Numbers swamp Friendship House

Judge Anna Johns at work in the Manukau District Court's Family Court. Picture / Greg Bowker

New Zealand's biggest provider of counselling programmes for violent men, Manukau's Friendship House, is struggling financially because judges are sending men to it informally without any funding attached.

The multi-church agency in Manukau City Centre says the number of men coming as self-referrals without any formal documentation from the courts has rocketed from less than 20 per cent of its total clientele to 69 per cent last month.

Director Vicki Sykes says the agency's ethos is that no one is turned away.

"I could say we didn't have any funding for him, but what if he goes home and kills his partner?" she said.

But the agency has taken a $70,000 loss in the past year because most of the self-referrals in Manukau's low-income catchment area can't afford the $1700 it costs to put each man through an anger management course.

Most of the 160 men doing courses can't even afford the standard fees of $50 for the first session and $20 each for the other 17.

The problem has arisen because a new specialist Family Violence Court established at the Manukau District Court last year has adopted a practice of remanding men on domestic violence charges for several months so they can do a course "voluntarily" before sentencing.

Many are then convicted and discharged, or even discharged without conviction on a first offence, if they bring a letter from Friendship House saying they have attended the course.

Their fees are paid by the Corrections Department's Probation Service or by the Family Court.

Mrs Sykes said the new Family Violence Court worked well at first because one of the initial judges, Judge Karina Williams, sent men with their partners to take out protection orders by consent, allowing the couple to stay together as long as the violence stopped but giving the victim the power to force the offender out if he hit her again.

"She would say, 'I'll stand this down for a few hours. You go to the Family Court on the other side of the building and get a protection order'.

"But for a whole bunch of reasons that stopped happening, primarily because Judge Williams was no longer in the picture." She died a year ago, aged 42.

Mrs Sykes said men were now being sent to Friendship House with no court paperwork and often had no idea what they were there for.

"They say, 'The judge told me to come'. They are often not particularly clear about what they are here for or what to do. No paperwork goes with them, so we get no history of the man other than what he tells us.

"With the Corrections and Family Court ones we have a paper trail. If he doesn't show up, we let them know and they chase them up. But there is no accountability for these men. Nobody is monitoring their attendance."

The liaison judge at the Manukau District Court, Judge Charles Blackie, said judges were aware of Friendship House's plight, but they could not be responsible for its funding.

Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson said the problem could be eased if funding could be found for independent advocates to work with victims and help couples get protection orders, as happens in Waitakere.