Three years ago my wife kissed me goodbye as she went out for the day with our young baby. Around noon that day as I worked from my office at the front of my home I had a visit from two police officers. They presented me with a 50mm high stack of papers and advised me that they wanted my guns (I am a hunter) and I was to leave my home immediately.

I was gob smacked, without looking at the papers I asked what was going on. The officer said that my wife had been granted an ex parte protection order for both her self and our baby and an eviction order for me. She also was seeking to overthrow the prenuptial agreement we entered into 3 yrs earlier that stated my home was to remain mine. I explained that I worked from home and that I could not possibly comply with an immediate exit. They took my guns and left me alone.

I felt I had been hit on the head with a baseball bat. My hands were shaking so much I struggled to phone my lawyer. It didn’t make sense, a protection order???? My mind was struggling to conceive how this could be obtained. I loved my little baby and, working from home, saw her often during the day. I had bottle fed her, burped her and generally dotted over her. In all the years I had known my wife we had had a couple of big arguments and I had once slapped her when she was destroying my office, but this was a protection order? Isn’t that for men who are violent I asked myself!!!!

I rang a friend and they came to my place and read to me the six different orders served on me. As he read out my wife’s affidavit my head went into a spin as a story evolved of a man who had threatened to kill her, was conspiring to kill her, was raping her and attempted to suffocate her child. This man was allegedly me…..I began to vomit. Stress gripped my chest and the pain was overwhelming. I thought I was having a heart attack. I was rushed to hospital where it was discovered my mussels wouldn’t let go of food in my digestive tract. I went back home and I refused to leave that day. My Lawyer was attempting to get an urgent hearing as the eviction order was obtained illegally ( when the home is your work place you cannot be evicted) That night I could not sleep. I felt like I was in a different country, perhaps in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban, but not New Zealand. My house was the same but was no longer a castle and a sanctuary. How could this be happening to me? Why has my wife done this? Does she know what she has done? Will I see my daughter again? You want to call someone in authority because you know some unjust thing is in action but there is no one to call, you know you have become a pariah. The following day 2 police cars and 8 large policemen come to my home.

(to be continued)