Call for "domestic violence" to be criminal offence
Thu 01 Nov 2012
Outgoing Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier has called for domestic violence to be established as a stand alone criminal offence. (Currently, ...
Outgoing Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier has called for domestic violence to be established as a stand alone criminal offence. (Currently, perpetrators of domestic violence are charged with general offences such as assault, male assualts female etc.) Judge Boshier made the call in his final speech before stepping down at the Women's Refuge conference, saying it was "untenable" that such a charge did not already exist.
Women's Refuge chief executive Heather Henare supported his comments. The National Council of Women of New Zealand also supports the consideration of the proposal. Minister of Justice Judith Collins said it would be considered but the Justice work programme was already extensive.
'Judge calls for family violence charge', NZ Herald, 2/11/12
'Domestic violence data still being collected - police', Radio NZ, 2/11/12
'NCWNZ supports consideration of new criminal charge', Press Release: NCWNZ, 1/11/12
'Judge wants domestic violence made criminal offence', Radio NZ, 1/11/12
Image: A little justice by Orange Sparrow. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Image: Orange Sparrow