MPs told of cases of bashed children

Press, 1 December 1983, Page 4

MPs told of cases of bashed children

PA Wellington Legislation which would allow courts to remove battered children from their homes without the need to prove who had attacked them was supported by Government members in Parliament last evening- _ .. ...

Mr R. N. McClay (Nat., Taupo) read several case histories of bashed children, including one of a baby girl who was killed by her mother, to support clause 6 of the Children and Young Persons Amendment Bill.

During the reporting back of the bill from the Health and Welfare Select Committee, Mr R. M. Gray (Nat., Clutha), the committee’s chairman, said that the clause responded to an identified gap in legislation dealing with neglected or ill-treated children.

Mr Gray said that as the law was worded, a court could only take action in cases where it could be established in law who was responsible for abusing the child. In some cases it was apparent ill-treatment had occurred, but the court was n

unable to establish from the parents or guardians of the child who was responsible, he said. “In these circumstances the court has no option but to return the child to its atrisk environment, with very unfortunate consequences in some cases,” he said. Clause 6 remedied that situation by giving the court authority to find a complaint proven even if the identity of the person who was responsible could not be established.

“The object is to avoid the situation where an abused child is returned to an at-risk environment because of lack of evidence as to who was responsible for the abuse,” Mr Gray said. “The proposed amendment is entirely consistent with the basic principle of the Children and Young Persons Act which aims that the child’s interests must be regarded as paramount.”

Labour’s spokesman on social welfare, Mrs Ann Hercus (Lyttelton) said that Parliament was faced , with the difficulty of the rigHs of

parents on one hand and the rights of children on the other.

The 1974 act had provided that a complaint could be laid usually against both parents or guardians of a child involving alleged neglect or ill-treatment.

For about eight years, once the non-accidental injury was proved and where there was no possibility that the parents or guardian were responsible, the courts invoked a wide range of possible actions from discharge or ordering counselling to the possibility of an guardianship order removing the child from the atrisk home.

Only in the worst cases would that step be taken. That practice changed in 1982 with a court decision, confirmed by the Chief Justice, which in effect said that the Social Welfare DeBment or the police who the complaint had to show culpability on the part of a specific parent. Mrs Hercus asked why the department did not appeal against that court decision.