Fathers in kayaks protest at family violence event

Fathers plan to protest in kayaks on Auckland's Panmure Basin on Saturday to protest against a judge who will be speaking at New Zealand's biggest-ever conference on family violence.

Waitakere Family Court Judge David Mather is due to speak at the conference at the nearby Waipuna Hotel on that day about Waitakere's experiment with encouraging men charged with family violence to plead guilty and attend anger management courses.

South Auckland father Paul Catton, 43, said he would be there in his kayak to protest against being convicted of assault and breach of a protection order when his ex-wife and son came to his house a year ago.

He denies that he started the violence and says he received a gash in the head and bruises on his body and arms.

Both he and his ex-wife were arrested, but she was convicted and discharged.

He pleaded not guilty but was convicted and is awaiting sentencing.

He also had to attend an anger management course at Henderson's Man Alive, despite feeling suicidal about the loss of his family.

"Is there a need for a 'living without violence' type of course? Yes, of course," he said.

"But not the way it's being conducted at Man Alive, and certainly not under the direction of the Family Court."

Groups running anti-violence programmes and official agencies from New Zealand, Australia and the US will take part in the three-day "Courageous Practice in Family Violence - A Call to Action" conference, which starts today.

Organiser Holly Carrington of Preventing Violence in the Home (formerly the Domestic Violence Centre) said New Zealand was "way behind Australia and the US and some other countries in responding appropriately and adequately to family violence".

"So we are trying to give the whole movement a real kick in the pants," she said.

"We in New Zealand are just now implementing an across-the-board health sector response.

"In the US it's been going on for 10 years or more and they are already doing research on the impact of that response."

New Zealand is also setting up multi-agency "family safety teams" to support front-line workers in the health service, the police, courts and other agencies.

Such multi-agency "auditing" has been practised in parts of the US for many years.