WCW v WCX and anor matter

Facts

The applicant mother and the respondent father were divorced in 2022 and have one son. Under the ancillary matters order made on 26 January 2022, the father has regular unsupervised weekend access and Thursday access after school. Disputes over access continued long after the divorce, and since 31 July 2025 the father has had no physical access, with the school facilitating video calls on Thursdays.

The mother filed SSP 1013/2025 for a personal protection order for herself and the child, SSP 1486/2025 for stay away and no contact orders, and SSP 1626/2025 for counselling and mandatory treatment orders against the father. The father filed SSP 1593/2025 for a personal protection order for himself and the child and a mandatory treatment order against the mother. The mother relied on an incident on 24 May 2025 in which an umbrella opened in a lift, a dispute over the child's bag on 12 July 2025, handovers at the lift, the father's attendance at the child's school, and older incidents raised in withdrawn applications. The father relied on a long chronology of the mother's conduct, including more than 1,200 WhatsApp messages and digitally altered images sent to him. Both sides tendered body-camera and other video recordings, and only certified transcripts were relied on.

Issues

1. Whether the father had committed family violence against the mother or the child under section 58B of the Women's Charter 1961
2. Whether the mother's conduct towards the child amounted to emotional or psychological abuse of the child
3. Whether the mother had committed family violence against the father and a protection order was necessary for his protection
4. Whether a counselling order or a mandatory treatment order should be made, and what costs should follow

Holding

The District Judge dismissed all of the mother's applications and dismissed the father's application for a protection order on behalf of the child. The court allowed the father's application in part by granting him a personal protection order against the mother, and made a counselling order rather than a mandatory treatment order against her. The mother was directed not to share the details or outcome of the case with the child, and was ordered to pay the father costs of $5,000.

Reasoning

Under section 60A of the Women's Charter 1961, a protection order requires both that family violence has been or is likely to be committed and that the order is necessary for protection. The court noted that a breach carries criminal consequences, so such an order is not made lightly.

On the alleged kicking of the child, the court found the burden of proof unmet. The child gave different accounts to each parent, access continued in June and July 2025, recordings showed warm moments with the father, and the allegations later grew to include two of the father's sisters. A call in which the child demanded that the father withdraw his court application suggested the mother's influence. The umbrella appeared to spring open accidentally, the bag dispute showed no intention to injure, the July incidents were unsupported or contradicted by the father's evidence, and the father's attendance at school or the mother's residence was the exercise of access rights under the existing order, not harassment. With no recent family violence found, the older incidents could not ground an order.

On the father's application, the court found that the mother had drawn the child into the parental conflict, but that her conduct did not yet amount to emotional or psychological abuse of the child. However, the messages invoking karma, the image of the father on a corpse in a coffin and the obituary bearing his birthday as his date of death were deliberate and distressing, and amounted to abuse of the father. A counselling order was considered more appropriate than mandatory treatment. As the mother began the proceedings and failed on all of them, costs followed the event.

From the judgment