For legal aid to be granted for a sexual risk assessment report the applicant must meet the following tests:
- The applicant is the ICL, and
- Either:
- A family report has been prepared which provides recommendations that a sexual risk assessment report be prepared, or
- The court has ordered a sexual risk assessment report be prepared, and
- There are serious allegations about a parties sexualised behaviour towards the child which places child at risk, or
- There are previous allegations against the other party in relation to children from prior biological or stepfamily relationships, or
- Collateral information supports sexualised behaviours by the child, or
- A party is seeking no contact orders or supervised time based on the other parties sexualised behaviour, and
- The request meets the merits test.
Requests for sexual risk assessment reports exceeding 12 hours are determined by a senior grants officer.
Requests for an interstate report writer are determined by the assistant director grants.
Requirements
Extension of aid requests received from preferred supplier or in-house practitioner
Practitioners seeking a grant of legal assistance should electronically submit an extension of aid request via the Grants Online system addressing the assessment criteria and the number of hours sought to prepare the report.
Interpretation
Serious Allegations
Legal Aid Queensland will consider that the following allegations are of a serious nature, where a party has been charged or convicted of:
- child pornography offences, or
- sexual offences involving children
or
- The Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs – Child Safety Services has substantiated the risk of abuse to the child, or
- One of the parties has co-offended and is alleged to have a dependent personality disorder, or
- Where a party is alleged to have offended alone and is alleged to have a borderline personality disorder.
We do not consider the following allegations as serious:
- where a party is alleging that the other party has no prior criminal convictions and is accessing adult pornography.
Child at risk
When considering whether a child is at risk, we will consider the following risk factors:
- The nature of the allegations which includes an alleged escalation in the frequency or severity of offences
- Whether the party in question has a criminal history
- Whether any previous convictions relate to offences against children
- Whether there is a history of drug abuse
- Whether there is a history of mental health or personality problems
Grant(s) of aid
The grant of aid for a sexual risk assessment report is SRA.