KEY POINTS:
Men's rights activists will be cheering on the Family Court for releasing five judgments which show the lengths to which Kay Skelton went to deny the natural father of her son access to his boy.
After months of bitter protests outside Family Court judges' homes against the handling
of all sorts of family actions - and even the Tauranga house of Parliament's Speaker Margaret Wilson - the court has taken the unusual step of releasing judgments. They show the extent to which one New Zealand woman persecuted her former lover who just wanted access to their son.
Principal Family Court judge Peter Boshier will, I am sure, argue his decision to release the judgments in the case of Chris Jones versus Kay Skelton is not a direct response to "Dads for Justice" type complaints.
But the website action campaign the Jones family launched after 6-year-old Jayden Headley was kidnapped by his maternal grandfather would surely have coloured the court's perceptions. The Jones camp issued pamphlets, hired private investigators and even filed writs of habeas corpus while police were hunting for Jayden.
There were briefings conducted by parties close to Jones to fill in news media on just what lengths Skelton had used to try to deny access to Jayden from the time he was just months old, material that must have also formed part of information that until then had been suppressed by the court.
One byproduct of Boshier's decision will be a message to New Zealand men that the Family Court is prepared to play fair in new style sexual wars of the 21st century.
There's no need to persecute the judges or ramp up complaints against Child Youth and Family Service personnel on blogsites. We do take account of men's rights.
Will they heed it? I don't think it will be enough to persuade activist fathers to calm down their campaigns. There's a lot of pent-up rage from men who believe that the women's revolution of the late 1970s has resulted in them now getting the rough end of the stick.
What we are seeing is a vast array of men's groups in our major cities who are concerned their gender frequently face child support claims (and charges if they fail to stump up) from women who will trump up false claims like sexual abuse to deny them access to their children after relationships break down.
When, as in some cases, the children are the byproduct of one-night stands the issue is particularly galling to those who argue the Family Court has a bias towards women.
I believe the contents of the judgments - which Boshier maintains were released to satisfy a public interest - have now cost Skelton her right to a fair trial on the kidnapping charge that she faces.
They paint a damning picture: Skelton ignored court orders, faked DNA tests, tried to alienate her son from his father, abducted him to hide away on the Australian Gold Coast for eight months, and deceived the court in an active and concerted manner. The boy's maternal family had executed "a conspiracy" to cut Chris Jones out of Jayden's life as if the former had never existed.
This is the first time the Family Court has exercised its discretion under the Care of Children Act to release full "unanonymised" judgments which identify the warring parties and their children.
Boshier says this discretion may be exercised particularly in cases where the parties have already identified themselves and their children and where there has been a considerable and justifiable public interest in matters arising from the case.
The media release said Boshier also says, "as he has maintained previously", that "where a case becomes public and the role of the Family Court comes under scrutiny, he will always look at making available judgments so as to ensure the public have the full facts".
But why wait until after Jayden had been returned by his grandfather before deciding to release the judgments to satisfy a "public interest"? Surely it was a matter of public interest while Dick Headley and Jayden were on the run?
And why did Boshier not offer Skelton's lawyer Barry Hart the opportunity to make a case for interim suppression?
To the public Skelton is now the evil person who will stop at nothing to ensure Jones has no access to their son. She has no hope of a fair trial.
But there are other issues. If the Family Court was so incensed by Skelton's behaviour why did it not charge her with an attempt to pervert the course of justice by substituting "false-positive" samples of DNA to prove her husband Brett, and not Jones, was Jayden's father. No perjury charges and no charges of presenting false evidence to the court.
There are also lingering issues over Jones himself, particularly why the Family Court elected not to call for the usual CYFS report on allegations that Jones had abused Jayden while in his care.
The court had after all ordered him to take anger management courses at the start of this lengthy saga when a protection order had been taken against him by Skelton.
Skelton has lost her boy. She will not now get a fair trial.
The correct course now is to drop charges and let all concerned get on with their lives.
