The human cost of domestic violence

A new study says judges have too little information when making vital decisions on domestic protection orders, enforcement is farcical, men are failing to attend court-ordered anti-violence programmes and women have lost faith in the system's ability to protect them from abuse.

Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier has referred to six women who died between November and January, whose partners have been charged with killing them. At least two of the women had protection orders at the time they died, and another was in the process of seeking one. Five of the cases are ongoing, and the accused have yet to face trial.

Here are their stories:

November, 2005

A mother of six from a central North Island town dies in Auckland Hospital from extensive head injuries. Family members had found her unconscious in her bed three days earlier. She had a protection order against her former partner, who has been charged with her murder. Court documents say the pair had an argument. A pathologist said the woman's injuries were consistent with her being pushed backward and hitting her head.

November 25, 2005

Deborah Anne Rerekura is shot dead in her Taupo home by husband William Rerekura, who then kills himself. Mrs Rerekura had a protection order against Mr Rerekura.

November, 2005

A 20-year-old woman, the mother of two daughters, is killed in her Papatoetoe home. The neighbour who found her told the court the woman's face was so beaten she was unrecognisable. The neighbour said she heard the couple argue often, and had thought about telling the woman about custody issues or protection orders. The woman's ex-partner was arrested for murder.

December 11, 2005

A woman and her new partner are stabbed to death. The woman's former partner has been charged with their murders. The woman had told him a few days earlier that their relationship was over and had started the process to get a protection order. She left behind two young sons who are being cared for by family members.

December, 2005

A woman is found dead in the garage of her Waikato home.

Her partner of five years is charged with murdering her.

The woman's father says his daughter had tried to leave her partner and had discussed getting a protection order but never went through with it. Her three children are now being cared for by her mother.

January, 2006

A woman is found dead in her Christchurch home. Her former partner is charged with her murder.

Grieving mum finds it hard to forgive

Jennifer Puke's eight-year-old granddaughter hopped into her lap last week and asked: "when are you going to forgive?"

A little girl old before her time. Her two brothers and younger sister are inseparable, says Mrs Puke, who cares for them with her husband Patrick.

Their mother, Eileen Te Oki Puke, was murdered by their father Jason Davis in April last year, stabbed to death in her home while the youngest boy watched.

The other three stood at the end of their driveway. Their father came out of the house, told them he was sorry, he loved them and drove off.

Then he took his own life.

Eileen had been granted a temporary protection order in February.

Her father Patrick says she had wanted to leave the relationship. Davis had convictions for assaulting her and had appeared on a new charge of assaulting her on February 28.

The District Court Judge gave him bail - to live at a house next door to Eileen. In March she moved to Auckland to get away from Davis but he followed and visited her.

The protection order was finalised, and Davis was ordered to attend a stopping violence programme.

He went to the first meeting but never returned.

On April 18 Eileen found her house had been broken into, she suspected Davis and told her aunt, Anndora Marino, she wanted him to leave her alone.

On April 20 Davis did not attend his programme but drove to Auckland, where he bought a knife and length of rope. He drove back to Huntly without seeing Eileen. The following day Davis drove to Auckland again.

That day Eileen told her aunt she was scared of Davis, who had a history of mental illness and that he was going to kill her.

She had told her mother the same thing.

Davis went to Eileen's home, where they argued.

He stabbed her to death.

"It still hurts so much, I can't forgive it," said Mrs Puke.

Still living in fear after fleeing to Australia

Nearly five years after she left him to live in a different country, Jane is still wondering what her ex-partner is going to hit her with next.

Jane (not her real name) has a permanent protection order against a man so violent that Women's Refuge helped her flee to Australia, but Family Court orders are forcing her to have ongoing contact with him. Women's Refuge moves about seven women a year overseas to escape violent partners. Jane is one of them.

The protection order she has is worth nothing, she says. Her ex-partner has not completed court-ordered programmes to control violence, has faced charges of assaulting another woman and is now using the Family Court to harass her.

"It's like he's become the victim now and he plays it to the hilt. I wonder what I'm going to get hit with next," says Jane.

She is expecting to hear from the court about her ex-partner's access to their children next week.

She has been to New Zealand under protection to settle property disputes in the Family Court and has had to move since returning to Australia after the court gave out her address.

The court did not blank out the address from her bank statement, which it had ordered her to produce after her ex-partner claimed she had stolen from him when she left.

Her ex-partner later told the court he knew where she was but had not tried to contact her, as an illustration of good behaviour. He then produced a map showing where she lived, where she banked and where she shopped.

The court has ordered Jane to send the man school reports and photos of their children every six months, which she says she has done.

Her ex-partner is allowed to write to their children but she heard nothing from him until November when he contacted the court to say she had not been fulfilling obligations.

She says her children remember vividly the violence and do not wish to have contact with the man.

"He would subtly breach the protection order by sending his friends to see me," Jane said.

She feared that he would find her wherever she went in New Zealand.

Jane left the day he scrawled obscenities on her daughter's bedroom wall, held a knife to her throat and refused to let her sleep for a whole weekend.

She says the Family Court judge has suggested he should have more contact with his children, and they should have conference phone calls.

Jane says: "He is using the court system to harass and abuse, I have pointed out the protection order to the court."

Sad litany of violence and murder

* "About half of the murders in New Zealand are family violence-related. One woman is killed by her partner or ex-partner every five weeks and about 10 children are killed every year in family violence-related situations." - Judge Russell Johnson, speech notes to police executive conference, November last year.

* Each year police receive more than 45,000 calls relating to domestic or family violence, involving more than 200,000 people. Source: Creating A Culture Of Non-violence, NZ Parliamentarians' Group on Population and Development.

* In their lifetime, one in four women and just under one in five men will experience some form of domestic violence. Source: Ministry of Justice survey of crime victims

* The number of protection orders granted in the Family Court has fallen from 4066 in 1999 to 2645 last year. In the same period, the number of recorded assaults by males against females rose from 6949 to 7526. Source: Ministry of Justice

* Monthly, there are consistently more breaches of protection orders recorded than new protection orders granted. Source: Ministry of Justice

* Figures show about 35 per cent of men who are ordered to undertake programmes to prevent violence do not complete them. But programme providers put the figure even higher: they say about 50 per cent of men ordered to do the courses don't turn up.

Source: Protection Order Study of the Domestic Violence Act.