Murder-suicide is on the increase in Australia and in many cases it is because fathers have not only been abused by their former partner but because the system has continued to batter them until they can take no more.
While their actions may sound bitter and twisted, the resulting deaths often stem from a lack of support for men, isolation and despair and the belief that there no hope for negotiation or conflict resolution to heal some of the wounds.
Where children are concerned, there is evidence to suggest that men feel discriminated against by those in the Family Court and, as a result, find themselves in financial difficulty having to pay legal fees and child support.
One abused husband said he could understand why child custody and its issues can not be discussed thoroughly without the terms suicide and murder included in the dialogue. He said he felt isolated and disillusioned. “When I lost custody, I seriously considered suicide in a very calm and dispassionate way. I had several fantasies about murdering lawyers, putting a bomb under the judge's car. I won’t do that but I can understand why people do that. Nobody listens, nobody cares. If have known men that have felt so desperate, that life is not worth living and they have gone off and suicided.”
However, another battered man said he no longer was prepared to play second-class citizen. “I was on the verge of suicide. I could not believe, I had put all this work into my child and they could take him away from me.” After 27 court hearings representing himself he won custody of his son. “I took the bull by the horns, went for broke. I got to the point that I had no fear of the court system. They had taken everything away from me. Unfortunately, I was a bit like a freight train. Nobody liked me.”
These men had already discovered the barriers put forward by the police and legal systems that, they say, were intent on ensuring the children stayed with an abusive mother. They felt isolated and believed there was nowhere they could go for help.
For Australian's this issue started to take on a human face after two high profile murder-suicides in Western Australia in 1999, where the fathers gassed themselves and their children. In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald following the tragedies, Allan Huggins, director of Men's Health, Teaching and Research at Curtin University, said that; 'There was a whole range of psychological issues for them to deal with, but ultimately they see their situation as being totally hopeless and then a realm of fantasy begins where they want to take their children with them to what they perceive as being a better place.' SMH,26/7/99,p8.
