Family plan escape from fathers' protest

Charlotte Cummings intends to slip away with her children from their Grey Lynn home. Picture / Dean Purcell

An Auckland family feel they will be forced to flee their home the next time the house is targeted for protests by fathers' groups.

Charlotte Cummings, the wife of family barrister Stuart Cummings, yesterday said the noisy demonstrations had given their 6-year-old son nightmares, while their 14-year-old daughter "became hysterical" and ran from the house.

The family plan to leave their Grey Lynn home the next time protesters from a fathers' lobby group, which includes the Union of Fathers, turn up.

The Cummings were visited on Sunday, the same day the protesters were squirted with a garden hose at the home of lawyer Ross France.

A woman has been charged with common assault as a result of the confrontation.

The group set up outside the homes with banners, including a swastika, and shouted "Give back our children" through megaphones and accused families of living off fathers' misery.

Mrs Cummings said six-year-old Anthony was playing with a friend when the group arrived on Sunday and asked him to go inside and get his father, she said.

Anthony woke up later that night with a nightmare and wet his bed for the first time since he was a toddler, Mrs Cummings said.

At school on Monday he wrote in his workbook, 'Every Sunday some bullies tease my dad'.

Her daughter, Ana, could not cope with the first protest outside their home in June.

"She ran out of the house into the street. [The protesters] saw her hysterical. My neighbours were standing out on the street, and took her away and comforted her."

Ana Cummings said the protest was frightening and ruined her weekend. She wanted the family to leave the house next time the group arrived.

"To compare my dad to Hitler is really disgusting," she said.

Mrs Cummings said her husband's family court clients had offered to stand outside the house and show their support.

Protest spokesman Jim Bagnall made no apologies for the group's actions, saying Mr Cummings was lawyer for the children of a man who was demonstrating on Sunday.

He did not name the man but said: "His children have had four years of not seeing him and we've done 15 minutes in front of their home."

Mr Bagnall said: "I abhor the necessity for this. I don't like children wetting their beds because of me. But I don't like to see some family court lawyer's wife and son chucking rocks at me either."

Friends have offered to help the Cummings get out of the property and one has given them access to her home if they need somewhere to stay during the protests.

Mrs Cummings said: "[Leaving] is the only way to deal with it, really. I was shutting all the windows and closed the curtains because ... I didn't want them to photograph my children and I didn't want my children to hear what they were saying."

Her family had supported the fathers' group in the past, "but I just don't think they understand how the system works and there is no personal benefit for the judges or lawyers as to the outcome of these cases".

Mrs Cummings said her husband had been willing to appear in a televised debate with the protest group.

Mr Bagnall said there had been an offer to debate but they did not trust Mr Cummings to front up.

Protesters used the swastika and shouted "Sieg heil' because the Family Court was "operating in a fascist way", he said.

Mr Bagnall said the group had demonstrated outside the Family Court and the offices of lawyers, lobbied MPs and made submissions to Parliament.

"It has got us nowhere and so what have we got left?"