Family Court ‘failing’

Press, 27 September 1983, Page 8

Family Court ‘failing’

The Family Court is failing to provide adequate protection for battered women, a Christchurch group says. , Disappointment with the performance of the Family Court in Christchurch has prompted the Battered Women’s Support Group to send a written complaint to the Court’s principal judge, Judge P. J. Trapski. A spokesman for the support group, Dr John Church, said the Domestic Protection Act gave the Court the power to separate a disturbed and violent husband from a frightened wife. The Court was refusing to provide this protection. In its letter to Judge Trapski, the group says that after the act was introduced

in March, 1983, it was initially applied by the Family Court in the spirit it was intended.

“Since the beginning of September, however, the Christchurch Court has not given a single interim occupation order to any Support Group client, no matter how serious or urgent the case,” the group said. To back up its complaints, the group has included details of the four worst cases dealt with in the last two weeks.

The group said all four women concerned had been beaten by their husbands “for many years ... and are totally terrified of their husbands.” "All four women have

fled from their homes to avoid further assaults, all have applied to the Family Court for protection under the Domestic Protection Act, and all have been refused the protection they asked for.”

Dr Church said the group wanted to alert Judge Trapski to the fact that "things seemed not to be going too well” in Christchurch.

“There is nothing else we can do,” he said. "We cannot influence the Court or lean on the judges.” The group’s letter made public the feelings of several women going before the Court who were not satisfied with the service they were getting, Dr Church said.