Surveilled, scared and broke: How Emily’s ex is ruining her life through the Family Court

Emily* has two suitcases filled with hundreds of documents from her years in the Family Court.Over five years and multiple appeals, her ex Liam* – who is subject to an apprehended violence order (AVO) protecting Emily – issued dozens of subpoenas requesting years of information about her, their child and her new partner’s health, travel, expenses, schedule, and conversations with her psychologist.While the Family Court allows only five subpoenas per party per order, Liam lodged more than double that number in a single month. Emily has sole parental responsibility, which Liam has repeatedly challenged.The barrage of requests for information has left Emily feeling surveilled and controlled, while the protracted proceedings have left her broke.Systems abuse, where perpetrators weaponise legal processes to continue domestic and family violence, is endemic. Despite recent reforms, inquiries continue to warn that the Family Court is being used to financially and emotionally exhaust victim-survivors and keep them tied to their abusers.Eighty-four per cent of parenting cases in the Family Court contain allegations of domestic violence.Emily has spent half a million dollars on legal fees, forcing her to sell her home and jewellery, liquidate shares and take out loans.Emily earns too much to qualify for Legal Aid, but can no longer afford a lawyer, and is now self-representing. Her ex, who hired a private barrister for his AVO defence, is self-employed and qualifies for Legal Aid.“All the money I had saved for my children is gone. It is exhausting and soul-destroying,” Emily said.“I feel so let down by the system.”This masthead has spoken with dozens of victim-survivors, advocates, lawmakers and experts about endemic systems abuse in the Family Court system.Several spoke anonymously, fearing backlash from aggrieved parties or influential judges.The Federal Circuit and Family Court is one of Australia’s most secretive courts. It is illegal to publish details that may identify parties, witnesses or children involved in a family law case.Emily’s story is being platformed to launch an investigation by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age into abuse in the Family Court. We want to understand how systems abuse is taking place. We’d like to hear from you via the survey below. We understand this is sensitive and all answers can be submitted anonymously.While a range of reforms have been implemented to better protect victim-survivors, researchers and advocates said an urgent overhaul was needed. The court does not release data on the efficacy of these programs.Funding for several key services supporting survivors has recently been slashed, with legal service organisations reducing eligibility criteria.Three dozen subpoenas and half a million dollars Emily thought leaving Liam would end his control. Instead, she said the court enabled his harassment.Weeks into a new job, Liam subpoenaed Emily’s employer for internal communications, timesheets and drug-testing records. She alleged the move was intended solely to damage her reputation.He also subpoenaed her bank, the Department of Home Affairs, police and therapists for notes from her and their daughters’ sessions.“It’s been brutal,” she said.The subpoenas forced her to explain Liam’s history of domestic violence to her new employer.“I had to let most of [the subpoenas] through – I couldn’t afford to have representation to object to everything,” Emily said.She said a redaction error also accidentally revealed her address to him.The state court failed to hear her request to alter the parenting orders to align with the AVO, forcing her back to the Family Court at a cost of thousands.Emily said her lawyer described Liam’s tactics as a “scorched earth” strategy designed to drown her in legal fees and paperwork to discourage her from pursuing parenting orders.She submitted a complaint about Liam’s lawyer to the legal services commissioner, alleging the lawyer facilitated his domestic violence. The complaint was dismissed.However, the court recognised the burden of Liam’s applications and, in a rare move, awarded Emily costs orders. It’s been two years, and Emily said he had yet to pay a cent.“The only money I have is in my superannuation,” Emily said. “Every spare cent has been spent on these proceedings.”A court spokesperson said it did not comment on individual matters, adding that additional subpoenas required the courts’ permission, parties could object, and parties could apply to the courts to have costs orders enforced.“Misuse of court processes can be a form of family violence … and litigation itself can be used as a form of coercive control,” the spokesperson said.Litigation as coercive control Former Family Court judge Warwick Neville described family litigation as a “wretched business” that “brings out the worst” in people.“The system itself is used as an insidious form of domestic violence … a form of payback for leaving,” he said.Neville said this abuse spanned all income levels, particularly when a perpetrator realised they could not maintain control.“[They think] I’m going to do whatever is necessary to make sure there’s nothing left,” he said.“It just becomes a pattern of behaviour: sinister, controlling, coercive – the worst sides of humanity.”Neville said parties regularly drained savings, borrowed from grandparents or relied on loans as legal fees surged to “eye-watering” amounts.“Once you’re tied to the litigation chariot, it’s really hard to break that bond because you get dragged around,” he said.Colleagues gifted former Family Court judge Warrick Neville a game of snakes and ladders renamed to represent the complexities of the court.While judges have tools to sanction vexatious litigants, Neville said the legal threshold was high, and costs orders, as in Emily’s case, remained exceptionally rare.Now working as a mediator, Neville advises parties to negotiate early and avoid the courts where possible.False police reports, fishing expeditions and fake court datesMelbourne Law School professor Heather Douglas conducted 65 in-depth interviews with women in the Family Court. Thirty-five of them had experienced systems abuse.Systems abuse can include filing baseless applications – including for non-existent properties – adjournments, appeals, variation applications, false child abuse or drug allegations to trigger investigations, and launching broad subpoena “fishing expeditions”.She is also aware of cases where ex-partners have given false information to police, causing tactical raids on the victim’s elderly parents, and unsuccessfully launched defamation proceedings over the woman’s court testimony.“There is a problem with overuse of subpoenas, especially to medical and counselling records, and applications that have no basis,” she said.Douglas said forcing victims into court for frivolous appearances was not only a major emotional stressor, but meant they had to fund childcare, take time off work, travel and pay legal bills.Court was often the only venue where a perpetrator could legally see their victim, while inflicting stress serves as an extended form of control.“All these things demonstrate his continuing control over her as part of the abuse,” she said.Court consequences ‘dire’ and inconsistent Since 2024, the courts have undergone significant reform, including introducing training for staff and the judiciary, expanding domestic violence screening and referral programs, prioritising child safety over shared parental responsibility in custody orders, and empowering judges to bar vexatious litigants from launching proceedings.However, the efficacy of these reforms is not known. The courts do not collate or release data on the reform’s implementation. While compliance with goals under the court’s Family Violence Plan is assessed annually, the court does not publicly release this data.Domestic Violence Commissioner Micaela Cronin in September said some judges still held horrendous views about women, while a 2025 study found Family Court judges reinforced gender bias.A court spokesperson declined to provide figures on the number of judges and staff who had undergone annual training.University of Technology Sydney professor and investigative journalist Jess Hill, who is leading an independent evaluation of the reforms, raised concerns that a small percentage of judges resisted the training or did not see it translate into practice, with identical cases yielding wildly different outcomes depending on the judge.Journalist and researcher Jess Hill is evaluating the court’s reforms to address domestic violence.She said some legal practitioners would consider negotiating an agreement, even if it were not ideal, if it were placed before a specific judge, for fear that a judicial decision would be worse.Just 20 per cent of cases across the courts are decided by a judge, with parties entering mediation and making decisions by consent. Hill said this was true even for cases assessed as being high risk for violence.“Mediation relies for its success on both parties having basically equal negotiating power,” she said. “In coercive control, the power is totally unequal.”While exemptions exist for domestic violence, Hill’s research shows those exemptions are incredibly hard to come by.“In our data set, there were a number of women who said that they had been pressured or forced to consent to orders they believe were unsafe,” Hill said.“The process makes people, especially victim-survivors, mentally unwell because it keeps them in a state of prolonged hypervigilance and ongoing contact with the perpetrator.”The threat, complexity, confusion, and inconsistency of the court and the broader family law system could have “dire consequences”.“If you don’t succeed, maybe your children have to spend time with or live with someone you’re afraid might harm or kill them,” she said.“There’s no more consequential law system than family law, and people don’t necessarily have a choice whether or not to engage.”A spokesperson said the courts report on their performance through internal reviews, which are not published, and were working to improve transparency on specific orders, including those barring vexatious litigants.The spokesperson said family violence can make it “unsafe or impossible to negotiate freely” and said the courts assessed suitability and safety, with most mediations conducted electronically, which helped “manage safety concerns”.“The courts are working to improve timeliness through early risk identification, active case management, urgent hearing pathways and specialist lists,” the spokesperson said.Addressing systems abuse a ‘key focus’ of governmentScores of recent parliamentary inquiries, studies and reports have highlighted how the courts are contributing to further harm for people experiencing violence.A 2025 parliamentary inquiry found the Family Court was not equipped to respond to family violence, with drawn-out and costly proceedings keeping victim-survivors tied to their abusers despite the safety risks, while a recent paper in the journal Violence Against Women found the courts were being used to inflict long-term financial and psychological harm as a form of “post-separation coercive control”.The issue is so ubiquitous that the domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner called in her annual report, released in September, for the courts to be transformed into a family violence court.Attorney-General Michelle Rowland.Alex EllinghausenFederal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said while “incremental change” was being achieved, roundtables showed systems abuse was still a serious concern.“There is still a long way to go,” she said. “And whilst we are making progress, we’re coming off a base that is a really serious one … That would be small comfort to people who are going through this system.”Rowland said the government had recently agreed in principle to a 2022 Australian Law Reform Commission recommendation to establish a federal judicial commission as an oversight mechanism.“The key issue is about accountability … in terms of how the law is being used,” she said.The government has begun an audit of abuse in Commonwealth systems.*Names changed for legal reasons.The National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) offers support for emotional, physical and financial abuse. Support is also available from Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; Lifeline 131 114; Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.