Each day Erin* would fill her school water bottle with scotch and coke and by recess it would be drunk.
At age 16, she says it was the only way to numb the pain of the abuse she claims she was experiencing at home.
She is one of many children who say they have been placed with allegedly abusive parents by the family court after a court-appointed expert dismissed legitimate allegations of abuse.
She cannot be named under laws protecting the identity of parties in family court matters.
She says home wasn’t a happy place.
“There was no real love in that house,” Erin says.
At age nine, after mostly living with her mother, she was placed with her father and stepmother, following a court order.
She was only allowed to see her mother for a five-hour visit, once a fortnight, in a public place.
At home with her father she claims she suffered violence, neglect and abuse.
“It felt like I was just a toy for my dad to play with … I didn’t feel like I was an actual human being.”
She blames the expert witness — also known as a report writer — whose job it was to advise the court about what would be in Erin’s best interests.
A report writer is often a social worker, psychologist or psychiatrist employed by the courts or by the family.
Their role is to write an objective report that a judge considers when making a final decision.
Erin says in her case the report writer got it wrong, and helped convince the court to place her with a parent she claims abused her.
“I didn’t really trust the report writer,” she says.
Erin says she disclosed allegations of emotional abuse by her father to the report writer, but they didn’t do anything.
“They didn’t listen to the details about how mean they could be, it was just the information that suited the report.
“They just asked weird questions like, ‘is it true your mum kisses you on the lips?'”
Over the years, Erin claims the abuse became worse.
“It was traumatic and I missed out on a happier life.”
In later years, Erin reported her claims to the police and a guidance counsellor. She also tried to run away from home only to be returned back to her father.
“Everyone saw I was struggling, and no one stepped in,” she says.
“I thought years ago I would be dead, no one should be pushed that much.”
No transparency
Under Section 121 of the Family Law Act report writers cannot be identified in individual court cases.
Dr Karen Williams, a Consultant Psychiatrist who specialises in trauma, says report writers need to be subject to the same level of scrutiny and oversight as any other medical professional.
“That is the biggest downfall, there is no review or complaint process, you have non-experts providing ‘expert opinion’ on issues without any consequences if they get it wrong.”
She says some report writers fail to take signs of abuse at face value and instead see them as evidence of lying and manipulation.
“The assessor needs to be able to create a sense of safety for the victims, and this is difficult when the outcome of these reports are so often used to refuse contact.”
Author and journalist Jess Hill, who has interviewed children involved in violent family disputes, says some report writers can cost a lot of money, charging at times around $15,000 or more for their court reports.
“They are charging through the nose for that evidence and so many people I’ve spoken to … have talked about details being wrong, that seem to have been cut and paste from other reports,” she says.
“It’s a total racket and the fact that we can’t name them in our reporting means that they operate with absolute impunity.”
One psychiatrist — who can not be named under family court laws — has been repeatedly accused of downplaying and ignoring allegations of abuse in a number of cases, recommending children reside with allegedly abusive parents, where they claim to have suffered serious physical and sexual abuse.
That psychiatrist was the subject of a dozen complaints to the Health Care Complaints Commission, but no action was taken.
Further complaints to the Federal Attorney General and the Medical Council also resulted in no action and the psychiatrist continues to practice today.
Amelia*, an advocate, says no agency was prepared to take responsibility for the psychiatrist’s practices.
“Everybody knows, the problem is not going away, and neither are we,” she says.
She’s spoken to many families where the psychiatrist documented but then dismissed abuse allegations or trivialised disclosures of alleged child sexual abuse.
In some of these cases, she says the psychiatrist co-interviewed a child with the alleged abuser.
“The child was backing herself into a cupboard to stand even further away from the person she had named as the abuser,” she claims.
“In one case, [the psychiatrist] said a 5-year-old would not understand the term ‘private parts’ when she said her father asked her to rub his private parts.”
The psychiatrist didn’t respond to questions from the ABC.
‘Children are inherently honest’
Traditionally, children’s voices have been perceived as unreliable because they are thought to be prone to fantasy and can be easily swayed.
However, more recent research has found children may be actually more truthful than adults.
Courts’ failures to consider allegations of abuse in parenting disputes has been recognised at the highest levels.
Last Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a report, which highlighted the damaging consequences when abuse allegations aren’t believed by courts.
The report found concerns from a number of countries, including Australia, that children were removed from the primary carer and compelled to reside with the perpetrator parent.
“In addition, submissions noted how police child protection services have enforced access and custody orders in cases where the child clearly did not wish to comply, traumatising both the child and the mother,” the report stated.
The report’s author, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women Reem Alsalem, said the tendency of family courts to dismiss the history of domestic violence and abuse in custody cases, especially where mothers or children have brought forward credible allegations of abuse was unacceptable.
“The child may also continue to be exposed to lasting harm,” she said.
Psychologist Dr Felicity McFarlane, who heads Melbourne Children’s Psychology Clinic, says this “chronic pattern” of disbelief is getting worse as some court report writers are increasingly missing the signs of trauma.
“Children are inherently honest,” she says.
“[Some report writers] are not experienced in understanding the emotional and behavioural patterns of a distressed child.”
She says dismissing abuse allegations from children can have lifelong psychological consequences
“What you’re talking about is asking a child to endure chronic distress repeatedly over a long period of time.
“The initial acute strategies that [children] develop to just survive an acute situation … become maladaptive traits over time”.
An amendment bill currently before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee seeks to allow the government to set standards and requirements for report writers.
The attorney general’s department has previously said the changes would assist in increasing transparency and confidence in family law professionals.
Clara’s story
Clara’s* children were removed from her care two years ago, when they were both under the age of nine.
She says her report writer spent 40 minutes with her and conducted the meeting online.
“[The report writer] was just heavily dismissive [and] wasn’t listening to us,” she claims.
A police report was filed against Clara’s ex husband after she alleged her children came home with “bruising” and “lacerations”.
Soon after, he appeared in the Magistrates Court for allegations of abuse and an apprehended violence order (AVO) was ordered against the father for the safety of the children.
Despite this, the report writer interviewed the children alongside him.
“[The report writer] was asking questions right in front of my ex husband. So obviously the children could only answer in a certain way when you’re being influenced by an adult sitting right there,” she says.
In the end, the report writer recommended the children live with their father. Clara sees them once a fortnight under paid supervised care.
“I went from living with them full time, being their primary carer to not seeing them for four whole months.”
When abuse allegations are made, courts don’t always accept them.
Zoe Rathus, senior lecturer at Griffith University law school, says report writers can be influenced by the widely criticised Parental Alienation Syndrome.
The controversial idea suggests one parent is responsible for alienating a child against another parent. It can be used to discredit disclosures of abuse by children.
“It is a very neat way to turn an abuser into the victim and the victim into the problem,” she says.
“If there’s any reluctance by a child to see a parent, we’ve given that parent tools and weapons to blame the other parent … to turn the gaze and the scrutiny off themselves.”
The long term effects
Erin is now 19 years old and has been living with her mum for the last two years. While she is rebuilding her life, she says she still has a lot of anger.
“I didn’t enjoy having no mother growing up. There were so many times I needed her, and she couldn’t be there”.
Erin says she has nightmares about her dad every night and wishes more had been done by the family courts when she was a child.
“The family courts never followed up and just believed his lies,” she says.