MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.

The Union of Fathers believes a new Family Court pilot scheme will be a huge success, if it is well resourced.

A non judge-led mediation service is being trialled to resolve custody and access issues on Auckland’s North Shore.

Union of Fathers spokesman Jim Bagnall says it is critical highly skilled mediators are used, so parents understand what is best for their children.

Mr Bagnall says interest in the pilot is huge because New Zealanders want change in the Family Court.

There are hopes a pilot scheme for resolving child custody issues will be more successful than the current system.

Early next year families on Auckland’s North Shore will be given the option of accepting mediation not led by a judge.

Courts Minister Rick Barker says currently families referred to mediation can wait weeks or even months to be appointed a Family Court judge.

He says this way, properly trained mediators can speed up the process and help families find their own solutions.

Concerns for the safety of a woman and her children were raised last night after a Christchurch judge allowed a convicted wife-beater to apply for home detention.

Brian Gardner, the national manager of the National Network of Stopping Violence Services, said the man should never have been allowed to apply for home detention.

“If he gets home detention his partner will effectively be his jailer,” he said.

“Courts are abdicating their responsibility for care and protection by sending an abusive man back to the house with his victims.”

Home detention orders are only served with the consent of the woman involved, but Sheryl Hann, the policy research adviser of the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges, said victims might agree because they were fearful of retaliation.

“Judges need to realise that domestic violence is a life and death situation and that home detention should never be allowed under any circumstances.”

A Rotorua woman lied to police about being raped and kidnapped by her partner to get revenge on him for seriously assaulting her, the Rotorua District Court was told.

The 55-year-old, who has interim name suppression, pleaded guilty to a charge of fabricating evidence and will be sentenced in December.

The woman alleged her partner held her captive at a Rotorua house this year before taking her to a beach where she was assaulted, raped and violated.

The man was committed to trial after a depositions hearing but the woman later signed an affidavit saying the rape and kidnapping allegations were false.

A Westport man who threatened to shoot people unless his tax debt was wiped was jailed for two years when he appeared in the Westport District Court.

Wayne William Anderson, 45, was sentenced to two years in jail for drink-driving, possessing a rifle and ammunition and holding a firearm without a licence.

On July 22, Anderson was phoning Inland Revenue when he threatened to go out and start shooting people within 30 minutes if his debts were not cleared.

Police found Anderson 50 minutes later with a loaded rifle, 72 rounds of ammunition and bottles of spirits in his car.

His lawyer, Doug Taffs, said Anderson’s offending followed the tragic death of his son. His stress was exacerbated by the tax department trying to recover child support debt.

A 20-year-old man who allegedly snatched his two-year-old son from his former partner in the Far North yesterday will appear in the Kaikohe District Court today.

Up to 50 police, including the armed offenders squad, were involved in the operation from about 7.30am.

The boy and his mother were the subject of a protection order.

A hunting rifle was in the vehicle but Mr Swann said his understanding was that the firearm was not carried during the alleged abduction.

After the kidnap, the man eventually made his way to Teal Bay where he parked his dark green 1997 Ford Falcon station wagon under a pohutukawa tree at a reserve at the end of the beach, near an estuary.

First it was Wayne Pruden who kidnapped his son, now another father has taken the law into his own hands abducting his son, so is the Family Court giving fathers a fair go, or are some Dads out of control?

Streaming video of Holmes interviewing Jim Bagnal from Union of Fathers

Mothers who kill their children may not be able to argue post-natal depression to avoid a murder conviction after a Government-ordered review of infanticide laws.

Justice Minister Phil Goff has asked the Law Commission to consider whether infanticide should be repealed, because sentencing laws now allow judges to consider mitigating factors for murder and vary sentences.

Any change to the law will spark an emotional debate about whether a mentally ill woman who kills her child should carry the stigma of being called a murderer.

There are also concerns the penalty for murder can be far greater than for infanticide, which carries a maximum penalty of three years’ jail.

Wiping away tears, Hamilton man Wayne Pruden talks about how he went to pick up his 15-month old son yesterday and came home without him.

He should have had his 15-month-old son returned to him after a four-week holiday in Vietnam.

But Mr Pruden, 42, has no idea where his son is, though it is believed he is back in Hamilton.

The toddler left a month ago with his Vietnamese mother and was to have returned to New Zealand last week.

The boy’s passport has since been surrendered to Hamilton District Court in accordance with a Family Court ruling and Mr Pruden expected to see his son yesterday as part of a shared custody agreement.

But Mr Pruden – who hid his son in a Hamilton motel in a bid to prevent him from leaving New Zealand last month – waited in vain at the usual meeting place in the city and wonders whether his son is in New Zealand at all.

Well away from pig hunting and jugs of beer, in the halls of Waikato University, psychology lecturer Dr Darrin Hodgetts says for the last couple of decades men have been told that there’s something wrong with expressing the sort of manly traits idealised by brewery and ute adverts…

A couple of decades of feminism has negatively influenced the thinking of universities and the public sector towards the traditional Kiwi male, Hodgetts says.

He has published research on women’s health, but has also studied post-feminist theory and says the academic view of masculinity has been skewed too far to the negative.

Women’s studies academics at Auckland University have sensed anti-feminist attitudes in his research topic, and challenged him to a debate. The glint in his eye indicates he’s looking forward to it.

It shouldn’t be sacrilegious to question why there isn’t more male gender research being done, he says, particularly in the field of men’s health.