More Evidence of Good Parents Victims of Anti-Smacking Law

Family First has published advertisements in the Sunday papers highlighting further cases of good parents being reported, investigated, persecuted, and even prosecuted as a result of the anti-smacking law.

“All NZ’ers want to tackle the issue of child abuse but the anti-smacking law, and the compromise brokered by John Key, has not brought about the desired result,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “Even the architect of the bill, Green MP Sue Bradford, has admitted that the bill was never intended to solve the problem of child abuse and child violence.”

“But now we have good parents being caught in the cross-fire of our worthy desire to tackle the real causes of child abuse.”

Family First has documented evidence of a number of disturbing cases including:

* a father separated from his children for 6 months by CYF because of malicious claims by mother that he had smacked them - CYF eventually re-allowed access but only due to a strong supporter who knew the system
* a father prosecuted and convicted because of pushing the upper arm of his daughter 2-3 times and demanding she listen to her mother
* a father dragged through the court process only to turn up to the court case and the police to admit they had no evidence
* a stepfather who had to physically restrain the arms of his stepdaughter, being interrogated for 2 hours almost 7 months after the incident, and 6 months later still not knowing the outcome
* a CYFS Community Panel Board member telling Family First "I can say without a doubt, that in my time I have seen a small but a definite increase in 'good' parents being investigated by our CYFS case workers.”

Other cases are documented on our website http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/CASES

Family First NZ continues to call on the politicians to change the law so that non-abusive smacking is not a crime (as wanted by 85% of NZ’ers, according to recent research).

ENDS

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