Judge: Dad "unacceptable risk of abuse" after semen found on daughter's bedsheets, but he still gets visitation and Mom can't move (Sydney, Australia)

Huh? According to Family Court Judge Rodney Burr, UNNAMED DAD poses an "unacceptable risk of abuse" to his two daughters after his semen was found on one of the child's bedsheets. I'd say. But then the same judge says Creeper Dad is still entitled to see his children regularly and Mom is barred from moving.

Who the hell says that daddies are discriminated against in family court?? I'm sure not seeing it. It's looking to me like everybody is pretty literally bending over backwards for them these days.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/family-court-orders-rehearing-20091230-ljy8.html

Family Court orders rehearing
ADELE HORIN
December 31, 2009

A FATHER found by a Family Court judge to pose an ''unacceptable risk of abuse'' to his two young daughters after his semen was found on the older child's bedsheet was nevertheless ruled entitled to see his children regularly, and the mother was ordered not to move them interstate.

The mother faced arrest for contempt of court orders after she moved her children and refused to return them to the state where the father lived.

But the full bench of the Family Court, in a decision released just before Christmas, has found the mother's case needs to be reconsidered by another judge of the Family Court.

In the interim, the court has allowed the children to stay in NSW, where the mother has remarried and has a new baby and the daughters are settled in school. The father will still be able to have supervised access to the children but he will now have to travel to NSW to do so.

Women's legal groups are pleased the full bench has overturned what they called an ''extraordinary'' decision by the single judge, Justice Rodney Burr, to make the mother return to the state where the father lived for supervised access even though he was deemed an ''unacceptable risk''. But men's groups say the decision is a setback for shared parenting laws.

Justice Burr had found the then six-year-old daughter's account of her father's ''inappropriate sexual behaviour'' to be ''compelling''. Of a police video of her testimony taken in July 2005, he wrote: ''What is witnessed is a young, open and engaging little girl relating a totally believable and persuasive account of inappropriate sexual behaviour by her father.''

As well, he accepted the evidence of a ''highly experienced'' child psychiatrist who concluded that the evidence was ''highly suggestive of the father having sexually abused at least [the older girl] and thereby having placed [the younger daughter] also in a situation of risk of future abuse''.

Justice Burr understood why the mother would adopt ''such an intensely obstructive attitude'' to the father seeing the children, given she had been privy ''first hand'' to the allegations of her daughter.

But he found in his decision in October last year that the children loved their father and needed a regular relationship with him through supervised visits. He did not trust the mother to facilitate contact if she was allowed to move the children to NSW.

''I am satisfied that her open defiance and blatant disobedience of previous court orders is not confined to the past,'' the judge wrote.

He also ordered the children to attend a protective behaviours program to learn how to protect themselves from unwanted sexual touching and other dangers.

The full court of three judges found Justice Burr gave inadequate regard to the father's long-term parenting capacity given the finding of ''unacceptable risk'' and he had also failed to properly consider whether it was necessary for the mother to move the children back in order for the father to have time with them.