Dallas' personal story
To tell my story probably requires a book. But I'll try and do it in a page until that book is written. On December 14, 2019, the police arrived at my door and removed me from home. My wife had obtained a civil domestic violence order that required police to "oust" me from the family home without any opportunity for me to respond to the allegations or defend myself in court. A few days previous to this, she had tried to get the police to take out out a domestic violence order on her behalf - what is known as a Police Protection Notice - but the police had refused, noting in the file that there were no indicators of domestic violence in her report. However, civil orders are as easy to obtain as pamphlets from a religious fanatic.
The temporary civil orders contained conditions preventing me from seeing or speaking with the children without my ex-wife's permission. These orders were granted by a magistrates court on the basis of false a allegations and a supporting letter from a psychologist which merely repeated the false allegations and "supported" the application for the domestic violence orders. As I left my home in compliance with the order, with a few possessions stuffed in my car, my wife - this supposedly abused person who had sworn to the court that I was so aggressive and dangerous that I needed to be removed from her life by the State - roared down the street and swerved into the driveway, blocking my car in so I could not leave. I reversed and tried to drive around her. She pulled further in to the gap I had made when I reversed. I got out of my car and walked as far away from her as I could to try and comply with the order. The police arrived and spoke to her and me. They let me leave after she had inspected the house. I later found out from the police that she had been watching my activities on the security cameras and was worried I was taking things from the home that "I shouldn't have been."
The order was "temporary" but, because of the overloaded domestic violence courts and the onset of COVID, the reality was that the order would be in place at least six months, likely longer. It was in the context of being unable to see my children on the basis of unproved untested allegations that I had to fight for access to my children through the family court. Many months and tens of thousands of dollars (borrowed from my parents) later I agreed to "consent without admissions" to a permanent order for three years.
Without writing a book, I can't explain the hellish process that is the family law and domestic violence system in Queensland that led to this point. But by that stage, I was exhausted, broke and defeated. I was not capable of defending my innocence any longer. The financial cost, particularly to my parents, was too much to continue to incur. The cost to my former wife had been negligible. The advantage she gained in the family court proceedings was incalculable. I settled for less time with my children than I wanted. But I was one of the lucky ones - I actually got time with my children. I have heard many truly horrific stories from men that have been deprived of all contact with their children. But, after all the allegations about how I was too violent to be around my children or speak to them, she eventually agreed to me having 46% care of the children. The domestic violence order was never about my former partner being afraid. There was no credible evidence of domestic violence. It was simply about getting me out of the house and gaining the advantage in the family law proceedings.
The more time you have with the children, the more child support and welfare you are granted. In the war of divorce, holding a domestic violence order against your partner is surely the nuclear bomb of weapons, particularly once that gives you immediate control over the percentage split of the children. There is no way to really describe in words the terror of having the constant threat of having your children removed from you hanging over your head. The only conditions of the permanent order were simply that I not commit domestic violence to my ex-wife or the children and not come within a specified distance of the home that I still owned. I only agreed to the three-year order on the basis that all the other conditions prohibiting contact with the children were removed.
The order was made "without admissions", which meant I did not admit to the allegations of domestic violence. However, even without admissions, the order was used against me from then on without compunction. It was brandished before anyone who had contact with the kids - the school, their extracurricular and religious leaders, the child support agency - as if I had admitted to everything. The existence of the order was enough for my ex-wife to continue to control my life in nasty, petty ways, including not allowing me to spend time with my daughter on her birthday and not allowing me to take my daughter to extra-curricular activities (even when my daughter wanted me to). I regretted consenting without admissions. But the systemic and financial pressure to do so is immense.
After some time, during which my ex-wife continued to use the order to harass me, and I had recovered somewhat emotionally and financially, I applied to the Court to remove it, thinking that if I could just point to the false allegations that lay behind it and the way it was continually being used as a controlling tool, justice would surely operate to remove it. However, when I applied to remove the order, the court said that I could no longer dispute the original allegations even though I had never admitted to them. Another few thousand dollars later and still no hint of access to justice.
The emotional and financial toll on me of going through these events has been immense. Anxiety and depression are now constant features of my mental landscape. Although I am not the hero of the story of my marriage, I did not deserve what was perpetrated on me in the name of appeasing the ideological gods of the domestic violence system. A system that has no presumption of innocence and no rights for those caught in its awful maw.