsellors would probably be seized upon by my ex as proof that she was right all along to be scared of me (she's still using that narrative in the family court). She's been hiding in the 'safe room' at family court for hearings, she's only recently stopped using a family friend to meet me for handovers of the children, despite the fact that there was never any legitimate reason to worry, she's insisted on only handing over the children in public places where there are CCTV cameras. It's just over the top paranoia IMO. I was never violent to her when we lived together (the worst I could say is that I had to be physical to restrain her when she was violent to ME), and I'm certainly not going to be now that we're in the middle of a nasty family court case where every misstep would be a disaster. My only conclusion is that she wants to perpetuate the idea that she's a fearful victim. Even the IVO itself was a strategic calculated decision to gain advantage IMO. Call me cynical. 
Relationships counselling or family counselling is fine too.
But you can keep any DV counselling and groups and attendance completely confidential. No discussion or reports to anyone at all. But having access to that DV aware mindset, and having the lingo and concepts to manage and communicate with the "system" is infinitely helpful. Perpetrators always "fight" against the system, so without that knowledge, you can't help but be seen as guilty even though you are innocent. Being able to support the process but find ways to communicate safety, put you in a much better position compared to those that are unfamiliar with those concepts and don't have anything new to offer.
I asgree with glasshalffull. I'm shocked at the fact that any contact with any mens support groups like mensline (especially mensline) ends with me - the victim being told that I'm the perpetrator. They then offer courses on learning to control anger. I have no doubt that the same information I communicated about coffee cups being thrown at me, verbal and financial abuse etc would have had a different result if I was female.
Still sounds very blamey.
Most of the courses people do get blamed but learning from other people who are violent and avoid that blame is helpful. The words that they use to avoid the blame, "its her fault I punched her" etc etc really helps. Avoiding that defensive, #itsnotme reaction, also really helps. We all can be violent. We all can be aggressive. Showing people that you accept that fact and have strategies and plans that make everyone feels safe and feel comfortable dealing with the worse case scenario only allows for quicker children access. If you deny the worse case scenario, then everyone is forces to be in the position to wait till the courts take that responsibility, which is nearly 2 years away.
It is your call, "be right" and wait till court.
Or play the game, deal with the outrage of #NotAllMen, and accept that you are carrying the burden of a feminist, men-blaming society means that you have to ridiculous courses and talk to blamey DV counsellors, but see your kids much sooner, so be it.
I'm sure organisations like Mensline have been given information suggesting that a lot of men are in denial about their violence, and you just have to keep pushing the angle until they see the light. And that may be true in some cases, but how can you do that while also recognising that sometimes allegations are false and sometimes the perceived perpetrator is in fact the victim. As you say Sammy, if a woman was given that treatment, society would be up in arms. "How dare they victim blame?" "BELIEVE ALL WOMEN", etc.
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