"I'll make sure you loose your kids" - Keith's Story

Keith Leighton's wife Sally left him in 1995 after being married 11 years. The couple had a 5 year boy, a 2 year girl, and she was pregnant with child number three. Throughout their relationship, Sally had always been abusive. Psychologically, she needed to maintain the upper hand, and Keith always felt dominated by her. Most of the time they got on all right, but every few weeks she would 'flip out' and explode into violence. Invariably, Sally would continue to hit Keith until he eventually retaliated. Being a man, it was always Keith who was arrested and always Keith who was charged. He now has three 'male assaults female' convictions.

Because he only ever used enough violence to defend himself, he has never been imprisoned. He has had some small fines and been sentenced to 6 months community service. Each time he was convicted he was sent on an anger management course, and did his best to follow their instructions but not surprisingly this made no impact on Sally's behaviour.

After the first anger management course he tried to leave an argument before it escalated into violence and have 'time out' in a shed as he had been taught. She followed him all the way to the bottom of the garden and continued to provoke him until he hit her back. After the second course, Keith rang the police to say he was being assaulted, but they just wanted to talk to her. "Do you want us to come around and arrest him?" they asked.

Each time they fought she threatened him: "I'll make sure you end up broke, lonely and loose your kids." She wasn't kidding. In the past two years he has paid $21,000 in legal fees, and seen his children a dozen or so times at a supervised access centre. Sally's lawyer's fees on the other hand are paid by legal aid. Keith earns $16.50 per hour, so it took lots of overtime to pay for his lawyer. Working over Christmas one year, he found it especially difficult to know Sally and the children were going off on holiday with her lawyer and children who had just split from her own husband.

He tried to get custody of his children but Sally simply responded with non-molestation orders, accusing him of physically abusing them. Eventually he was convinced by his lawyer to concede defeat in order to get even the minimal access he now receives. Although he has never actually mistreated his children, and there has never been any evidence other than Sally's false accusation, he was sent on a parenting course before being allowed to see them. The Judge ordered him to have 2 supervised sessions of 2 hours each week with the baby, but Keith told me he doesn't feel like they have been able to develop a real relationship.

Keith currently gets to see the older kids for an hour and a half once a fortnight at a supervised access centre. He has to pay for this service. Although his hands-on fathering role is extremely limited, he still has to pay for them. Because of all his overtime to pay the lawyer's bills, his gross earnings last year were $52,000 so his Liable Parent Contribution is over $200 per week.

At his last court hearing, the judge ordered him to have a series of individual counselling sessions, which the court is paying for. The counsellor can't find anything wrong with Keith apart from the horrendous stress caused by the way the justice system is treating him, and suggested that contacting a group like Men's Centre North Shore and working to make the system more equitable might be his best option.

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