MOTHER WANTS TO STOP HER CHILD FROM SPENDING TIME WITH HER PATERNAL GRANDMOTHER
Devers & Pellett & Anor [2020] FCCA 2800 (28 September 2020)
This case involves an application by the mother seeking orders that the child should not continue spending time with her paternal grandmother alleging that the child is at risk with the paternal grandmother.
Facts:
This is an interim parenting matter concerning a child, X, who has just turned seven. On 20 June 2018, final orders were made that the child would live with his mother and spend time with the paternal grandmother.
The mother and father have a long history of illicit drug use and associated criminality. The mother has also spent some period in jail, for stealing and assault charges. The parents were, in the view of Territory Families, responsible for exposing X to family violence and illicit drug use.
The child was subsequently examined by a paediatrician who expressed the view, according to the Territory Families’ material, that the child was exhibiting troubled behaviour because of his past exposure to trauma.
The mother was not represented today, and her submissions were perhaps of limited value. Essentially she did not think the child should resume spending time with the grandmother more than once in every three weeks until, as she, the mother, put it, his behaviour settled.
Issue: should the child resume spending time with the paternal grandmother?
Law:
- Family Law Act 1975 S69ZW
Analysis:
The court is not satisfied there is any reason for the child’s troubled behaviour arising out of his time with the paternal grandmother. The Territory Families’ material include an assessment of whether the child was at risk in the paternal grandmother’s home and expressed the view that he was not. In short, there is not a jot of evidence to suggest that the child is at risk with the paternal grandmother.
Although the court is satisfied that the orders proposed by the paternal grandmother and the Independent Children’s Lawyer are appropriate, the court consider that there is evidence of instability in this child’s life, very serious instability, much of it flowing from the instability in the mother’s own life, an example being her departure for Queensland on 31 December 2019, in breach of the agreement with Territory Families and the paternal grandmother, and going to Queensland until 28 February 2020, meaning that the child was out of school in the Northern Territory for at least a month approximately.
Conclusion: The child shall continue to spend time with her paternal grandmother.
