Radko & Pauwels [2025] FedCFamC1F 974 (10 November 2025)

UPON NOTING the Independent Children's Lawyer has complied with her obligations in relation to the child X pursuant to s. 68LA(5).

1. That the mother have sole parental responsibility and sole decision making authority for the children X born in 2019 and Y born in 2021 ("the children").
2. The children live with the mother.
3. There be no time spending between the children and the father.
4. The father be restrained and an injunction be granted restraining him pursuant to s.68B of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) from contacting, communicating or approaching the mother or the children and:

(a) Attending at the mother's home or any residence in which the children are living.

(b) Attending any educational or care facility where the children are enrolled or attend.

(c) Attending at any place of employment or education of the mother.

(d) Communicating with the children or causing or permitting any other person to do so on his behalf.

(e) Removing or attempting to remove the children from the mother's care or causing or permitting any other person to do so on his behalf.

(f) Following or keeping surveillance of the mother and the children or causing any other person to do so.

(g) Being within 100m of the mother or the children.

1. The father be at liberty to send letters, cards and / or gifts ("parcel") to the children on the following conditions:

(a) The mother within seven (7) days of this order do provide to the father's solicitor an address at which the parcels can be sent.

(b) The father be permitted to send no more than one parcel in each six-month period, with the periods to be defined as 1 January until 30 June, and 1 July until 31 December in each calendar year.

(c) The mother or her agent be permitted to open and inspect all contents of any parcel sent by the father to determine the appropriateness of the contents.

(d) In the event that the contents are not appropriate, the mother or her agent may withhold the inappropriate contents from the children.

1. The mother will provide to the father by way of post at least two (2) physical photographs of the children per calendar year to ....
2. The father be at liberty to cause his solicitor to provide Ms B, or another practitioner at C Counselling Services ("the practitioner"), with copies of the following documents:

(a) A copy of the trial affidavits filed by each of the parties, Ms D and Dr E.

(b) A copy of the Child Impact Report dated 19 February 2024 and the Family Assessment Report dated 21 July 2025 prepared by Ms F ON THE BASIS THAT the practitioner is instructed that the reports are strictly not to be provided to the father in either electronic or hard copy.

1. That the father's therapy with Ms B or any other practitioner at C Counselling Services will be reportable therapy.
2. That the appointment of the Independent Children's Lawyer be discharged.
3. The parties each bear their own costs of and incidental to these proceedings.
4. All applications be dismissed and the proceedings otherwise dismissed as finalised.

1. Section 68C/114AA of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), provides that if a police officer believes, on reasonable grounds, that the applicant father has breached the injunction as set out in Order 4 above by causing or threatening to cause bodily harm to the protected person or by harassing, molesting or stalking the protected person, such police officer may arrest the applicant father in breach without warrant.

Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court's records.

Note: This copy of the Court's Reasons for judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 10.14(b) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 10.13 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).

Part XIVB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) makes it an offence, except in very limited circumstances, to publish an account of proceedings that identify persons, associated persons, or witnesses involved in family law proceedings.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonym Radko & Pauwels has been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

1. These proceedings come before the Court today in circumstances where a trial was to have commenced. The proceedings are parenting proceedings concerning the parties' two children, X born in 2019, and Y born in 2021.
2. Since January of 2022, it is an agreed fact that the children have been residing with their mother and that they have spent no time with their father. This circumstance has come about as a result of a series of events which ultimately led to the parties' separation.
3. Those events include very serious episodes of family violence which have resulted in an intervention order naming both the mother and the children as protected persons. At least two of the episodes of family violence that the mother alleges have resulted in the father being charged and convicted of offences, the first in relation to an incident which took place in 2019 prior to the birth of the child X, and the second taking place following the birth of the child X, and involving the mother suffering a broken arm as a result of an episode of family violence, that injury requiring a metal plate to be inserted in her elbow.
4. In addition to those matters, there was a further episode of family violence involving the father and the maternal grandmother which took place in mid-2019. That episode of family violence resulted in the maternal grandmother suffering injuries, including two broken arms. Again the father was charged with offences in relation to this incident.
5. In relation to each of the criminal proceedings that have ultimately arisen from the circumstances of the parties' relationship and the convictions that have been entered into in relation to all of those offences, the Court understands that the father says that he ultimately did not contest the charges that were laid against him. In his trial material filed in these proceedings, he seeks to proffer different versions of events to try and diffuse and deflect attention from his own conduct. Whatever the case may be, the reality is that the father did plead guilty to very serious charges of assault concerning both the mother and the maternal grandmother, and he was convicted of those offences. Those convictions are inescapable realities for the father in these proceedings.
6. In addition, the mother has made further allegations of quite serious family violence. Most concerning to the Court, leaving aside the very serious allegations of physical violence that she alleges, are allegations made by the mother of repeated and consistent communication, or attempts to communicate with the mother and/or members of her family. In his trial affidavit, the father acknowledges that he has indeed contacted both the mother, on occasions he says at her request including when he was incarcerated, but in addition, the maternal aunt. That he has done so despite the existence of an intervention order protecting both the mother and the children is a heightened risk factor from the Court's perspective.
7. I pause to mention all of those matters because ultimately when the Court is considering making any parenting orders in relation to children, the legislative pathway mandates that the Court, firstly, make orders that are not only in a child's best interests, but also orders that ensure the best interests of children are met, including by ensuring their safety, and to give effect to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The best interest factors, contained in section 60CC of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) ("the Act"), reinforce matters pertaining to the children's safety, and indeed, the Court's requirement to consider matters pertaining to family violence.
8. I mention the family violence in these proceedings because whatever else the father might say about the balance of allegations made by the mother, which I have not referred to in any detail in these brief reasons as yet, there are admissions by the father as to at least three very serious episodes of family violence, together with admissions that he has breached the terms of the intervention order protecting the mother and the children. As I have said, all of those factors weigh heavily in the Court's consideration in determining what orders are in these children's best interests.
9. In my view, and while I accept the evidence in these proceedings has not been tested, these admissions by the father are significant, and on the state of the evidence presently before the Court, lead the Court to consider that the orders that the parties now invite the Court to make are ones that are in the children's best interests, and they are ones that ensure both their safety and that of their primary carer, their mother.

1. The orders the Court is now being invited to make vest the mother with sole parental responsibility, and provide for the children are to live with her. In addition, there is to be a declaratory order that the children are not to spend time with their father. Otherwise, injunctions are to be made protecting the mother and the children, understanding that they are still protected persons pursuant to a final intervention order earlier made.
2. The mother, to her credit, is willing to facilitate what can best be described as identity contact between the children and their father by way of him providing them letters, cards and gifts on two occasions a year. Equally, to the mother's credit, she is willing, despite her safety concerns, to provide photographs of the children to the father on two occasions a year. That communication, in the first instance from the father to the children, ensures that the children have some knowledge of their father and that he is not a mysterious person in their lives.
3. The provision of photographs by the mother to the father, in my view, can best be seen as a token of goodwill on her part. Undoubtedly, given the nature of the admitted family violence, her proffering the provision of those photographs, in circumstances where the Court understands her address has not been disclosed to the father, and in circumstances where it is equally apparently an agreed fact that the maternal grandmother has changed her residence, where the mother and the children also reside, for fear of the father locating them, the mother's willingness to provide photographs of the children to the father clearly, as I say, can only be viewed as a gesture of goodwill on her part.
4. It is difficult to see in the short term how the children might benefit from that arrangement, albeit that I accept that in the long term, if the children were ultimately, once they attain majority, to seek a relationship with their father, they are not entirely unknown persons to him.
5. Otherwise, the father, through the orders, proposes to obtain some therapy in relation to what I am told is his conduct so far as the mother and the family in these proceedings are concerned, but also in relation to criminal proceedings that he is now facing involving a domestic partner subsequent to his relationship with the mother. While little is known about those charges in these proceedings, the Court understands that the father was incarcerated in relation to those charges until [date redacted] 2025, and that he is now on home detention bail.
6. All of those matters, when combined, put beyond doubt that the Court must be concerned about the safety of these children, and that the father presents a very significant risk of harm to the children.
7. In all of those circumstances, the orders that the parties, to their mutual credit, invite the Court to make today are ones that the Court considers to be in the best interests of these children.
8. For all of those reasons, I now make orders in terms of the minute of order as amended and signed by me today. These orders will be re-engrossed by my chambers.
9. Can I commend counsel for engaging, I must assume, in giving advice in these proceedings in a sensitive way so as to broker the resolution that has now been endorsed by the court. That is a good sign because it leaves these children and the mother with some settled arrangement, without the uncertainty of this litigation hanging over their head, but also the distress, as has been acknowledged by the parties, of the mother and the maternal grandmother having to give evidence in these proceedings.
10. The father, however, should be under no misapprehension. The contents of his denials in his affidavit as to circumstances and charges to which he had admitted and his deflection of blame onto the mother, on any reading of the material in light of the convictions which he pleaded guilty to, were deeply troubling, and they are matters that he ought address in therapy as he intends to do.
11. Equally troubling, is the father's lack of detail in his trial material as to the current charges he is now facing. Those matters heighten the Court's concern and confirm, as I said earlier, that the orders the parties have invited the Court to make are ones that are in the children's best interests.
12. For all of those reasons, the orders shall be made. There will be a new Order 11 which will be all applications be dismissed, and the proceedings otherwise dismissed as finalised.

NOTE:

These reasons were delivered ex tempore and have been corrected from the transcript. Topic headings have been inserted and grammatical errors have been corrected. In addition, amendments have been made to make the orally delivered reasons clear and easy to read.

I certify that the preceding twenty-one (21) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Ex Tempore Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Kari.