‘Just Say Goodbye’ (January 2013 online edition)

DVRCV Discussion Paper No. 8Entitlement and controlThere are many elements of the filicide cases in this chapter that are consistentwith family violence towards intimate partners. The physical violence, threatsto kill, threats to suicide, sexual assault and controlling behaviour evident inthese cases, are forms of family violence recognised under the Family ViolenceProtection Act (2008) and outlined in Chapter 1.While physical forms of violence are evident in many cases, it may be thatcontrolling behaviour is a particularly important feature of separation filicides.The Dispatches study, outlined above, found that over-controlling behaviourtowards the mother and children was more likely to be a key feature in filicidesthat occur in the context of custody disputes (Ferguson 2009). The researchsuggests that loss of control over the family after separation may be as significantas the motivation of revenge (Harne 2011). ‘It is the extent of control over thewhole family rather than the frequency of physical violence that indicates thatsuch fathers are at high risk of killing children’ (Ferguson 2009).In addition to violence and controlling behaviour, the following factors,evident in many of the cases, are also common aspects of intimate partnerviolence:• Negative attitudes towards women: The men’s anger towards their partners,evident in many of the cases outlined in this paper, appears to reflect strongnegative attitudes towards women. For example, Ramazan Acar told hisex-partner the killing was ‘Pay bk u slut’; Dean Williamson said ‘you are afucking useless bitch’. In relation to assaulting his wife, Jayson Dalton said, ‘Ifyou had done as you were told, it wouldn’t have happened’.• Blaming women for their actions: Some perpetrators blamed the mothersfor the breakdown of the relationship and justified the killing of the childrenwith the idea that their partners drove them to it – by leaving them, by repartnering,by making them pay child support, by restricting their contactwith their children. For example, Ramazan Acar said ‘look what you’ve mademe do’; Rajesh Osborne told his second wife that she was the reason forkilling the children; Robert Farquharson said in relation to his circumstancesafter the separation, ‘Nobody does that to me and gets away with it, it’s allher fault’.62