Dateline: Boston Mass.US

In a new report of children removed from abusive mothers in the US (Mass.) finds that when ex-husbands ask for guardianship they are turned down in numbers that are astonishing, as reported in the Boston Globe shows so clearly. (6/8/06).

The report contains a shocking finding: when fathers inform child welfare officials that they would like their children to live with them, the agencies seek to place the children with their fathers in only 8% of cases.

Here is an example of this equal world from an ex-husband of just such a mother from Glenn Sacks:

The mother was abusive and the state (properly) took the girl away from the mother. After that, however, the state has refused to let this man’s daughter come home to him. The girl adores her dad and there’s been no finding of unfitness against the dad. However, the girl’s caseworker keeps coming up with vague reasons why it’s somehow not in the best interests of this child to be reunited with her father. These include gems like “she isn’t ready for overnight visits yet.”

Indirectness, indirectness and more indirectness! Instead these poor children get sent into foster care even though there is a fit father willing and able to take over. The fact that these mothers are so unfit, even in the states opinion, would suggest that the fathers might have been right to leave the relationship in the first place. Yet that is just me using common sense again. What the system that is so concerned with defending children sees seems to be natural fathers, with nothing on their records, are unfit to take over their motherly abused children because they are simply men. Like George and Peter pointed out it is more of a wonder why these men don’t go off the deep end, than not! When will we stop listening to the soft fox words and watch what they are doing? Stand up! Stand together and find a way to work together and not let little things stop us from gaining the justice that will only come with the unity of men. No man can do this by himself!

This was 2 different situations for 2 similar 15 year old boys. I cannot keep it as it was because it could have an impack on the boys. But I have kept the comments. I leave this decision up to webmaster.

New Zealand domestic violence experts are dismissing claims men are more likely to be the victims of violence among young couples as irresponsible and damaging.

The University of New Hampshire study shows women carry out more unreciprocated physical attacks on men while dating, than than men do on women.

But domestic violence experts in New Zealand are rubbishing the study.

The research is based on more than 13,000 university students in 32 countries, including New Zealand.

It found a third of students physically attacked a partner during the 12 month study, with assaults ranging from throwing things and shoving to kicking and punching.

While most of the violence involved both partners assaulting each other, the second-largest group was of women alone carrying out the attacks.

The study’s author says the findings call into question the belief that partner violence is predominantly a male crime.

But Women’s Refuge in New Zealand says that sends the wrong message. National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuge head Heather Henare says statistics show men in New Zealand are the main perpetrators of serious violence.

The National Network of Stopping Violence Services also describes the study as an anomaly. Manager Brian Gardner says there is no getting away from the fact that women suffer more harm at the hands of men, than the other way around.

He says such research allows violent men to justify their behaviour when they should be facing up to it.

Waikato University psychologist Neville Robertson, who specialises in domestic violence, says it would be more telling if fear had been measured in the study.

Auckland University associate professor of psychology Nicola Gavey says it is simply wrong to claim men are the victims of violence between couples.

She says the research draws attention away from the most important issue in the debate, which is the impact of family violence on women and children.

Alison Towns, a clinical psychologist specialising in domestic violence, says that three quarters of violence carried out by women against men is in self-defence.

An Auckland District Court jury in the trial of a woman charged with stabbing her husband heard closing arguments yesterday.

The 34-year-old woman has pleaded not guilty to one charge of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Police said her injured husband, 49, called them on February 20 last year about 3.30am, saying his wife had stabbed him twice in the back and once in the back of the leg in their Queens Street apartment.

The accused said he inflicted the wounds on himself.

The couple’s names and nationality are suppressed.

Crown prosecutor Tiffany Robertson asked the jury to use its common sense when deciding its verdict today.
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It looks that there is a change happening in male and female relationships.

According to a Match.com poll, 48 percent of men (and an equal percentage of women) reported dating partners who drew the same income as they did. Twenty percent of men reported dating women who earned more.

There is a want and need for equality among people in their 20’s and 30’s. Men are wanting to share the responsibilites with women and do not want to be the sole breadwinner and decision-makers while women do not want to be stay at home mums wasting their years and talents to only raising children. Both sexes have watched their parents trying to cope alone with their personal responsibilities in the relationship. And I guess like many of us, promised themselves things will be different for them.

“It’s great that men are no longer the success object and women are no longer the sex object. But when people organize their lives differently from their cultures or families of origin, they have to make it work practically and emotionally. You have to negotiate before [marriage] how you’re going to deal with the core issues of sex, money and kids.”

Barry McCarthy, a psychologist in Washington, D.C.,

It makes complete sense to consider that the ultimate relationship would be between people that are best friends. And to become best friends each needs to click emotionally and mentally.

Women today want men that can and will share thier feelings because they don’t need the masks in their busy lives and it is tiresome trying to live so closely to someone you don’t understand. It seems also that men (and you will correct me if I am wrong) need more from their women than trophy wives.

We live in a world today that spins around our economy. Everything seems to evolve around money as to our worth. What house we have, what clothes we wear, what schools our kids can go to, medical care and the list just goes on and on. Many families cannot sufficiently live without 2 incomes in todays society and absolutely cannot survive without working together in partnership. But in any successful partnership, the individuals must be real to themselves first and then real to their partners second.

Once again equality is neccessary.

Psychology-today

Dear Dr Robertson

You were quoted in the Waikato Times on 3 June 2006 as saying
(i) that for parents effectively to take shared responsibility for children “you need a high degree of co-operation and goodwill between the parents” and
(ii) that “it is probably in the best interests of a child not to have their current arrangements upset”, then making clear that you are referring to arrangements in which the mother has sole custody.

Can you refer me to the research on which you base your claims in (i) and (ii)? My understanding of the research is that shared care arrangements work at least as well for all parties as do other child-care arrangements across various qualities of the separated parent relationship, this holding for all but the most highly-conflicted parents. This means that your claim that shared care requires a “high degree of co-operation and goodwill” is simply incorrect and unsupported by the research. My understanding of the research is that on various measures children have been shown to do better under shared care arrangements than under other arrangements including being mostly cared for by either parent. On the other had there appears to be no finding that children do more poorly under shared care than under alternative arrangements, except one study of questionable merit that suggested babies under 18 months old suffered ill effects from shared care. Given this research picture, it appears that your claim in (ii) above is not accurate nor is it supported by the research.
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I see, like others, the effect the mens coalition is making on our country at the moment. Even Good Morning NZ has shown a part of the media’s coverage. But the time Good Morning has spent is about a book and once again it is stated that most parents sort it out without having problems or going to court.

What people are not talking about is part of the core problem and is what our society needs to recognise. It is POWER and POWERLESSNESS.

Considering most of these parents that do not go to court but are part of the statistics that work it out amicably, one would find that parent (a) blackmails parent (b) who basically will almost do anything to see their children. In one moment parent (b) can lose shared parenting or even access.
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Dateline: June 5th, 2006 Japan (Intrepid)

A mother, whose daughter drowned just over a month ago in a river, is now under arrested in the murder of a neighbour’s boy, while police are now reopening the investigation into the daughter death.

After the police shied away from arresting another very suspicious mother again for the strange death of her daughter over a month ago, the same women has gone on to be arrested today for the killing of a neighbour’s innocent boy.

Asked in an interview by journalist touring the neighbourhood for the mysterious daughter’s death earlier, before the second suspected murder, the suspect states on camera, there was a strange man in a van that may have been the one who killed my daughter (and then threw the boy’s lifeless body into a lonely ditch by a river).

Well for men in the men’s movement we have heard this before. In the US women murders often point to some black man and are later given a softer sentence, despite the usual outrage that surrounds bigoted racism. Yet generalizations, it would seem, about black men & men in general don’t lead to harsher sentences in this equal world. Who knows how many men where killed or lynched on the word of a pure women, or a mother of irrefutable kindness.
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I am a parent who has been “forced” to do supervised access as this is the only way I can see my child at present.

The Interim custody order was granted under section 59 of the COCA.which relates back to section 29, which states “an order depriving a parent of a child must not be made unless the court is satisfied that the parent is for some grave reason unfit to be a Guardian and that the order will serve in the best interests of the child”
Admittedly I was unwell and was admitted to Hospital, I was not caring for my child at the time.
The “fictitious” affodavit by my ex was accepted by the court without any evidence or proof or investigation. Even on defence I was still not listened to, mainly because I got so emotional
( whatever you do don’t show emotion at the Family Court ! )

Supervised Access can also be ordered under sectio 60 and 61, which relate to violence.

I question as someone who has been ordered to do supervised access how often this is really necessary, I agree in some cases that may be necessary to protect a child from violence, but how many of you people reading this have been ordered to do this as a form of punishment imposed by the court because you dared to question or probe into their dysfunction ?
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Psychiatry: This word comes from two other words. Psyche (meaning mind/soul) and iatreia (meaning cure). Psychiatry is a branch of medicine and psychiatrists treat people, using drugs and other physical methods, to change the way people act and feel.

Psychology: This word is also derived from two other words. Psyche (meaning mind/soul) and logia (meaning study of). Psychology tries to explain why people act, think and feel the way they do.

Mental Illness: A sickness of the brain according to psychiatrists and psychologists, but for which there is no proof at all of its existence. This does not mean that problems don’t exist, or that a person can never feel bad, but there is no evidence that these are caused by a sickness of the brain.

Brain: A physical organ inside the head that sends and receives messages through the nervous system. It is a physical part of the body, just as an arm, leg or the heart is. It has little to do with thinking. It can physically tell the body that something is hot and warn against touching it, but it doesn’t make decisions for you or tell you how to act.

Mind: “A part of the person that knows and thinks and feels and wishes and chooses,” the World Book Dictionary says. It is a running record of a person’s past, almost like a movie.

Psychiatric Drugs: Mind- and brain-altering drugs. They are not like normal medicine. Some can be just as addictive as illegal drugs, such as heroin and cocaine. They cannot cure or heal a person. They may appear to relieve the person’s fears, upsets or depression, but they do not cure the underlying cause.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): A list of behaviors that
psychiatrists declare are problems, such as: has too little attention, is too active, fidgets, squirms, and, therefore, is not “normal.” Note that there is no scientific or medical proof to support either the existence of the disorder or the validity of a diagnosis.

Learning Disorder: A list of symptoms that psychiatrists say shows a person will have difficulty being able to learn. Note that there is no scientific or medical proof to support either the existence of the disorder or the validity of a diagnosis.

Thanx to fightforkids.com

Today, more than 17 million children worldwide have been prescribed psychiatric drugs so dangerous that medicine regulatory agencies in Europe, Australia and the United States have issued warnings that antidepressants, for example, can cause suicide and hostility in children and adolescents. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has also issued a warning that stimulant drugs, such as Ritalin and Concerta can cause suicidal as well as violent, aggressive and psychotic behavior, and that these same drugs can cause heart attacks, stroke and sudden death.

· Of these 17 million, more than 10 million children are in the United States, being prescribed addictive stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs for educational and behavioral problems.

· Today, children 5 years old and younger are the fastest-growing segment of the non-adult population prescribed antidepressants in the U.S. Children as young as 4 have attempted suicide while influenced by such drugs and 5 year olds have committed suicide. Between 1995 and 1999, antidepressant use increased 580% in the under 6 population and 151% in the 7-12 age group. In 2004, the FDA ordered that a “black box” label be placed on antidepressants warning that they can cause suicide in children and adolescents.

The problem is international in scope. In Australia, the stimulant prescription rate for children increased 34-fold in the past two decades. In Mexico, sales of Ritalin increased 800% between 1993 and 2001. In Britain, the stimulant prescription rate for children increased 9,200% between 1992 and 2000. Spain reported a steady 8% annual increase in Ritalin consumption between 1992 and 2001.

fightforkids

I have been in the FC system battling a co-op of Lawyer for Child, a Judge Wellington, an access supervisor and the system between CYFs and the family court law. Its been the most emotionally draining, un-reasonable, illogical and un-remitting series of events that I have faced. I have now seen my children taken out of New Zealand into a foreign country with jurisdiction remaining in New Zealand but enforceabiltiy now the issue for continued access.

I need help from the various organisations in New Zealand and have received some help from the foreign country – Fathers4Justice. But the new Care of Children Act 2005 now no longer includes the Hague Convention for International Abduction of Children.

I have established a domain for familycourt.co.nz.

I have yet to put up a home page etc, but the goal is to create awareness and expose the process so that fathers can perhaps take steps that will suit the FC system without causing too much damage from frustration. Its the number one emotion used by the lawyer for the ex that works against us – we all get frustrated, logical and reasonable arguments go unheard, contact and access to our kids are delayed and used to “bait” us into further frustration. Frustration leads us to make rash decisions that are then used by the lawyers ex to confirm the behaviours that the ex and the children should be protected from.

We all need to work the system and we all need to share how these tricks of the trade by the ex’s lawyer are being used. That is what this site is for, when we all get on the same playing field its going to be a bit more even.

Psychological Abuse on Protection Order applications are being used more often by the lawyers ex.

Fathers please read the thesis by Debbie Hager, on psychological abuse and the book:

The emotionally abusive relationship, by Beverley Engel.

If you are in a relationship, and your partner controls your income/finances, you are emotionally controlled or blackmailed- no sex etc, if you do this I will take the kids etc, you can’t do the things that you would like to do – then you need to get out of that relationship with your children and to a men’s refuge.

These are the very reasons women use to take your children away from you. But they say that you are using psychological abuse.

I ask this organisation and members for help in putting online the process steps so that fathers will not fall into the system, and get their children taken away from them.

I will be putting online the steps and the “tricks” used by the ex”s lawyer in taking my children away. We as fathers must be aware of how the system works so that we can at laest not be disadvantaged when we face the Family Court. More awareness and significant cases will help change in the system. Real change must come through Government, being a lawyer will help but changing the law would be the best result for fathers who want an equal parenting involvment in their child’s life. That is a committment we all make when we agree to have children with our partner, the family court doesn’t recognise that committment at the moment. The mother as we all know in most cases remains the primary day to day parent.

Our committment is measured by Child Support payments rather than being a comprehensive parent who is engaged in our children developing into adults.

I have my home and possibly another available for a fathers refuge, I have faced my children being taken into a refuge as a faint by my ex to convince the court that she should get custody, to hide the real truth that she psychologically abused me and I went into a deep depression – she threatened to take the children away from me, the FC agreed that this is psychological abuse of the father.

I sought help from a victim counsellor, but I have now heard a lot of fathers have faced controlling, manipulative, and emotional blackmail from their partners and ex’s. This is psychological abuse, not physical but its more damaging. I propose a refuge for fathers and their children in Wellington. I need help on this.

Raymond

Some dads say they’re not getting a fair go in the Family Court. Kate Monahan finds out why they are so disgruntled, and sits in on some cases being heard

We’ve had a gutsful of the Family Court, their discrimination against fathers,” says Jack Gielen, a spokesman for the Hamilton branch of the coalition, which has about 20 members.

“We want to replace it with mediation services and equal parenting focused on joint responsibility and joint decision-making.”

The group also wants a Ministry of Men’s Affairs established and more support services for men, including retreat facilities for fathers and children.

“If you had the Family Court out of the way tomorrow, the mother, father and child could sit down and will be able to do it,” says Gielen. “It’s God-given, innate common sense.”

The group doesn’t like women in power. He derides Prime Minister Helen Clark and her Labour colleagues —- “Helen and the funny girls”, he calls them.

Gielen also has a bee in his bonnet about the more moderate Union of Fathers, which has opposed the coalition’s aggressive tactics. “The head guy of Union of Fathers has his wife on the committee,” he says. When asked why they wouldn’t want support from women, Gielen says “it’s okay to join, but we don’t want a feminised takeover”.

Fraser Penny, the newly elected national chairperson of the Union of Fathers, based in Hamilton, says having women support their cause is essential. Penny, a Waikato man and foundation member of the union, says his wife (Maggie Revell-Penny, secretary of the union) “has stayed up on numerous occasion into the wee hours, helping guys with affidavits”.

He estimates the union has more than 1000 members nationwide, with about 40 in Hamilton, and works with community groups such as Parentline and the Citizens Advice Bureau. Much of their work with fathers is as a support system. “We can go from the point of pulling a guy up who is angry, to have him focusing on his children and pulling his head in,” Penny says. “They change, grow and carry on being awesome dads and role models.”

Parentline child and family therapist Audrey Hutcheson says it is important to differentiate between the coalition and the union. They get calls from some fathers from the union seeking advice, and some also attend parenting groups.

Penny says the union does not condone the coalition protests outside private homes. Although their starting point is also shared parenting, they prefer to support fathers (and occasionally mothers) and work through the system. “They’ve chosen their path, we have chosen our own.”

There is alot more to read on this article.

Parents for Children and Auckland Single Parents Trust are holding meetings around Auckland on the Child Support Act and child support issues that affect parents. The meeting is open to the public and free to receive information on what the child support act is about and how to deal with it by speaker Mark Shipman followed by personal discussion and assistance on child support issues.

This meeting is for all parents whether paying child support, receiving child support or unsure of what it is all about.

FIRST MEETING
Wednesday 7th June, 7.30pm
Kelston Community Centre
Cnr Gt North Rd & Awaroa Ave, Kelston

The Silence of the Damned
by John F. Smith, Founder, World Fathers Union

Just a fortnight from now I, like so many other fathers around the world, will exercise my right to think about my son thinking of me, while each of us sits estranged from the other on Father’s Day. Thinking is the one thing they haven’t yet figured out how to take from us, and I suppose I’ll have to be grateful for that. Beggars can’t be choosers, I am told.? ?

I haven’t laid any plans, but I’ll probably take a part of that Sunday and sit quietly somewhere, possibly holding in my hand the small, red, plastic heart my son gave me for St. Valentine’s Day when he was four, and which is worn smooth and dull from rubbing against the change in my pocket all these last four years. I’ll try to think of happier Father’s Days; of Father’s Days from a misty past, before things got this way without our quite understanding how. It’ll be difficult, but I’ll try not to think too much about why I’m alone. Dwellling upon my own misery won’t do me, or my son, any good at all.

I’ll be likely, too, to daydream of the future we both hope will be; a future wherein some miracle brings my son home. And then, inevitably, I’ll start to worry once again how it will be after all this time. Will we know each other anymore? Will my son have changed so under his mother’s vindictive tutelage that I won’t know how to react to his new ways? Might he no longer care to go fishing or walking in the woods with his old dad, and not hear me ask because he’s too busy with some electronic gadget his mother’s given him?

If I’m smart, I’ll catch myself quickly and stop all that destructive fantasising and go do something. Perhaps I’ll wash the car? No, that’s mindless work and my thoughts will drift to how much my little boy loved to help me do that. My word, but we’d be wet by the time the car was dry….

Stop it! I’ll say harshly. Get ahold of yourself, man! That way lies madness, and it is a too, too tempting madness only fathers such as we can understand. I must find something better to do, something useful, something essential. Isn’t there something that each of us can do on this coming Father’s Day, no matter where we are, no matter how rich or how poor?

Well, there is. But it’s not easy. It’s thinking of others, instead of ourselves.

Instead of falling prey to our own fears, instead of thinking bitterly of the sons and daughters from whom we are riven by an unjust system, we can each think of someone else who needs our good thoughts, someone else who knows what it’s like to be alone on Father’s Day. We can each think of each other–of all the other fathers like ourselves struggling with that sorrow and anger. And we can think of all their children crying for them from wherever.

So that is what I will do this Father’s Day, and I will do it sitting quietly on the steps of the courthouse which stole my son from me. I will sit there from Noon until One O’clock, and I will spend that hour thinking of others like myself, and of their children, and of their pain. I shall wear a black veil of mourning to hide my face and my tears, and carry a small token of my own son, and I shall not speak. I shall be silent.

I hope there will be others to come quietly and sit with me on courthouse steps all over the world, and join hands in the Silence of the Damned. You don’t need to tell me you’ll be coming; just come. Bring a friend, and a veil of mourning, and your heart. We shall all be John Smith, the Anonymous Father, on that day. Perhaps, if there are enough of us, the world will notice something’s amiss.

HOME: It’s well known that roughly half of America’s marriages end in divorce, but not nearly as well known that two out of three of those divorces are initiated by the wives. Moreover, America’s family court system is scandalously biased in favor of the mother in child custody disputes. Fathers get custody of children in uncontested cases only 10 percent of the time and 15 percent of the time in contested cases. Meanwhile, mothers get sole custody 66 percent of the time in uncontested cases and 75 percent of the time in contested cases.

SCHOOL: young boys — who don’t naturally thrive when forced to sit still at a desk for six hours a day — are diagnosed by the millions with new diseases that didn’t exist a generation ago. To make their behavior more acceptable, they are compelled to take hazardous psycho-stimulant drugs like Ritalin.

CULTURE: Fifty years ago, “Father knows best” was a hit TV show, in which insurance agent Jim Anderson (actor Robert Young) would come home from work each evening, trade his sport jacket for a nice, comfortable sweater, and then deal with the everyday growing-up problems of his family. He could always be counted on to resolve that week’s crisis with a combination of kindness, fatherly strength and common sense.

Today, television virtually always portrays husbands as bumbling losers or contemptible, self-absorbed egomaniacs. Whether in dramas, comedies or commercials, the patriarchy is dead, at least on TV where men are fools — unless of course they’re gay. On “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” the “fab five” are supremely knowledgeable on all things hip, their life’s highest purpose being to help those less fortunate than themselves — that is, straight men — to become cool.

In fact, Sommers reveals, it has become fashionable in elitist circles to conspire to change boys’ very identity: There are now conferences, workshops, and institutes dedicated to transforming boys.

“The problem,” said David Kupelian, managing editor of WND and Whistleblower, “is that misguided feminists, intent on advancing a radically different worldview than the one on which this nation was founded, have succeeded in fomenting a revolution. And that revolution amounts to a powerful and pervasive campaign against masculinity, maleness, boys, men and patriarchy.”

This is only a taste of this article. Most males know this but Whistleblower Magazine has put it well. If you are new to this site this is an article well worth reading.

The results are in from the Netherlands and they are telling. With birth rates falling in general across Europe there is one booming group that aren’t Moslem families, and you may not wish to cheer just yet. The numbers for 2003 have been tabulated and they show a devastating problem coming soon (to a place near you) in less than 10 years. Just under 35% of children were born out of wedlock in the model of European tolerance. The rate of increase from 2002 to 2003 continues to rise and is now at a staggering 2.5%. Now think about this for a moment. In 10 years well over half of all births in the Netherlands will be out of wedlock and this is only if things stay steady and don’t increase.

The list of laws and expenses to deal with these womanly choices exceeds what the state can spend by far, and this is a state that spends almost nothing on its military. Something New Zealanders should be able to identify with. Therefore unless a solution is found to stop this then the Dutch are doomed! Take a swig and gather your courage Dutchmen.

The choices for their government is more of the same kind of coming down on men with endless unfair laws, or coming to face the fact that women are having these kids (even with the pill and abortion now available at their fingernail tips). I’ll leave it to you to think of a way out of this womanly mess, for most of you have at least thought of what is coming as compared to the average member of the population who hasn’t even come terms with the boomers retiring soon. The men’s movement needs to head for cover, and if it can hold out and stick to its guns then we should be able to have a real veto at the table when these issues are at a crisis across the western states. Still am sure there are many who can’t see the Queen has no clothes on, for it took an immature boy to speak the truth to the PC crowd of his day.

Intrepid

This is just useful information given to me by a specialist and can save you money in Doctor’s bills and wart treatment.

Without writing all the rest I will tell you that from Focht and associates comparing duct tape to the other, they found duct tape to work on 80% percent of cases with the other treatment being 60%. They also say that duct tape is cheaper and has fewer adverse effects.
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After nearly 10 years of operation, some in the profession believe aspects of the implementation of the Domestic Violence Act 1995 (DVA) are ripe for review.

Calls for change as Domestic Violence Act turns 10

A 2004 UK study confirmed that children who have contact with their fathers following a family break-up suffer fewer behavioral problems than those who don’t have such contact.

Kids Need Contact with their Fathers

Children who have contact with their fathers following a family break-up suffer fewer behavioural problems, academics said today.

Youngsters who have a close relationship with their natural father after their parents split up are likely to be less disorderly, anxious or aggressive.

Fathers the key to child behaviour

FYI, my email to Radio NZ news desk this morning, regarding the story below.

To the News desk, Radio New Zealand

I note that in your story about a group of pre-schoolers being walked through a dangerous tunnel, you referred only to “two adults” as the culprits. Was this because they were women? If so, was their gender kept from the public out of deference to feminism, fear of retribution from a feminist government, anachronistic special empathy for what used to be the downtrodden gender, feminist allegiance by the news writer, or some other reason? I bet that if it had been two men leading the children this would have been specified.

Hans Laven
Tauranga

(From Radio NZ website)
Children taken on “very dangerous” SH1 tunnel walk
Posted at 10:45am on 1 Jun 2006

Transit New Zealand says that taking a group of pre-schoolers through a State Highway One tunnel in Wellington yesterday, was very dangerous.

Motorists alerted police to a group of eight pre-schoolers being led through the Terrace Tunnel by two adults.

The children were from an Early Years Childcare centre in the central city, and were later picked up by police.

Wellington Operations Manager for Transit New Zealand, Mark Owen, says the speed limit in the tunnel is 100km an hour.

He told Morning Report the group would have had to climb over a barrier to enter the tunnel at its northern end.

There are signs at both ends of the tunnel prohibiting people from walking or cycling along there. There is no footpath – only a very narrow ledge beside the motorway.

One parent says she found out about the incident when she was called by the police. She says the officer told her that walking through the tunnel is extremely dangerous, and the police were looking into the incident.

Over recent days I have been involved as expert witness in an interesting District Court trial by jury. My client has given me permission to report on it and I will avoid using names and identifying details.

The man was accused on two counts of breaching a protection order, and the judge ended up offering a deal in which if he pleaded guilty and met several conditions then she would discharge him without conviction. She said several things of likely interest to this group.

Firstly, in questioning the man during the process of reaching the decision to discharge him, the judge wanted him to refrain from various activities that might extend the conflict with his ex wife that had led to the protection order and the present charges. The judge noted that the man had been supported in Court by representatives of fathers’ groups, and asked him if he intended to have any ongoing contact with groups like those who had been protesting against the Family Court. I thought it significant that a judge even in the District Court was acutely aware of the protests as well as the general movement and saw them as a serious influence.
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I will give you a clue. J.B

What a cute baby Santa is holding.

My ex used the Family Court to “steal” my child from me. By writing a pack of lies in affodavits, the training came from a new partner, who had “used” the Court also to personel advantage.
I am now forced to do supervised access, as this is the only way to see my child, even though I filed a defence to the Court, I beleive the decision was made before I walked in the door ?
I have a big problem with how the Family Court operates, changes are urgent, before any more families are damaged and destroyed in this Country.
below is my list of issues
1. without notice applications that are not necessary.
2. The closed doors and secrecy.
3. The adversorial system that operates, “who lies the best wins”
4. State funded child theft.
5. No one “teaches” you the system until you fall on your face into it.
6.The way the service changed from my Lawyer once I changed from paying to legal Aid.
7. There was no thought for the effect on my child or other siblings in the family.
8. You need to be wealthy to have any chance of a “fair go”
9. The Court delivery people who smile at you when they deliver something that destroys you sanity.

I have now joined the Mens support group, who have been warm, welcoming, understanding and supportive.
It is shocking to meet so many people who all tell the same “horror story” who are also living the same nightmare. how can so many people have the same story to tell ?
for my next occupation, I will be at AUT studying Law, so that I can help other victims in a few years time.

THANK GOODNESS THAT SOMEONE IS TRYING TO CHANGE “THE SYSTEM”

Julian

In the late 70’s I was living in London when the National Front (An extreme right wing political party right) marched through central London. As I photographed some of the marchers I observed that a lot of them were young and angry, however my lens captured an old lady that looked as sweet as they can be. After the march finished I approached her and introduced myself. She was very pleasant so I asked her why she was marching. She spent the next hour telling me a horrific story. Idi Amin, ex president and despot of Uganda had expelled thousands of Ugandan Asians and as most of these had British passports they arrived on British Shores. Massive social upheaval occurred particularly in London where most of them wanted to settle.

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Muriel Newman’s newsletter is worth reading this week: Nature Knows Best

Over time, human evolution gave rise to the two-parent married family, often described as the most successful child rearing institution ever invented. But by the middle of the 19th century, socialism had begun its march and in its sights, the destruction of the nuclear family: in 1948 Carl Marx called for the ‘abolition of the family’ in his Communist Manifesto and, aided and abetted by the feminist movement, what had taken more than a million years to evolve, has, in just over 150 years been largely undermined.

Each step in this erosion of the family has been incremental: the establishment of no-fault divorce made it easy to walk away from the commitment of marriage; the introduction of the domestic purposes benefit with its built-in financial incentives rewarded mothers who split up from their husbands; the practice of awarding sole custody of children to mothers made it easier to consider separation (I recall seeing research some years ago which showed that around 70 percent of marriage break-ups were instigated by mothers who were confident they would gain sole custody of their children); the enforcement of a punishing child support regime which fails to take into account the financial circumstances of both parents or to ensure the money is spent on the children, often handicaps subsequent families.

Even better, the NZ Centre for Political Debate guest Forum has an article by Stuart Birks: Disgruntled Dads and the Family Court

The Women’s Consultative Group of the New Zealand Law Society has stated, in a submission to the Law Commission, “At the heart of the current law on domestic violence in New Zealand, as embodied in the Domestic Violence Act 1995, lies a very simple concept: domestic violence is about the use of power by men to control their women partners”. This is based on the Duluth patriarchal power and control model, which has been so influential as to dominate policy over all alternative approaches. It has a major failing, however. Numerous large-scale studies have found that women are as likely to be violent as men, and in many cases when one partner is violent, the other is also.

We could ask more generally whether the people who are employed to address family law matters are properly trained, not just in terms of domestic violence, but in the whole range of issues surrounding family relationships, care of children, relationship property, child support, and so on. Proper training requires a theoretical and practical knowledge of several areas of psychology, sociology, social work and economics, in addition to law. We might consider brain surgeons to be very intelligent, but we might be reluctant to have one fix our car. Similarly, even an intelligent lawyer may be poorly suited to deliberating on family matters. At the same time, other specialists may also have limitations. There may be a big difference between the way a psychologist, say, might interact with and assess a client, and the perspective required to obtain suitable evidence for a court. In addition, while courts may be able to make decisions on specific, one off situations (such as a crime, or the interpretation of a contract), it is far more complicated to address issues such as parent-child relationships, which consist of numerous small events spread over years, and which change and evolve as people grow and other life-events occur.