No Unacceptable Risk, But No Shortcut to No Contact: Autistic Child Reintroduced to Father Through a Carefully Scaffolded Plan

In Bekker & Lantosca [2026] FedCFamC1F 344, Parker J determined parenting, property and de facto spousal maintenance issues after a short de facto relationship involving a young child, X, with significant special needs. The mother sought to exclude the father from X’s life. The Court rejected that position, finding that the father did not pose an unacceptable risk and that the evidence did not support the mother’s claim that X’s dysregulation was caused by time with the father. However, the Court also recognised X’s autism, sensory sensitivities, dysregulation and reliance on the mother as coregulator. The result was a cautious reintroduction regime: X lives with the mother in Adelaide, the mother has sole major long-term decision-making responsibility, and the father spends gradually increasing daytime time with X, initially supervised and subject to therapeutic and educational conditions. The Court also divided non-superannuation assets 80/20 in the mother’s favour, equalised superannuation, and ordered the father to pay $510 per week spousal maintenance until 1 February 2028.

🧩 Facts and Issues

Facts:

The parties commenced cohabitation in Victoria in January 2020 and separated on 4 December 2022, after a relationship of just under three years. Their child, X, was born in 2021 and was aged five by the end of the trial. X has significant special needs, including an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, speech delay, emotional regulation difficulties, sensory sensitivities, self-harming behaviours when dysregulated, and heavy reliance on the mother for coregulation.

After separation, the mother unilaterally relocated with X from Victoria to South Australia. The father remained in Victoria. X spent 10 periods of professionally supervised time with the father between November 2023 and May 2024, but otherwise had not spent time with him for close to two years by the end of the trial.

Both parties made serious allegations of family violence and poor mental health. The mother alleged physical, sexual, emotional, coercive and financial abuse by the father. The father denied the more serious allegations and alleged that the mother had also been verbally abusive, controlling and emotionally dysregulated. The Court accepted that the relationship had been volatile, toxic and mutually abusive, but did not accept that either party was established as the sole perpetrator or victim in the way alleged by the mother.

On parenting, the mother sought sole parental responsibility and essentially no time between X and the father. The father sought a gradual reintroduction of time. The ICL supported the mother having sole decision-making responsibility, but also supported a cautious reintroduction of time with the father, subject to conditions.

On property, the parties had a modest net non-superannuation pool after the major real property, the Town G land, had gone into the possession of the mortgagee. The main dispute was how the residue of that property should be divided, and whether the mother should receive an additional adjustment because of arrears associated with the mortgage.

On maintenance, the mother sought $771.50 per week until 1 February 2029 and continuation of private health insurance. The father opposed periodic maintenance and instead proposed a lump-sum-style adjustment from the proceeds of sale.

Issues:

1. Did the father pose an unacceptable risk to X or the mother?
2. Was X’s dysregulation linked to time with the father?
3. Should X have no time with the father, or should the relationship be reintroduced with safeguards?
4. Should the mother have sole decision-making responsibility?
5. How should the Court treat the mother’s unilateral relocation and poor facilitation of the father-child relationship?
6. How should the modest property pool be divided after the mortgagee sale?
7. Should the father receive responsibility for mortgage arrears, or had both parties contributed to the loss of equity?
8. Was the mother entitled to spousal maintenance, and if so, in what amount and for how long?

⚖️ Applicable Law – Legislation, Regulations, Rules

Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

• s 4AB — definition of family violence.
• s 60CA — the child’s best interests are the paramount consideration.
• s 60CC — best-interests factors, including safety, the child’s needs, parental capacity and benefit of relationships where safe.
• s 60CG — orders should, so far as possible consistently with best interests, not expose a person to unacceptable risk of family violence.
• s 65D(2) — power to make parenting orders.
• s 68B — injunctions for personal protection of a child or party.
• s 68LA(5B) — ICL meeting with the child; exceptional circumstances accepted here because of X’s age and developmental challenges.
• Pt VII — parenting framework.
• Pt VIIAB — property and financial matters for de facto relationships.
• s 90SM — alteration of property interests between de facto parties.
• s 90ST — clean-break principle.
• s 90XT — superannuation splitting orders.
• s 90SE — de facto spousal maintenance orders.
• s 90SF — threshold and factors for de facto maintenance.
• s 90SH — lump sum maintenance.
• s 114UB — costs provision.

Evidence Act 1995 (Cth)

• s 140 — findings made on the balance of probabilities, with regard to the seriousness of allegations.

Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)

• rr 6.01 and 6.05 — disclosure obligations.
• r 8.15(3)(e) — dispensed with for certain expert/professional reports.
• r 8.19 — relied upon in admitting Dr U’s report despite the psychologist not being available for cross-examination.

Superannuation legislation and regulations

• Family Law (Superannuation) Regulations 2025 (Cth), Pt 7.
• Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 (Cth), regs 7A.03, 7A.06 and 7A.12.

📌 Precedents Relied On

Parenting / safety / unacceptable risk:

• Pierce & Pierce (No 2) — safety is a focused starting point under the amended Part VII framework.
• Fiedler & Vitale — safety will ordinarily be prominent where the Court considers a child unsafe or at risk.
• M & M — unacceptable risk principles.
• N & S & The Separate Representative — the Court must give real and substantial consideration to whether facts raise unacceptable risk.
• Vasser & Taylor-Black — unacceptable risk is the touchstone in risk cases.
• Blinko, Keane, and McDevitt & Duchamps — risk may be managed by protective measures such as supervision, where proportionate.
• Pascoe & O’Keefe — exposure to family violence can have destructive psychological consequences for children.
• Friseal & Friseal and Paintal & Paintal — victims of family violence do not always present as meek or timid.
• Lainhart & Ellinson — the Court cannot leave critical parenting progression decisions to a supervisor.
• Arrighetti & Qodirova, Beridze & Beridze, Fiedler & Vitale, and Horwitz & Tavares — where a party refuses to propose fallback parenting orders, the Court is not required to invent every hypothetical alternative.

Property:

• Stanford & Stanford — the Court must first be satisfied it is just and equitable to alter property interests.
• Bevan & Bevan and Costello & Langdon — justice and equity must not be conflated with contribution and future-needs analysis, though those matters may inform it.
• Aleksovski & Aleksovski — contributions must be weighed and assessed across the relationship.
• Jabour & Jabour, Dickons & Dickons, Bolger & Headon, Fields & Smith, and Bachman & Self — contribution assessment is holistic, not mathematical.
• De Angelis & De Angelis — gambling is not automatically wastage; context matters.
• Chorn & Hopkins and Farnell & Farnell — legal-fee loans ordinarily treated with caution and not simply included as liabilities without proper foundation.

Maintenance:

• Hall & Hall, Kajewski & Kajewski, and Bevan & Bevan — maintenance requires threshold findings of need and capacity.
• Nutting & Nutting — “adequately” means a standard reasonable in all the circumstances.
• Saxena & Saxena — structured maintenance inquiry: can the applicant support themselves, what are their reasonable needs, what capacity does the respondent have, and what order is proper?
• Redman & Redman, Padnall & Padnall, and Drysdale & Drysdale — some household expenses overlap between parent and child, but caution is required so maintenance does not become a backdoor child-support claim.
• Freestone & Freestone — respondent’s unavoidable expenses and reasonable living costs must be considered.
• Clauson & Clauson, Spano & Spano, Anast & Anastopoulos, Vaughan & Vaughan, Bolton & Bolton, and Branchflower & Branchflower — lump sum maintenance may be appropriate in some cases but creates difficulty because it is less amenable to later variation.

🧠 Analysis

Issue

What orders best promoted X’s safety, stability and development where the mother sought to exclude the father, the father had been absent from X’s life for nearly two years, X had autism and significant regulation needs, and both parties had contributed to a volatile and damaging relationship dynamic?

Rule

The Court must treat X’s best interests as paramount. Safety is a focused starting point, but the Court still undertakes a broader best-interests assessment. The Court must consider whether a parent poses an unacceptable risk, whether any risk can be managed through supervision or conditions, the child’s developmental and emotional needs, each parent’s capacity, and the benefit of a relationship with each parent where safe.

In property, the Court must identify the parties’ property and liabilities, determine whether it is just and equitable to alter interests, assess contributions, consider current and future circumstances, and then make orders that are themselves just and equitable.

In maintenance, the Court asks whether the applicant can support herself adequately, what her reasonable needs are, what the respondent can reasonably pay, and what order is proper in all the circumstances.

Application

1. The Court rejected the mother’s “unacceptable risk” case

The mother made very serious allegations against the father, including physical violence, sexual violence, coercive control, threats, emotional abuse and financial abuse. The Court did not accept the allegations at the level alleged.

Parker J found that the relationship was volatile, dysfunctional and abusive on both sides. Both parties behaved poorly, both became hot-tempered, both said insulting things, and both failed to protect X from exposure to their conflict. But the evidence did not establish that one party was the sole coercive controller and the other merely the victim.

The Court was highly critical of the mother’s credibility. Her evidence was found to be exaggerated, hyperbolic, at times contradicted by independent evidence, and affected by a lack of insight into her own conduct. The father’s denials of the more serious allegations were accepted as credible in a number of important respects.

The Court ultimately found that the father did not pose an unacceptable risk to X and that exclusion from X’s life was not necessary to promote the safety of X or the mother.

2. The mother’s evidence about X’s dysregulation was seriously undermined

The mother’s case depended heavily on the claim that X’s supervised time with the father caused severe dysregulation, regression, appetite disturbance, sleep disturbance and self-harming behaviour.

That case failed. The Court found that the mother had actively influenced or orchestrated evidence from X’s occupational therapist and disability support worker in a way that overstated the alleged connection between father-time and X’s dysregulation. The occupational therapist’s own notes did not support the strong claims made in her later reports. The support worker had not even worked one-on-one with X until months after supervised visits had ceased, yet gave strong opinions about the effect of those visits.

Parker J accepted that X frequently becomes dysregulated. But the evidence did not establish that this was caused by spending time with the father. The Court agreed with the ICL that a conclusion linking X’s dysregulation to time with the father was simply not open on the evidence.

This was central. Once the alleged causal link failed, the mother’s no-time proposal became disproportionate.

3. X’s autism and special needs still required caution

The father won the risk issue, but he did not win unrestricted time. The Court accepted that X has significant developmental, sensory, emotional and regulation needs. He relies heavily on routine, predictability and the mother as his coregulator. He can self-harm when dysregulated and struggles with transitions.

The father also had limitations. He had been out of X’s day-to-day life for a long period and did not yet have the mother’s depth of experience in reading X’s cues and managing his needs. The family consultant observed misattunement in the father’s interaction with X, though also recognised that he lacked supports and guidance rather than capacity altogether.

The Court therefore needed a regime that reintroduced the relationship without overwhelming X. That meant supervision first, daytime-only time, gradual increases, and mandatory father engagement with X’s occupational therapist, autism education and school involvement.

4. The CCS reports helped the father

The Children’s Contact Service reports showed that X and the father had positive interactions during supervised time. X smiled, laughed, played, went to the father, used “Dadda” or “Daddy”, sought comfort from him, cuddled him, and was soothed by him. The father was observed engaging in child-focused ways, validating X’s distress and offering to end visits if X was tired or upset.

The mother dismissed these positive interactions as “masking”. The Court did not accept that blanket explanation. The evidence supported that the father had, at least at times, been able to coregulate X and interact sensitively.

That gave the Court confidence that a carefully managed reintroduction was viable.

5. The mother’s unilateral relocation and information control counted against her

The mother relocated X from Victoria to South Australia without the father’s consent and without seeking permission from the Court. She did not inform the father of the move. The Court rejected her claim that she had a sound basis for taking that step and found the relocation indicative of a lack of support for X’s relationship with the father.

The Court was also concerned that the mother failed to keep the father informed about X’s medical, NDIS, school and allied health issues. She had not complied with communication obligations through AppClose and had not shared strategies with the father despite criticising him for not understanding X’s needs.

This mattered because X’s special needs made information-sharing especially important. The mother was X’s primary carer and knew him best, but the Court found she had not used that position to support the father’s informed involvement.

6. Sole decision-making was still given to the mother

Despite those criticisms, the Court ordered that the mother have sole responsibility for major long-term decisions.

That was because the parties had no real capacity to co-parent. Joint decision-making would likely create a forum for conflict, delay important decisions and expose X to further stress. The mother was X’s primary caregiver and had demonstrated strong commitment to his medical, allied health and daily needs, except where the father-child relationship was concerned.

The Court balanced that by requiring the mother to notify the father in writing of decisions and by making orders enabling the father to obtain information directly from schools, medical practitioners and allied health providers.

7. The father’s time was reintroduced slowly and conditionally

The Court ordered that X live with the mother and that the mother be permitted to remain in Adelaide with X.

The father’s time was ordered to progress as follows:

• professionally supervised time each alternate Saturday for two hours for three months;
• then unsupervised alternate Saturday time from 12.00 pm to 3.00 pm for three months;
• then 12.00 pm to 4.00 pm for three months;
• then 10.00 am to 4.00 pm each alternate Saturday.

The father’s time was conditional on him contacting and attending appointments with X’s occupational therapist, completing an autism-related workshop, and attending parent-teacher interviews. Those conditions were designed to build his capacity, not punish him.

The Court refused the father’s broader proposal for further extension into both Saturday and Sunday. That was not supported by the evidence and risked pushing X too far.

8. The property pool was small because the main property had gone to mortgagee sale

The Town G land had been taken into possession by the mortgagee and sold for $465,000. The parties no longer had full control of the sale process; they effectively held only an equity of redemption or residual interest in any net proceeds.

The non-superannuation pool was very modest. The Court identified net non-superannuation assets of about $42,113, and superannuation of about $376,698. The father had far greater superannuation, and a splitting order of $130,780 was made to equalise superannuation.

The parties agreed that contributions should be assessed equally. Parker J accepted that was appropriate: the father was the primary income earner, and the mother was the primary homemaker and caregiver, particularly after X’s birth.

9. The mother received 80% of non-superannuation assets, but not the extra arrears adjustment

The mother sought a much larger outcome, including effectively holding the father responsible for the mortgage arrears and seeking up to 90% or 100% of the available net value.

The Court rejected that. The father had failed to comply fully with interim orders requiring him to pay the mortgage, but the Court found he had a coherent explanation: his income had reduced, he had substantial maintenance obligations, and he was also funding travel to Adelaide to see X. His non-compliance was unacceptable, but not wilful financial abuse.

The mother also contributed to the loss of equity by refusing to agree to a realistic listing price and obstructing the sale process. Parker J found that her conduct was at least reckless and also breached orders requiring the parties to do all things necessary to sell the property.

Because both parties contributed to the arrears and mortgagee sale, no separate adjustment was made in favour of either party. The Court found an 80/20 division of non-superannuation assets in the mother’s favour was just and equitable.

10. Maintenance was ordered because the mother could not support herself

The father did not seriously challenge that the mother could not support herself adequately. The Court accepted that, because of X’s care needs, the mother was unable to return to paid work in the immediate future. X’s schooling was unlikely to develop on an ordinary timetable, and it was unlikely the mother would be able to return to paid employment before the 2028 school year.

The mother’s reasonable needs were assessed at $1,092 per week, excluding expenses allocated specifically to X but including some overlapping household expenses such as rent.

The father’s capacity to pay was then carefully calculated. Parker J adjusted his income and expenses, removed expenses no longer being paid, accounted for child support, tax, garnishment of arrears, and estimated travel to South Australia to spend time with X. The father’s capacity to meet the mother’s needs was assessed at $510 per week.

The Court rejected the father’s lump-sum maintenance proposal because the precise sale proceeds were uncertain and because lump-sum maintenance is harder to vary if circumstances change. Periodic maintenance was therefore ordered.

Conclusion

The Court made final parenting orders providing that:

• X live with the mother;
• the mother be permitted to remain living in Adelaide with X;
• the mother have sole responsibility for major long-term decisions, with written notification to the father;
• the father spend gradually increasing time with X, beginning with supervised time and progressing to daytime unsupervised alternate Saturday time;
• the father’s time be conditional on engagement with X’s occupational therapist, completion of an autism workshop, and school involvement;
• the parties communicate through AppClose;
• injunctions restrain denigration, abuse, discussion of proceedings with X, and direct communication outside the orders; and
• the ICL’s appointment be discharged.

On property, the Court ordered an 80/20 division of non-superannuation assets in favour of the mother, a $130,780 superannuation split to equalise super, and retention by each party of remaining property not otherwise specified.

On maintenance, the father was ordered to pay the mother $510 per week until 1 February 2028 and maintain her private health insurance at her current level of coverage until the same date. Costs were not finally determined, with each party retaining the right to apply for costs after considering the reasons.

🧠 Take-Home Lesson

This case is important because it shows the Court refusing to collapse a complex parenting matter into a simple “risk equals no contact” narrative. X had real vulnerabilities. The father had real limitations. But the mother did not prove that the father posed an unacceptable risk, nor that X’s dysregulation was caused by spending time with him.

The Court’s answer was not to exclude the father, and not to rush the relationship. It was to build a scaffold: professional supervision first, gradual daytime time, occupational-therapy engagement, autism education, school involvement, information-sharing, and controlled communication.

The case is also a warning about evidence from treating professionals. Where a parent feeds a professional a narrative, assists in drafting reports, or encourages conclusions not supported by clinical notes, that can seriously damage the parent’s credibility and weaken the very case they are trying to prove.

On property and maintenance, the case is a practical reminder that a short de facto relationship can still produce significant adjustments where one party is caring full-time for a young child with special needs and has limited earning capacity. But the Court will still scrutinise both parties’ conduct. The mother received 80% of the non-superannuation pool and maintenance, but she did not get a windfall for mortgage arrears where her own conduct also contributed to the loss of equity.