Search continues for missing 11-year-old
Since when was a “suspected” breach of a parenting order a nationwide witch hunt?
Search continues for missing 11-year-old
Police say they have had no new leads in the search for an 11-year-old boy from Invercargill, missing since March 13.
Southland police are asking that everyone nationwide keep an eye out for the boy as he could be anywhere.
Detective Sergeant Mark McCloy of Invercargill said Mike Zhao-Beckenridge is believed to have left his Invercargill school at lunch time on Friday, and was not waiting for his mother at 3pm.
Police believe he is with his estranged step-father, John Beckenridge, 64, also known as John Robert Lundh, Knut Goran Roland Lundh, or John Bradford.
Beckenridge’s contact with the boy would be in breach of a parenting order, McCloy said.
Police said the pair were thought to be travelling in a dark blue Volkswagen Touareg, registration DUY263, and could be anywhere in New Zealand.
Mike is 1.65cm tall, and of solid build, and Beckenridge is 1.75m tall, medium build, McCloy said.
Anyone who has seen either Mike or Beckenridge should contact police immediately, he said.
My son was taken to the west coast after the earthquakes and the police did nothing to attempt to find him, I did all the detective work for them and my son was ordered back to Christchurch with a court order, but it never made any sort of headlines. The police had no interest in finding them, a bailiff was sent to their address only after I insisted it was the right address with proof. (her parents address)
Looks like another female has got headlines / attention of the media.
This may be a tragedy. The stepfather’s van in which he and his stepson were travelling has gone over a cliff on to rocks and into the sea. At this stage it is not known if either of them were in the van when it went over, or if they have gone into nearby thick forest to hide, or if some other scenario unfolded. It is unknown whether the van went over by accident or deliberate choice. The farmer who owns the land was interviewed yesterday on National Radio and talked about car tracks being too close to the cliff top for safety. Time will tell what happened, assuming that the police investigation reports the evidence truthfully.
If it is found that the duo have died in the crash, the stepfather will be blamed, portrayed as another male who used ultimate violence to maintain power and control when he couldn’t get his own way in the Family Court. But would that be an accurate explanation?
Probably every day, certainly every weekend in NZ numerous women breach parenting orders. They move out of town, take children overseas, fail to make children available for the father’s token fortnightly contact, hide at friends’ or family’s houses with children so the father can’t find them, make up or exaggerate accusations of domestic violence by the father, alienate children against fathers, and/or take it upon themselves to decide that the father’s contact visits are bad for the children and therefore it’s ok to unilaterally stop father-child contact.
When a man approaches police concerning a female’s breach of a parenting order, police refuse to do anything. Police tell the man he must return to Court to obtain an ‘enforcement order’ before they can help. Numerous accounts by men on MENZ Issues and elsewhere leave no doubt about this.
Even if the man has the financial, emotional and/or educational resources to apply for an enforcement order and the Family Court agrees to provide it (which the Court will often resist when it comes to a male’s application), police will quietly make enquiries that may or may not result in a quick location of the woman and children. The woman feels able to remain at home knowing the authorities are likely to show her kindness and a fair hearing, or she feels able to settle in to some other place in hiding where she enrolls the children in new local schools. When she and the children are found, police are likely to approach the situation with some sensitivity, explaining apologetically their obligation to deliver the child for ordered father contact and attempting to negotiate with the woman to get her cooperation. Police are likely to suggest to the woman that she apply for a protection order against the father.
Contrast this with the current case. Mr Beckenridge is/was a stepfather but his commitment and history as a parent for this boy is indicated by the fact that the boy’s surname has been changed to include the Beckenridge surname. What do the police do? Apparently without any enforcement order, police immediately put out a nationwide media alert to hunt down the pair. He soon becomes aware of the fuss and realizes he is a hunted man. He has already had experience of a femicentric Family Court and has lost faith that his opinions, wisdom or preferences will be shown any respect.
If police had handled this situation in the way they handle female breaches of parenting orders, Mr Beckenridge may have felt safe enough to find some place to settle, try to set up a viable lifestyle with the lad, seek further legal or other support and prepare his case for when the authorities found him. Instead, police mounted and maintained a massive fox hunt with much of NZ’s population drawn in as hunters. Mr Beckenridge probably ran increasingly scared and realized he would need to find extremely isolated places to hide. He will have had little opportunity to sleep due to hypervigilance and/or the need to move at night, and his thinking and judgement deteriorated. He may have driven over a cliff accidentally in a desperate effort to find a hiding place in dense forest, or he may have become so frightened, fatigued and miserable that he came to irrational conclusions that it would be best for both him and the stepson to end it all. Just like a fox in a hunt, he was driven to exhaustion and defeat.
It’s likely that the police contributed heavily to the death of these two people when some restraint, respect and empathy towards a male person may have prevented the deaths.
It’s possible that police had reasonable cause to believe Mr Beckenridge was dangerous. His multiple aliases raise concern about possible unlawfulness. However, there was no mention by police that Mr Beckenridge had any history of violence or mental instability. Even if he had it may have been inadvisable to make his situation so desperate for him as to provoke an extreme response. Only if police had good reason to believe that Mr Beckenridge intended or was likely to seriously harm the boy soon after collecting him from school, would it have been justified to initiate the fox hunt as they did.
And what of the parenting order that (gasp) Mr Beckenridge breached? This was an order made by a lawyer promoted to judge, likely to have no qualifications in child development or any good basis for being able to guess what’s best for children. The order was based heavily on the opinion of another lawyer, the lawyer for the children, who had no particular training or knowledge to be able to interview children adequately or to interpret their responses or information about them wisely, and who had never undertaken personal analysis to become aware of his/her underlying attitudes, emotional hangups and/or female-favouring empathy that might bias his/her interpretations and opinions. The judge and lawyers had all been frequently indoctrinated by feminist ‘training workshops’ while wisdom, perspectives and research from fathers and men’s groups was shunned. The order was also based heavily on untested allegations by the parties with virtually no standard of proof required. Perjury is welcomed (or certainly hardly ever prosecuted or punished) in the Family Court especially from women. And the whole Family Court process leading to the order was done in secret. If a male breaches such an order this is seen by police to justify a fox hunt to the bitter end. When a female breaches, police treat the parenting order with the skepticism it probably merited.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 26th March 2015 @ 9:40 am
Thanks Man X Norton, for your careful and wide ranging comment. It is well worth reading, several times to understand all of the issues you have brought together. You compare incentives to mother and fathers and show that giving different incentives does waste and cost lives and huge wasted legal bills…..
If the police and familycaught$ were to learn from your comment, I would guess 95% of parent’s complaints about familycaught$ would be solved.
But, the familycaught$ is built from entrenched interests, who profit directly and maximally from their customer’s loss and misery, so I don’t expect any change.
Not until the public push them aside and replace them with people who understand your comment.
Thanks,
MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 27th March 2015 @ 11:04 am
Man X Norton,
Spoken with experience and perception.
Comment by Paul — Sat 11th April 2015 @ 12:24 pm
This update news report shows the fox hunt continues, and it confirms the difficulty caused for Mr Beckenridge in trying to maintain contact with his stepson.
Comment by Man X Norton — Thu 4th June 2015 @ 8:53 am
Notice how this thread appeared on MENZ 5 days after the abduction.
Look at this example. Note the police did say “Police have concerns about the safety and welfare of Loyal while in his mother’s care” but have waited 39 days to let the community find out. I question the use of the word “care”, when describing a kidnapped child.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/71331726/mother-abducts-teenage-son-from-cyf-care
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 21st August 2015 @ 12:18 pm
Quite right DJ Ward. When a father or stepfather takes off with a child against the Family Court order, even a child who really wants to stay with that man, police quickly mount a manhunt (fox hunt)and refer to abduction, kidnapping etc. When a woman takes a child from CYF care (implying that she really does present a risk as a mother), police take their time, go about looking for the child in a quiet and non-provocative way, make no mention of abduction or kidnapping and instead refers to the child as being in the mother’s ‘care’.
Comment by Man X Norton — Sun 23rd August 2015 @ 6:06 pm