Revengeful fathers kill children to punish mum (Australia)

We've posted extensively on the ARTHUR FREEMAN and RAMAZAN ACAR cases.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/revengeful-fathers-kill-children-to-punish-mum-20140422-372ee.html

Revengeful fathers kill children to punish mum

April 23, 2014
Beau Donelly  

Arthur Freeman was sentenced to 32 years in prison after he threw his four-year-old daughter Darcey off the West Gate Bridge in 2009.

Men who kill their children do so to punish the mother, experts say, with the final act of revenge often punctuating a history of domestic violence.

The children are a proxy by which they're getting back at the mother.

Even in cases where there have not been reports of intervention orders, experts are in agreement that a history of violence in the home, combined with a perceived loss of control, drives some fathers to kill their children.

''The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour,'' said Dr Ben Buchanan, of the Victorian Counselling and Psychological Services. ''Physical abuse towards the partner is absolutely a sign of a propensity to use physical force against the children.''

The most recent figures from the Australian Institute of Criminology show there were 22 cases of filicide nationwide between 2008 and 2010.

Dr Buchanan said men who killed their children often blamed the mother for feelings of powerlessness and sometimes believed the children had been ''infected'' by her.

''Our children represent our spouses, they've got that symbolic representation of the mother but they are more vulnerable,'' he said. ''In the cases I've seen, it's very rare for them to blame the children; the children are a proxy by which they're getting back at the mother.''

Domestic Violence Resource Centre senior researcher Deborah Kirkwood said fathers who killed their children ''feel entitled to take their lives because they're his possessions … It's about making the mother suffer.''

Dr Kirkwood, who published a study on parents who kill their children, said filicide usually occurred in the context of a family breakdown.

Dr Kirkwood's research included the cases of Ramazan Acar, who stabbed his two-year-old daughter in 2010, and Arthur Freeman, who threw his four-year-old daughter off the West Gate Bridge. She said controlling behaviour and a history of domestic violence were ''key themes'' in cases of filicide.

''There was either a prior history of violence against the partner before the children were killed or there was violence that occurred around separation, and if there wasn't violence there was often threats of violence.''

No to Violence acting chief executive Rodney Vlais said it was common for men to develop a victim mentality before killing their children. ''They feel they're been hard done by when, in fact, this is not usually the case. It's more often a sense of entitlement and privilege that they have. ''Men can feel so aggrieved in their own warped sense of being the victim that they will punish their partner though killing their children.''

Domestic Violence Victoria chief executive officer Fiona McCormack said there was a ''gaping hole'' in the protection system, which was geared towards picking up the pieces. She said at-risk offenders should be monitored, with information shared between child protection agencies, parole officers, and women's and children's services.

''There are agencies coming into contact with these men, but we need them to work together to communicate with each other,'' she said. ''Currently, there's no mechanism to know who else is involved with the family and what else is being done.''