The Australian "custody sisters"

[kerikiwi]

Not my definition, the World Health Organisation's definition

Who exhibited the violence first, the first or the police?

Would the girls have had to do what they did if that hadn't been treated like cattle on the first place?

Your definition, because it is the definition you offered. It is precious to say it's not your definition.
I suspect the girls offered the violence first. The police came to escort them to the airport.
They refused to go.
Your claim they were treated like cattle is just getting silly.

 

[katy_did]

???

The children, especially the two older ones, made it clear to the court and anyone who would listen that their wishes were to stay in Australia with their mother. The court responded by sending the cops to drag them onto a plane bound for Italy.

I'm pretty sure Giordano means the court in Italy which will decide custody, not the Australian court which had no authority to do so.

Charlie, if you think the law got it wrong on this one, how do you think it should be changed? Should a court with no authority to decide custody - which doesn't have all the information necessary to decide it, since that information is with the authorities in Italy - decide on the basis of a Facebook page and a Youtube video that the children should stay in Australia? Or do we just do away with the court's involvement altogether and in all such cases just ask the children where they'd like to live?

If the latter, don't you think that would ensure the huge majority of children abducted to Australia - having been subject only to the influence of the abductor parent for some months or years - would say they wanted to stay with the parent currently caring for them? You can't make an exception in this one case without affecting the way other abduction cases are handled. Come to Australia, would be parental kidnappers: we laugh in the face of the Hague Convention!

Have you seen any of the letters their mother has posted on Facebook since the kids have been in Italy?

Have you seen the letter and Facebook messages the kids sent to their father during the early part of their stay in Australia? They're posted here and here. Wonder what caused those very affectionate messages to stop?

(Hope those links work, btw - they seem to have made it as difficult as possible to link to Facebook photos...!)

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

Oh that.
The comparison was just that 'that's how kidnappers work'
I agree with that comparison.

You can kid yourself, I suppose, but he didn't write "that's how kidnappers work." He wrote:

"That's the control kidnappers have. From Elisabeth Smart to Jaycee Dugard. Are you actually surprised the victims of a kidnapping want to stay with the kidnapper?"

The more obvious conclusion is that these kids did not want to be separated from their mother, which is entirely normal. But, in accepting the obvious, one validates the feelings these children have for their mother. And that won't do. Hence the abdication of critical thinking, and the idiotic premise that this mother controls her children the same way Smart and Dugard were controlled by the perverts who abducted them.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I'm pretty sure Giordano means the court in Italy which will decide custody, not the Australian court which had no authority to do so.

Charlie, if you think the law got it wrong on this one, how do you think it should be changed? Should a court with no authority to decide custody - which doesn't have all the information necessary to decide it, since that information is with the authorities in Italy - decide on the basis of a Facebook page and a Youtube video that the children should stay in Australia? Or do we just do away with the court's involvement altogether and in all such cases just ask the children where they'd like to live?

I don't necessarily think the law got it wrong in terms of deciding what the outcome "should" be. But I think they went far beyond reasonable limits in directing that outcome. It would have been better to accept a different outcome.

I suppose the change I would favor is for the court to abide by the wishes of children when they are over a certain age. I'm not sure what that age should be, but I think less than 14. In this case, we saw the legal authorities treat a 14-year-old the same way they would a toddler. I think that's foolish.

If the latter, don't you think that would ensure the huge majority of children abducted to Australia - having been subject only to the influence of the abductor parent for some months or years - would say they wanted to stay with the parent currently caring for them? You can't make an exception in this one case without affecting the way other abduction cases are handled. Come to Australia, would be parental kidnappers: we laugh in the face of the Hague Convention!

I don't want to dismiss this concern, because it's reasonable. At the same time, I think people do this under specific circumstances, not opportunistically because of loopholes in the law.

A big problem I see is that cases vary so widely that rigidly applying a legal prescription can lead to really bad outcomes. That's one reason I think it's important to listen to the kids, especially if they are freaking out. Maybe they're over-reacting. Or maybe not.

Have you seen the letter and Facebook messages the kids sent to their father during the early part of their stay in Australia? They're posted here and here. Wonder what caused those very affectionate messages to stop?

(Hope those links work, btw - they seem to have made it as difficult as possible to link to Facebook photos...!)

I accept that the mother, and especially the grandmother, may have poisoned the thinking of these kids. At the same time, the mother was genuinely afraid of losing them. The kids might have absorbed some of that anxiety even if she had tried to shield them from it, which I'm not saying she did. But it seems to me that if she was trying to convince the kids that she and they were under siege, everyone played straight into her hand and validated the worst fears she could have instilled in them.

Keep in mind, we don't know much about this father or his family. They might be doing the same damn thing.

 

[smartcooky]

Your definition, because it is the definition you offered. It is precious to say it's not your definition.

Bollcks! Its not my definiton it is simply the one I choose to use. and it happens to be the exact same definition as used by the Australia Government

http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/resreport15/chapter1.html

I suspect the girls offered the violence first.

Cite your source.

The police came to escort them to the airport.

Whether they wanted to go or not.

They refused to go.

As is their right. They had not broken any laws. No-one is required to go with the the police unless there is a warrant for their arrest (a court order is not an arrest warrant)

Your claim they were treated like cattle is just getting silly.

No it isn't. They were treated as if they were owned, like cattle. They are human beings, and have human rights.

Dragging them away was an unnecessary and uncalled for exhibition of bully-boy tactics by the Police. There were other, workable ways of dealing with the situation that would have been far less impactful, and which I have outlined numerous times in this thread (e.g. in post #706).

 

[Wildy]

???

The children, especially the two older ones, made it clear to the court and anyone who would listen that their wishes were to stay in Australia with their mother. The court responded by sending the cops to drag them onto a plane bound for Italy.

That's because the Australian courts don't have the jurisdiction to determine the custody arrangements arising from an Italian divorce, that's up to the Italian courts.

The girls told the Australian courts that they wanted to stay with their mother, but because the custody issue had not been sorted and there were no exceptional circumstances to keep them with the mother the courts were bound by the Hague Convention to return them to Italy.

Whether they wanted to go or not.

They didn't have a choice.

As is their right. They had not broken any laws. No-one is required to go with the the police unless there is a warrant for their arrest (a court order is not an arrest warrant)

No, they don't have the right to refuse. I don't know if NZ allows people to pick and choose which court orders they comply with, but that's not the way things work here.

No it isn't. They were treated as if they were owned, like cattle. They are human beings, and have human rights.

Doesn't this opinion mean you have a point where people don't have human rights?

Or are you saying that at the moment someone resists going with the police that the police should just stop enforcing whatever orders they're enforcing?

Dragging them away was an unnecessary and uncalled for exhibition of bully-boy tactics by the Police. There were other, workable ways of dealing with the situation that would have been far less impactful, and which I have outlined numerous times in this thread (e.g. in post #706).

But how do you know that they are workable? What makes your views on what the police did more credible than the officers who were there?

 

[smartcooky]

That's because the Australian courts don't have the jurisdiction to determine the custody arrangements arising from an Italian divorce, that's up to the Italian courts.

The girls told the Australian courts that they wanted to stay with their mother, but because the custody issue had not been sorted and there were no exceptional circumstances to keep them with the mother the courts were bound by the Hague Convention to return them to Italy.

That they made it clear they wanted to stay with their mother ought to be exceptional circumstances sufficient to allow them to stay with their mother.

Such a decision ought to be theirs

They didn't have a choice.

They ought to have had.

No, they don't have the right to refuse. I don't know if NZ allows people to pick and choose which court orders they comply with, but that's not the way things work here.

Doesn't this opinion mean you have a point where people don't have human rights?

Or are you saying that at the moment someone resists going with the police that the police should just stop enforcing whatever orders they're enforcing?

A police officer cannot take you in for questioning or apprehend you unless they have an arrest warrant, or unless he finds you committing an offence punishable by a prison term, or he finds you breaching the peace, or has good cause to suspect that you’ve done this.

But how do you know that they are workable? What makes your views on what the police did more credible than the officers who were there?

First off, I don't give a monkeys whether you think my views are credible or not. They are no less credible than your views.

Second off, its my opinion and I'm entitled to express it; that's what we do on forums, express opinions. If you don't agree, well so what? I'm past caring.

Third off, I have seen that approach work in other situations involving kids being influenced by their parent or a sibling. Isolate the child from the parent or sibling. Its a tried and true method. Teachers do it all the time, isolate kids from bad influences.

 

[smartcooky]

A big problem I see is that cases vary so widely that rigidly applying a legal prescription can lead to really bad outcomes. That's one reason I think it's important to listen to the kids, especially if they are freaking out. Maybe they're over-reacting. Or maybe not.

There is a saying among the legal fraternity; "hard cases make bad law". I think it originated with the same judge who instigated the "Clear and Present Danger test" that limits the US Constitution's First Amendment right to free speech.

I think there are too many hard-arses posting in this thread who;

a. have never seen first hand what can happen to kids in a divorce and in dysfunctional families.

b. think that these cases are all "one size fits all", and don't understand the consequences to the children in broken families of blindly applying the same criteria unilaterally,

c. think that the Law is a absolute and everyone should march to the tune of the courts.

Courts are fallible, especially in family law. They get a lot of decisions wrong, and its generally the children who pay the price for those errors years down the line.

IMO, what the children want should carry a lot more weight than it does, and that weight should increase with their age. At age 9, perhaps the Judge might be better placed to decide, but by the time a child reaches 14 or 15 they know which parent they want to live with.

I have seen what happens when an older child is forced against their will to live with one parent or the other. It frequently ends in disaster and emotional trauma for the child.

There was a case in England recently where a 12 year old by was forced to life with a father he despised. Eventually, the court order was overturned in the best interested of the boy, because he refused to eat, and refused to speak to him.

You have to wonder why they just didn't listen to the boy in the first place?

 

[ddt]

When discussing violence, I default to the WHO definition, and I have highlighted those parts which, if you read them in order, show that what was used against these children was violence not just force,

"Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation."

You haven't yet shown that this definition means the police used violence. Note the definition uses the relative pronoun "that"; that means that the relative clause is a restrictive clause. So only those uses of physical force that result in or have a high likelihood of injury etc. qualify as violence. You haven't shown that result or high likelihood yet.

 

[Wildy]

That they made it clear they wanted to stay with their mother ought to be exceptional circumstances sufficient to allow them to stay with their mother.

And yet it turns out that it isn't sufficient. Justice Forrest even says (paragraph 75) that the desire for the girls to stay arises from being in Australia for 2 years, and considering that as "exceptional circumstances" would mean that an absconding parent would just need to delay the return for enough time to ensure that the kid wants to stay there.

Such a decision ought to be theirs

You'd think so wouldn't you? But then that would really be something that would arise from the custody side of things, which is to be done by the Italian courts.

They ought to have had.

Why?

A police officer cannot take you in for questioning or apprehend you unless they have an arrest warrant, or unless he finds you committing an offence punishable by a prison term, or he finds you breaching the peace, or has good cause to suspect that you’ve done this.

Or if they have a court order that issues a warrant directing the police to take the children into custody.

(f) that a warrant (in accordance with Regulation 31 in Form 2C of the Family Law (Child Abduction Convention Regulations) issue authorising and directing the Marshal of the Family Court and the Commissioner and all federal agents of the Australian Federal Police and officers of the Queensland Police Service and all other police officers in all other States and Territories of the Commonwealth of Australia to take possession of the children E born ... June 1997, C born ... August 1998, D born ... December 2001 and L born ... May 2003 and deliver the said children to an officer of the Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services or if the said children are located in another State or Territory of the Commonwealth, to a person nominated by the Director-General, Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services, and that for the purposes of the exercise of the foregoing powers to stop and search any vehicle, vessel or aircraft and to enter and search any premises or place where the said children may be or where there is any reasonable cause to believe the said children may be;

(For those interested, the regulation he cited may be read here.)

So it turns out the police had a warrant to take the children into their custody to be delivered to one of the people mentioned in the above paragraph.

And in case you complain about the judgement being barbaric or something, the previous judgement from May 4 which said:

(1) That the respondent mother Ms Garning deliver the children, E born ... June 1997, C born ... August 1998, D born ... December 2001 and L born ... May 2003 to the Brisbane International Airport at a time and date, not before 16 May 2012, nominated by an officer of the Department of Communities.

The choice of the mother then was to take her kids into hiding and drag the case out even longer.

First off, I don't give a monkeys whether you think my views are credible or not. They are no less credible than your views.

Which has nothing to do with what I said at all.

Second off, its my opinion and I'm entitled to express it; that's what we do on forums, express opinions. If you don't agree, well so what? I'm past caring.

I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where I told you that you aren't entitled to express an opinion.

Third off, I have seen that approach work in other situations involving kids being influenced by their parent or a sibling. Isolate the child from the parent or sibling. Its a tried and true method. Teachers do it all the time, isolate kids from bad influences.

Is there a name for this method? Do you know where I can read more about it?

And in this specific situation, would you consider the media to be a "bad influence"?

 

[uke2se]

I accept that the mother, and especially the grandmother, may have poisoned the thinking of these kids. At the same time, the mother was genuinely afraid of losing them. The kids might have absorbed some of that anxiety even if she had tried to shield them from it, which I'm not saying she did. But it seems to me that if she was trying to convince the kids that she and they were under siege, everyone played straight into her hand and validated the worst fears she could have instilled in them.

It is amazing to me that you can accept this and still think the kids should have been left with their kidnapping mother. It's completely irrational.

Keep in mind, we don't know much about this father or his family. They might be doing the same damn thing.

We also don't know if he's not really Hitler's grandson!!!!111

 

[katy_did]

I don't necessarily think the law got it wrong in terms of deciding what the outcome "should" be. But I think they went far beyond reasonable limits in directing that outcome. It would have been better to accept a different outcome.

I suppose the change I would favor is for the court to abide by the wishes of children when they are over a certain age. I'm not sure what that age should be, but I think less than 14. In this case, we saw the legal authorities treat a 14-year-old the same way they would a toddler. I think that's foolish.

I agree that the wishes of the children - especially when the children are older and more mature - should be given a lot of weight when deciding which parent they should live with. But this can be done by a court in the child's home country, where they'll likely have better access to the information needed to make that decision.

To do what you're suggesting, I guess you'd have to alter the Hague Convention so that when a child was above the age of, say, 12, the wishes of the child would determine whether they were returned or not. This would very probably mean most abducted children of 12 or over wouldn't be returned, because they'd naturally have built up more of a bond with the parent who abducted them over the months or years before the court decision, than they would with the parent left behind.

I just don't see that this is a better solution - or more in the child's best interests - than allowing a court in the child's home country to come to a decision on custody, taking into account all the information they have and putting the appropriate weight on the child's preferences.

It's worth noting that even by your own argument, in this case two of the girls would still not be old enough to make their own decision about who they wanted to live with, and so should have been returned to Italy; and that neither parent wanted to separate the four girls.

I don't want to dismiss this concern, because it's reasonable. At the same time, I think people do this under specific circumstances, not opportunistically because of loopholes in the law.

I agree, I was perhaps being a bit facetious there! I doubt would-be abductors would really flock to Australia seeing it as a safe haven. But certainly those abductors who do come to - or leave - Australia could take advantage of Australia's decision to apply the Hague Convention in its own special way. That's why the case isn't only about these four girls, but about other children who might be abducted to or from Australia as well. It can't stand in isolation.

A big problem I see is that cases vary so widely that rigidly applying a legal prescription can lead to really bad outcomes. That's one reason I think it's important to listen to the kids, especially if they are freaking out. Maybe they're over-reacting. Or maybe not.

Again, a court deciding custody in the child's home country can take as nuanced and flexible approach as is needed. A court deciding a Hague case is necessarily less flexible because it isn't deciding on custody, only on where the custody hearing should be heard. If the Hague Convention weren't applied fairly rigidly - if all the signatory countries decided to apply it in their own individual ways - then the agreement itself would just break down.

I accept that the mother, and especially the grandmother, may have poisoned the thinking of these kids. At the same time, the mother was genuinely afraid of losing them. The kids might have absorbed some of that anxiety even if she had tried to shield them from it, which I'm not saying she did. But it seems to me that if she was trying to convince the kids that she and they were under siege, everyone played straight into her hand and validated the worst fears she could have instilled in them.

Keep in mind, we don't know much about this father or his family. They might be doing the same damn thing.

Oh, sure. The only difference is that while we know this has very probably been going on with the mother's family, we have no evidence so far that it's happened with the father's. But you're right, we don't know what's being said behind closed doors.

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

To do what you're suggesting, I guess you'd have to alter the Hague Convention so that when a child was above the age of, say, 12, the wishes of the child would determine whether they were returned or not. This would very probably mean most abducted children of 12 or over wouldn't be returned, because they'd naturally have built up more of a bond with the parent who abducted them over the months or years before the court decision, than they would with the parent left behind.

If that's the case, then maybe, in international cases at least, the legal system should allow the kid to remain in his/her comfort zone. Adolescence is challenging enough as it is.

This case has been handled with a view toward fairness to the parents. Mom clearly broke the law. Dad got screwed, he went to court, and the court made it right. I get all that.

But whatever wiles or deceptions Mom may have engineered when she took the kids to Australia, they seem to have gone willingly. And that is not true of the return.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

We don't know if they would have been willing if they hadn't been lied to. They thought they were going on holiday.

 

[Dr. Keith]

We don't know if they would have been willing if they hadn't been lied to. They thought they were going on holiday.

Exactly, if the police had dressed up as limo drivers and said they were sent by the mother to take the kids to a new place to hide from the cops they would have gone willingly, too.

 

[smartcooky]

You haven't yet shown that this definition means the police used violence. Note the definition uses the relative pronoun "that"; that means that the relative clause is a restrictive clause. So only those uses of physical force that result in or have a high likelihood of psychological harm etc. qualify as violence. You haven't shown that result or high likelihood yet.

FTFY

You don't think that dragging children away from their mother is going to cause psychological harm? I would think its a gold plated certainty, evidenced by what we all saw happen when they got the children back to Italy and away from their mother. They pleaded with the media to rescue them.

I think the whole system has failed these kids, they have been treated like cattle, by people who appear to care not one single jot how they are feeling about all this, or how it is affecting them.

 

[smartcooky]

Another thing I found appalling about this case is that the Judge refused to allow the appointment of a Lawyer for the children. This is very unusual, and an independent "Lawyer for the Child" is almost always used when the children are of an age to understand proceedings, especially in a case where the motives of the father and the mother are unclear, and where their has been clear influence on the children by one or both parents.

This makes it clear to me that, right from the outset, Judge had decided he wasn't going to take any notice of what the children wanted, and his statements about being "mindful of the children's wishes" were no more than weasel words.

IMO, these children have been deprived of their entitlement of legal representation in a court of law, and as such, have also been deprived of due process.

 

[smartcooky]

We don't know if they would have been willing if they hadn't been lied to. They thought they were going on holiday.

Cite your source.

 

[smartcooky]

Exactly, if the police had dressed up as limo drivers and said they were sent by the mother to take the kids to a new place to hide from the cops they would have gone willingly, too.

It would have difficult to pull that deception off with the mother right there!

 

[uke2se]

IMO, these children have been deprived of their entitlement of legal representation in a court of law, and as such, have also been deprived of due process.

Indeed they have been. By their mother. Thankfully, the police have now made sure they are able to get back their entitlements in their home country.