Judge urges revealing ugly truths

By HELEN TUNNAH

The head of the Family Court says public scrutiny of domestic violence will let New Zealanders learn the sometimes "unbelievable" things people do to each other.

Judge Peter Boshier said if people wanted to stop abuse of children, and within families, then the hard facts of what happens in New Zealand homes must be told.

In a blunt speech delivered at Parliament, Judge Boshier detailed the injuries suffered by 2-year-old Delcelia Witika, killed in 1991 in a family abuse case which shocked the nation.

As a new judge he had been asked to read a police affidavit in a custody case involving the little girl, before she died undernourished, sexually abused, with cigarette burns, massive scalding to her body, cut, bruised and with her hair pulled out.

She died - killed by her mother and her boyfriend - from internal injuries after being struck in the abdomen.

"There are many cases, not necessarily as serious as this, which come before the Family Court and which at present you do not know about," Judge Boshier said yesterday. "I regret that."

He said judges were often visibly moved by the unfairness and injustice of vulnerable children either seeing severe violence or being subject to it.

He said setting up a closed Family Court was intended to secure the dignity and privacy of people in front of it, but it had not allowed a clear view to be obtained about how people treat each other.

He said he wanted a "much clearer window" for people to see how people actually conducted themselves.

The Care of Children Bill now before Parliament will allow limited scrutiny of the Court. Media will be allowed to report cases, providing no one is identified.

Judge Boshier has previously supported that law change, and has also allowed the posting of cases on a court website, again where identifying details are removed.

Judge Boshier became the Principal Family Court Judge earlier this year and is fast gaining a reputation for being outspoken.

He delivered two public speeches yesterday, one to the "Littlies Lobby" function at Parliament and another to a public law seminar at Victoria University.

In both, he came perilously close to commenting on politics - a breach of judicial convention - by talking about MPs defining families and judicial independence.

The definition of a "family" has been a core political debate this year, with party differences over whether the traditional nuclear family should have greater rights than same-sex or single parent families.

He said judges saw too many "conventional dysfunctional" families in which "repartnering" by the adults had occurred to such an extent that a sense of nurturing, belonging and feeling secure had been compromised.

"If we can concentrate as a society, on providing love and security to our littlies, then I don't mind much how the family is constituted. Can we make that our prime focus?"

Delcelia Witika

* Killed in 1991 aged just 2;

* Evidence said she died alone, bleeding, in pain and with many injuries;

* Her mother, Tania Witika, and boyfriend Edward George Smith, were at a party;

* They were found guilty of manslaughter and jailed for 16 years;

* Tania Witika left jail two years ago this week - in a limousine.