Australia DossierHome

Australia
Melbourne: 1991-April 27, 1993

In mid-1991 a (now reconciled) former Family member-in a bid to gain the custody of the children-accused his estranged wife of abusing their children. Both the wife and their children lived in a Family community in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As a result of these allegations, the Victorian Police and Community Services Victoria (CSV) sought to have the children placed in state custody.

A lengthy court case began in November of that year. Legal history was made when one of the children, who was 12 years old at the time, spent an unprecedented three days on the witness stand, giving testimony. On August 10, 1992, Senior Children's Court Magistrate Gregory Levine dismissed the application of the police and CSV, ruling that the children could continue to live with their mother in a Family residence.1 CSV appealed the ruling on a technicality. The Victorian Supreme Court returned the case to Magistrate Levine on April 27, 1993, where he finally dismissed the applications, thus ending nearly two years of proceedings.

In his judgment, the magistrate also warned against using child protection laws as a pretext to harass small religious groups such as the Family:

In my view it was not envisioned by the legislature that all such groups, organisations or sects should have their children made the subject of protection applications as a form of class action. It must be of concern that this form of inquiry may set a precedent for the bringing of protection applications in relation to other sects whose practices and beliefs do not appear to accord with mainstream thinking.2

Sydney: May 15, 1992-March 31,1999

In 1991 police in the state of New South Wales launched an extensive yearlong investigation of the Family, code-named "Project A." This culminated on May 15, 1992, when police and officials from the Department of Community Services (DOCS) staged elaborate synchronized pre-dawn raids on Family residences in Sydney and took 65 children into state custody. The authorities claimed that disgruntled ex-Family members and anti-"cult" organizations had made allegations of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse against the Family. The raids received extensive coverage in the media.

Despite the 12-month investigation, which cost taxpayers millions of dollars, police found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing. The children were all found to be healthy and free of any signs of abuse. On May 21, Children's Magistrate Ian Forsyth described the children as "delightful and articulate" and released all the children into the temporary custody of their parents.3

Meanwhile, the DOCS continued to pursue the case in the courts. On October 31 the case was stayed in the New South Wales Supreme Court after the parties agreed to settle the case in a historic mediation by former Chief Justice Sir Lawrence Street. The Care Applications on the Family children would be withdrawn on the completion of a 12-month period of socialization activities (e.g., swimming, horseback riding, arts and crafts, etc.) attended by the children. The cost of this agreement was underwritten by the DOCS. The DOCS also withdrew their allegations that the children had been subjected to inappropriate sexual behavior.

The mediation agreement states:

[The Department of Community Services] denies any and all implications which may have arisen in the opening statement made in its case or in other evidence in the Children's Court at Cobham that all children the subject of the applications had been subjected to physical sexual assault or had engaged in sexual intercourse.4

At the expiry of the 12-month period, lawyers for the DOCS and the Family both presented petitions for the proceedings to be dropped. The Children's Court Magistrate, much to the surprise of all concerned, announced his intention to pursue the case. The lawyers for all parties took the matter to the State Supreme Court. On November 2, 1993, Justice David Levine of the New South Wales Supreme Court ordered the Children's Court Magistrate to dismiss the case. In his judgment Justice Levine stated,

I am persuaded that as a matter of law not only has the magistrate the jurisdiction but he has the obligation to bring to end these proceedings. I order the [magistrate] to give leave to the complainant to withdraw those proceedings and thereupon to dismiss them.5

The actions of the police and Community Services came under fire in New South Wales Parliament in November 1993, when the former Police Minister produced documents showing that the raids were conducted unlawfully and without proper evidence.6 In protest at the violation of their rights that such illegal raids represented, 62 of the children who had been removed from their families by New South Wales authorities in 1992, initiated a civil action against DOCS. On March 31, 1999, Supreme Court Justice John Dunford found that "in entering the relevant premises, searching for and removing the various plaintiffs, the defendant's servants [officers of police and Community Services] and agents were not acting under any authority conferred by the warrants but wrongfully and contrary to the law."7

The police and DOCS requested a mediation just as the main part of the hearing was to commence. Although the terms of the settlement were confidential, the Australian media reported "huge compensation payoffs" for the suffering endured by the children who had been taken from their parents. So ended a case that the Australian daily, The Sydney Morning Herald, estimated cost the government AUD$4.5 million.

Melbourne: May 15, 1992-April 22, 1994

In an operation orchestrated simultaneously with that carried out in Sydney, pre-dawn raids were conducted on Family communities in Melbourne on May 15, 1992. Fifty-six children were taken into custody. The raids were ordered by the Community Services Victoria (since renamed the Department of Health and Community Services [H&CS]), voicing the same allegations by anti-cult groups and some ex-members of the Family as in the Sydney case: physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of minors.

A week of medical and psychological examinations revealed no evidence of sexual or psychological abuse. On May 21, the same day Family children in Sydney were being released, Justice Gray of the Supreme Court of Victoria at Melbourne ordered that all Family children in custody be returned to the care of their parents, pending court proceedings on the protection applications sought by H&CS.

Despite the precedent of the agreement reached between the Department of Community Services and the Family in Sydney, the H&CS in Melbourne refused the Family's mediation terms and began court proceedings for custody of the Family children. Preliminary hearings dragged on for nearly two years. The Department was so determined to bring the case to trial that it agreed to fund both the prosecution and the defense, at an expense to taxpayers estimated by The Melbourne Age (May 23, 1994, page 1) at anywhere between AUD$1.5 and $10 million.

After 23 months, apparently without any evidence to show for its efforts and expense, and under pressure from the state government to end what was turning out to be an embarrassment, H&CS agreed to mediation on terms almost identical to those proposed by the Family 18 months earlier. In the mediation agreement the Family maintained its innocence of any of H&CS's charges:

The [parents] do not concede that the children are in need of [state] care and protection under the Act. The parties consent to this Order in order to avoid the harmful effects lengthy court proceedings would have on the children.

The terms of the agreement, ratified on April 22, 1994, by Victoria Supreme Court Justice Beach, similar to those reached in Sydney in October 1992, consisted of a 15-month period of "external socialization activities" for three hours weekly (such as sports, music lessons, etc.), paid for by the Department.

The mediation was recognized by the media as a victory for the Family and a personal embarrassment for the H&CS chief, Dr. John Paterson (deceased 2/2003). Media coverage also principally focused on the large amount of taxpayers' money poured into a case that led nowhere and the overall lack of evidence of any wrongdoing. As Alan Austin of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's religious department observed in an interview on "The Religion Report" of Radio 2RN on May 29, 1994:

The significance of this case lies in the fact that over the past two years, welfare authorities in several countries have seized literally hundreds of children from homes within the Family. But nowhere has convincing evidence come to light of the sort of emotional, psychological, or sexual abuses alleged.

* * *

Footnotes:
1 Magistrate Gregory Levine of the Senior Children's Court, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Ruling on August 10, 1992.

2 Magistrate Gregory Levine of the Senior Children's Court, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Ruling on April 27, 1993.

3 Magistrate Ian Forsyth of the Children's Court, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, Ruling on May 21, 1992.

4 Quotation from settlement mediated by Sir Lawrence Street, former Supreme Court Justice, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

5 Ruling by David Levine of the New South Wales Supreme Court, Sydney, Australia, November 2, 1993.

6 Ibid.

7 Hartnett v State of New South Wales [1999] NSWSC 265, File number(s): 19380/93, 19373/93, 19402/93, Judgement date: March 31, 1999.