Anonymous's personal story
I am a (male) victim of domestic violence - I was frequently verbally abused, punched, kicked, and threatened with a knife while living separated under one roof over a sustained 8 month period by my ex-wife while we fought legally over childrens orders and property orders. I have also suffered legal/administrative abuse inflicted by my ex-wife where, through the workings of the Family Court, she attempted to deny me access to my children.
My ex-wife has admitted in writing to physically abusing me (and even once apologised, in writing), I reported this violence to the Police along with this evidence, to DoCS and to the Family Court, and asked to have her formally charged. I also filed a Form 4 notice of Child Abuse with the Family Court detailing the abuse my ex-wife perpetrated against me, sometimes in the presence of our two children.
Not only was my ex-wife not charged (the Police who I reported the abuse to laughed openly in my face), but the social workers appointed by the Family Court erroneously assumed that the violence being reported through the Family Court proceedings was being perpetrated by me, simply on the basis of my gender. When I pointed out their error, unbelievably the social workers refused to update their reports! These reports were never updated and remain today on file, erroneously listing me as the perpetrator of family violence, even though I was not, and even though my ex-wife has never made any such allegations.
During this same period, my ex-wife did however make false allegations that I had sexually abused our two children. The initial DoCS investigation of these allegations produced reports which magnified the allegations in every dimension well beyond what my ex-wife had originally alleged.
During our Family Court hearing, upon learning that the violence was perpetrated by my ex-wife (and not by me, as the court reports erroneously indicated) the Judge ruled that the existence of domestic abuse would not play a part in determining the outcome of our children's orders hearing.
Also, during these Court Hearings, my ex-wife formally dropped all her allegations of sexual impropriety against me, saying that no such abuse was alleged to have occurred after all, leaving the inescapable logical conclusion that she had knowingly fabricated these allegations from the beginning.
No penalty was applied to her by the Family Court system.