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

[DonkeySkin]

In line with the thread on women being jailed in El Salvador for miscarrying, this happened in Oz recently:

www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-17/mother-sentenced-over-abuse-of-daughters-by-their-father/6022518

Sometimes I think the world is becoming more woman-hating by the day

I'll be interested to see what the man in the situation gets when his case is heard.

On the rest of it I can see both sides TBH and it's really all dependent on the full situation.

For one, I don't know much about how things work in Australia, social services, divorce, support services, anything. It says she lived rural and didn't drive - I remember watching progs about people in farms in Australia having to have the flying doctor and get educated by radio and stuff because they were so far away from even their neighbour - if it was like that then it's a level of isolation I can't comprehend and all sorts of weird stuff can start going on when people are isolated to that extent look at religious sects out in isolated areas in the US.

So, I dunno, really. Really really depends on whether she was complicit and knew she could have got them out and chose not to, or whether she and the children were controlled to the extent they were captive and she couldn't have got help if she tried IYSWIM.

OP woman hating? Which woman, the mother or the three daughters.
Women can be as evil as men.

For failing to protect to that extent, she should not be able to have unsupervised contact with her own, or any children, as she has illustrated her inability to provide appropriate care.
However, it does sound excessive to jail an abused woman for failing to stop the criminal activity of her abuser. I would be concerned that this is the thin end of the wedge, holding women accountable for men's criminal actions, and thereby absolving them of responsibility.

If the mother was sexually assaulted in front of the daughter why would 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. How can any of us judge based on the very few details provided in that article?

I don't think that there are enough details in that report to make any significant conclusions, but I do note that the eldest daughter, despite having been abused for many years managed to escape and escape successfully (seven years before the next child went to the police) so not impossible. I didn't much like the judge's summary there seemed to be quite a bit of extrapolation, but the report is so skimpy it's difficult to come to any understanding as to what happened.

Escaping with 6 younger kids would be many times harder than escaping on your own though. Especially if you don't have transport.

A court holding a woman criminally responsible for failing to stop her partner's violence towards their children sets a very dangerous precedent, one that has sinister implications for all women with children trapped in abusive relationships, and which fails utterly to comprehend the dynamics of those relationships (in which it is well documented that many terrorised women develop Stockholm Syndrome).

Totally agree. None of us know the full details, but taken at face value it's shitty victim blaming. The article mentions that the eldest girl was abused for many years and left when she was 18, and then the father started to abuse the two younger girls. It was the middle daughter that eventually reported to police - 7 years later. 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?

There's nothing to suggest that the dd that escaped knew her younger sisters would be abused, whereas the implication is that the mother was complicit in the abuse. There have been cases in the UK where older siblings who stood by whilst abuse went on had a responsibility to do something and I think someone referenced a case where a brother was jailed.

I didn't see the 'mother of seven' line, thought there were just two more children. Of course that does make things much more difficult.

I agree it could potentially be a really bad judgement.

There's nothing to suggest that the dd that escaped knew her younger sisters would be abused

From the article:

Judge Scott said while the woman may not have specifically known the two girls were being abused, she should have realised they were at risk.

Arguably, so should the elder daughter.

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.

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

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.

"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.

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.

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 .

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.

"....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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

phaedra Absolutely agree with your last post.

Sorry, second to last.

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.

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.