Fathers plan kayak protest at conference
For the first time, news of a father’s protest has made it into the (NZ Herald ) – before it has even happened!
Headlined Fathers in kayaks protest at family violence event Simon Collins writes:
Fathers plan to protest in kayaks on Auckland’s Panmure Basin on Saturday to protest against a judge who will be speaking at New Zealand’s biggest-ever conference on family violence.
Waitakere Family Court Judge David Mather is due to speak at the conference at the nearby Waipuna Hotel on that day about Waitakere’s experiment with encouraging men charged with family violence to plead guilty and attend anger management courses.
South Auckland father Paul Catton, 43, said he would be there in his kayak to protest against being convicted of assault and breach of a protection order when his ex-wife and son came to his house a year ago.
Men be very carefull out there, I was arrested 4 breach of protection order 4 ringing my daughter on her 16th birthday after arranging it in a civil conversation the day before with my xwife the police pressed charges and with the help of a lawyer and some fortunate evidence to support my defence the judge dismissed my case. My advice to any man out there is to avoid having a protection put on you,obey it if you do receive one, and for gods sake be there for your mates, support each other in these times of crisis because untill the law is administered in manner that is fair and just to all we are easy targets. If you have a mate going thru seperation be there for him or if you need help get it. Just incase anyone thinks it wont happen to them , think carefully, I have had it confirmed to me by police,lawers and social workers that a woman can obtain a protection order if her partner slams a door or raises his voice and the test for aman to obtain one is virtually a video of himself being assaulted by his partner. While we are being side tracked by the gender issue the real issue is an unjust legal system, so come on you guys speak up!
Comment by Chris — Fri 21st October 2005 @ 7:46 pm
I’m in South Korea at present where 99% of the population have cellphones and a good many have the newer more advanced models. These phones, alongside PDAs have the ability to capture audio and video (up to an hour of video on some phones). There are also smaller, much cheaper digital audio recorders on the market.
I imagine therefore it’s possible to easily record telephone conversations about visitation, and audio/video footage of visitation itself.
My advice to any man who’s going through a tough seperation is to use this kind of technology to get as much evidence of PAS being enacted as possible.
I also encourage men to keep an eye on soon-to-be technological developments.
Samsung have said they will produce by mid 2006 a memory chip that’s no bigger than it’s contemporary predecessor of 1 Gigabite which has an astonishing 16 Gigs. So in a couple of years there will be mobile phones/PDAs/Pencomputers around that will be absolutely bristling with even more advanced features.
You will be able to be your own walking evidence collection agency.
Go for it. You’ll do us all a favour, and get those great home videos of your beautiful kids growing up with fathers too!
Comment by Stephen — Sun 23rd October 2005 @ 2:14 pm
Stephen,
Yes, Samsung have announced their 16 Gigabyte chip will be in production by 3rd quarter next year. They have a stated goal of replacing all older hard disk drives (many of which are much smaller than 16Gigabytes).
For us “consumers” it makes much greater storage readily available. Samsung already have a 4 Gigabyte chip in production that is bringing the current 2 Gigabyte digital camera cards and memory sticks et al rapidly into the “affordable” bracket.
And a small word of caution about covert recordings: I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I understood it is illegal to record without the permission of the other party. Perhaps someone else can clarify if this is still the case?
Comment by MarkS — Wed 26th October 2005 @ 7:53 am
Mark writes:
As far as I am aware, the law just says that ONE of the parties must know they are being recorded – you can’t legally bug a conversation between people when nobody knows.
This doesn’t mean that the evidence of this nature will necessarily be accepted in the Family Court however – it is totally up to the Judge concerned.
If you do attempt to use covert recordings as evidence, NEVER take the original copy to court – we know of cases where tapes are simply confiscated by the Judge, never to be seen again.
Comment by JohnP — Wed 26th October 2005 @ 8:08 am