Mother jailed for failing to protect daughters from sexual abuse by their father

Oh no it doesn't.

I cannot remember a case where a man was jailed for failing to protect his child from the violence of a woman

wow, so mothers, no matter what their circumstances, what they have reason to be afraid of, what they are enduring, have legal responsibility for enduring their children aren't abused?

Er , yes. What is so "wow" about that.? The duty applies to both parents.

Of course the abusers are responsible for the abuse. Nobody would ever question that, would they?

The question isn't whether the woman was responsible for the abuse. It is whether she participated in the abuse (possibly in this case) and whether she was neglectful in not taking reasonable measures to prevent it.

Who can know whether she wanted to act but was too frightened/unable to do so or wasn't that bothered about her children being abused so just went along with it? That was for the courts to decide.

There has to be a middle ground between "She is responsible for the abuse he inflicted" and "She has no responsibility to keep her children safe."

when you are a mother it's your job to stand up to those who would abuse your children, irrespective of whatever you are personally going through.

Wow, so mothers, no matter what their circumstances, what they have reason to be afraid of, what they are enduring, have legal responsibility for enduring their children aren't abused?

See, that's kind of the problem - the idea that it is a woman's "job" to stop men abusing her children.

Rather than that it is the responsibility of the men who abuse to stop their abuse.

Apologies, I'll withdraw it and rephrase.

No doubt, Yonic, but your post is leaving an awfully bad taste in my mouth!

Sorry, I don't mean 'because she did' as a blame on Ms Batty.

How is it clear that the woman was herself in a very abusive relationship?

Just because that is the line of defence her lawyer is using doesn't mean it was actually the case. And even if it was, how does that excuse her not protecting her own children?

We want to believe she was so cowed and frightened that she was somehow brainwashed into accepting the situation because it's alien to us to imagine that a woman could ever wantonly facilitate or turn a blind eye to the abuse of her own children, but the simple fact is that some women just do. Does it always have to be that women are deemed as so weak, so helpless, so stupid and so easily intimidated that they are incapable of protecting their own children from the men they are in relationships with?

If you don't feel able to stand up to your own abuser that's one thing, but when you are a mother it's your job to stand up to those who would abuse your children, irrespective of whatever you are personally going through. If you know they are being abused and you don't take reasonable steps to put a stop to it then you simply have to be held accountable.

Men are responsible for male violence. Not women, no matter how much they may fail as mothers.

She was jailed for performing sexual acts in front of her daughter & failing to protect her from abuse. She hasn't been changed for HIS violence/sexual abuse, just for colluding in it & failing to protect her children.

The Luke Batty case isn't even comparable to this. His parents were separated, and Luke was killed by his father during a sports match. The courts were well aware of his violence as he was subject to an AVO (apprehended violence order) against Luke's mum. There was nothing to suggest to Ms Batty that Luke was at risk.

She wasn't & wouldn't be prosecuted in these circumstances, because as you said yourself, Luke was killed BECAUSE Ms Batty walked away. She made steps to protect herself & her son.

You cannot compare the two, because Luke's mum walked away from he violence, this woman did not & she let her children be subjected to it.

The question is whether women with violent and sexually abusive male partners should be held criminally responsible for the violence those men commit.

That depends on the circumstances of each individual case. Unless you were in court and heard all of the evidence, you're in no position to make a judgement about the conviction.

Sorry, second to last.

phaedra Absolutely agree with your last post.

That thing of saying the adult girl doesn't have the same responsibility as the parent to protect the children, contradicts what a previous poster posted about an 18 year old boy/ man who was jailed for not reporting his mother's abuse of his brother.

That troubles me, because that 18 year old was probably also a victim of his mother's abuse and subject to exactly the same psychological (and physical) barriers to reporting that the mother/ sister was (As an 18 year old, he'd have homelessness to look forward to, wouldn't he, not support). If the abuse had been uncovered 6 months previously, he would have been recognised as a fellow victim, not tried as a co-abuser.

Obviously we can't have people sitting by and watching kids being abused and doing nothing about it. But in the absence of any real, robust support for vulnerable people who somehow manage to report, the use of the criminal justice system to deal with these very vulnerable people, seems wrong to me.

I think the basic problem is that much of institutional thinking and practice around these issues are very black and white - you're either a victim or an abuser and need to be dealt with depending on which box you fit. When in reality we all know that victims can also be enablers, facilitators, co-abusers etc. Our systems don't seem flexible enough to deal with that.

The elder sister does not share the same responsibility and duties as a parent.

It was more of a rhetorical point than what I literally thought the law would or should be. I don't judge the sister's actions, as she is a victim of abuse and it is her personal choice whether to report it and go through the ordeal of a court case. I also don't, on the limited information I have, judge the mother as harshly as some here. That is because I know what being a victim of constant physical and emotional abuse by your partner can do to you psychologically. Especially when you are cut off from all other support.

If the mother was genuinely complicit in the sexual abuse that is a different matter, but I don't think if she failed to stop herself being sexually abused in front of her children that amounts to the same thing. I understand it may do legally but I don't think that's right.

As I acknowledged, I don't know the full details.

this is all clearly horrible, but as an adult, is the eldest daughter then also criminally responsible for her younger sisters' abuse?

Assuming Australian law is the same as UK, no this is not correct. The elder sister does not share the same responsibility and duties as a parent.

I am stating that it is an outrage to jail women for violence that men commit

But she wasn't jailed for that. She was jailed for failing to protect her children (separate crime) it seems being complicit in their abuse. You're falling over yourself trying to convince that women are always the victims and never the bad ones.

"....This is all clearly horrible, but as an adult, is the eldest daughter then also criminally responsible for her younger sisters' abuse? She could have reported it too and stopped it, couldn't she? What real difference is there between her and her mother, as a victim of abuse by this man?..."

The elder sister was not a 'parent' nor it seems was she in the position of a parent (e.g. if she was a legal guardian or something similar). So no, I doubt there's an equivalent legal responsibility on her. She's probably no more required to do something about the abuse than any of us would be had we been living across the street from the family and known that abuse was happening.

Parents however have a duty of care to the children that they bring into the world to do 'something' - NOT an absolute duty to STOP the abuse, but to act reasonably to do something towards stopping it. The fact that this woman's spectrum of choices may have been shit quite frankly does not absolve her of this duty towards her children. She had a duty to take choices that went towards abating the immediate danger to her children, which was the abuse.

But what if he was a victim of abuse as a child by his father or parents? Should he be absolved as he's either very evil or damaged or both.

I would not absolve him as an abuse victim if he made a choice to abuse his own wife and children. But if he had a crippling lack of self-belief and agency due to being a victim of abuse and was led into allowing them to be abused by another person who controlled his own actions I would consider that a mitigating factor in his own guilt for the abuse by the other person, yes.

I'm aware and have already acknowledged that we don't know all the details. I don't think women are incapable of abuse. And I don't appreciate the implication that I do.

Venus I'm so sorry to hear that. Yes , none of us know what happened in that house and how we'd react. Of course the man is the evil one who deserves to be jailed for years .

But what if he was a victim of abuse as a child by his father or parents? Should he be absolved as he's either very evil or damaged or both.

She could be a weak woman who was abused do horrifically she couldn't help her kids . Or she may be an abuser too.

We weren't at the trial. I do find that in some cases some on this site see women as blameless and unable to be abusers too .

Buffy, you don't know the qualification of the people commenting

Yes, TooMuchCantBreathe. You'd have to include me in that.

As a survivor of a relationship with a violent, jealous, extremely controlling and emotionally abusive partner, I do feel qualified to hold the opinion that I hold about the effects it has on a person, and the damage it does to their sense of agency, self-worth and how they perceive the outside world.

Cailindana has a different experience of personal abuse which she suffered which makes her view the mother's actions as more culpable in this case. I fully respect her view, although it is different to mine.

I don't think the majority of people who haven't experienced either type of domestic abuse generally know what they're talking about, to be quite honest. That's a general comment, not referring to anyone here. My experience is that largely clueless people feel perfectly qualified to pontificate on abuse victims' choices and actions.

"she plead guilty to performing a sexual act in front of her? She wouldn't have 'performed' the act, she'd have been forced into it and presumably she had a defending lawyer/ solicitor who was privvy to exactly what the mother's case was."

Well, that depends. If you live in an environment where saying no is ignored, or results in abuse, over time you stop saying no to any individual act.

So I can believe a person might say yes to a specific act without really having the freedom to say no - and yet they couldn't really state they were " forced" into that specific act.

I don't know the details of this case, that is a general comment.

I'm thinking the major difference is that the mother was living with both father and younger girls. For all we know the elder daughter may have had no contact at all after leaving.

Either way something obviously went very wrong in that household. I did wonder what evidence there was to sentence, as the judge is effectively saying she should have known, not that she did know.

*THEY (as in the daughters) obviously felt that BOTH parents were in the wrong.

Well, she probably wouldn't have been sentenced if her daughters felt their mother did her best to protect them. However, she has been sentenced which I'm assuming was by evidence given by the victims. We don't know the full story, and obviously felt that BOTH parents were in the wrong.