“Transgendered” Driving Instructor Not a Woman - Muslim Husband Threatens Suit

By Hilary White

SHEFFIELD, May 23, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Muslim husband from Sheffield England, has launched a complaint that an all-woman driving school has sent a man to teach his wife to drive. The teacher in question, Andrew Sherdley, who now calls himself "Emma", is legally considered a woman by the British government. 

Sherdley, who was married with two children, has obtained a legal birth certificate and "gender recognition certificate" even though he has yet to undergo surgery. He called the complaints "hurtful, offensive and deeply upsetting". The man who complained, who remains unnamed in the press, called the school and accused management of assigning his wife a male teacher, "disguised as a woman" and "with a deep voice", because he was a Muslim. In traditional Muslim communities, it is considered improper for a married woman to be alone with a man who is not a relative.

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Dangerous sex as state enters bedroom

Janet Albrechtsen
April 30, 2008

IF you are a man, sex got a whole lot more dangerous. Consider this scenario.
A woman meets a man in a bar or at a party. She likes the man. He likes the woman. She may not normally be a sex on the first night kind of girl. But they have a number of drinks. Fuelled by alcohol, they put aside their inhibitions. The woman goes home with the man. She says yes to sex. In the morning, the man makes it clear it was a one-night stand. The woman is deeply offended and regrets her drunken decision. She claims rape. Under new rape laws introduced in NSW this year, that man is likely to be convicted as a rapist. He is likely to go to prison.

Rape reform in NSW means that post-coital regrets can now be refashioned into rape claims that send innocent men to prison. That’s why Gold Coast Titans footballer Anthony Laffranchi is a fortunate man. He walked free from a rape charge last week after the prosecution failed to establish lack of consent. He and his then Wests Tigers NRL teammates met a woman at the Sapphire Club in Kings Cross in September 2006 and continued to party at a teammate’s apartment. The footballer said he had consensual sex. The woman, who was “significantly affected” by alcohol, claimed she was raped. Had Laffranchi met the woman after January this year, he would probably be a convicted rapist facing a long stint in prison.

Let us be clear. Rape is wrong. It is a crime that calls for imprisonment. It can destroy a victim’s life. But let us be clear about something else. Wrongful claims of rape are made. And they can destroy a man’s life. No one knows whether a rape occurred that night when Laffranchi had sex with the woman. But under the old laws of rape, the defendant’s actual state of mind was critical. If the accused had an honest belief that sex was consensual, the rape charge failed. And when the evidence became a simple contest between “he said, she said”, a reasonable doubt would lead to an acquittal. Criminal law says that is as it should be; we are talking about a serious crime and imprisonment.

Not anymore. Now the rules have changed. Now, in a contest between he said it was consensual and she said it was rape, a jury may be forced to convict the man of rape without any further corroborating evidence.

The new laws say that if a woman is “substantially affected” by alcohol, she may lack the capacity to consent to sex even if she says “yes” to sex. More disturbing, even if a man honestly believes consent was given, his state of mind is now irrelevant. Now, the man is effectively deemed to have knowledge of lack of consent if there are no reasonable grounds for believing consent was given. And it gets worse. When asked to determine whether the man had no reasonable grounds for believing the woman gave consent, the jury must ignore the fact that the man was drunk.

In other words, the fact that the woman who says “yes” to sex is drunk is highly relevant: it may vitiate her consent. But the man’s intoxication must be ignored when working out whether he had “reasonable grounds” for believing consent was given. It is a curious law that says alcohol only affects the cognitive abilities of women.

These new rape laws degrade women. They treat them as helpless victims, stripping them of the power to make decisions about sex after consuming alcohol. Down a few too many Bacardi Breezers, and the law says you are no longer responsible for your actions. Is this really the message we want to send to young women?

And for men, it’s even more serious. As the President of the NSW Bar Association, Anna Katzmann SC, has pointed out, these new laws mean that the intoxicated man will be treated just like “the true rapist, the aggressor who inflicts himself on his victim, knowing they do not consent”. There is no gradation of penalties.

Why is this happening? Lawyers point to the perfect storm. The intoxicated man is trapped between a strident but misguided feminist agenda and the law and order lobby driven by perceptions that rape conviction rates are too low.

In reality, the low conviction rates reflect nothing more than the reasonable doubt that arises when, absent other evidence about an alleged crime in private, a woman claims rape and a man claims sex was consensual.

Stephen Odgers, a senior Sydney silk who chairs the Criminal Law Committee of the Bar Association, told The Australian that, while we all want a civilised world where people treat each other with mutual respect in all walks of life, including sexual interactions, the new rape laws are a “very blunt and brutal instrument” to educate and civilise us about sexual relations. He fears that the new rape laws, in effect, can be used to criminalise those who merely treat others with disrespect after a night of sex. “And people will end up going to jail for long periods as a result.” That is why his committee, made up of almost equal numbers of prosecutors and defence lawyers opposed the reforms.

So how does a man navigate the consent nightmare? Bring a witness into the bedroom? Perhaps bring along a lawyer to guide him through every stage of consensual sex from foreplay to orgasm to ensure that the final, breathless and drunken “yes, yes, yes” is genuine consent? Similar rape reforms in South Australia led independent MP Ann Bressington to suggest earlier this month that perhaps “parliament could devise a sex contract which men could carry around in their pocket, next to their condoms”. Bressington is concerned that otherwise sensible rape reform has gone too far, leaving “very little room for a decent defence of a man who has been falsely accused”.

False accusations are helped along, says Heather MacDonald in the winter edition of City Journal, by feminist victimology and rape industrialists intent on redefining drunken sex where a bloke wants to get inside a girl’s knickers in terms of the classic case of domination rape by power-hungry men.

If you are a man, you are entitled to be frightened by the new order. While society is still committed to a 1960s model of sexual liberation, encouraging men and women to explore their sexual desires, the state is also entering the bedroom trying to educate us about appropriate sexual conduct. Unfortunately, we may discover that civility cannot be legislated by criminal sanction without innocent men going to prison.

janeta@bigpond.net.au

List member Heather Roy from the Act Party has written a nice piece on the plight of single parent fathers.

This week saw the issue of Child Support raised in Parliament, with National MP Judith Collins using the term ‘deadbeat dads’ to describe those fathers who fail - or refuse - to fulfil their obligation to contribute financially to the raising of their children.

On the whole, New Zealand is a ‘can do’ nation with ‘can do’ people: we can, and do, fulfil our responsibilities; we can, and do, pay our own way; we can, and do, stand up for fairness over discrimination. With such a pervading and upstanding social view, New Zealanders on the whole have no time for ‘deadbeat dads’.

So why, then, do we allow the odds to be stacked against fathers who are at the opposite end of the scale - who want nothing more than to play an equal or larger part in the lives of their children?

In 2006 the Care of Children Act came into effect, designed in part to shake up the Family Court and to dispel the ‘myth’ that the Court was biased against men and preferred sole maternal custody as the outcome of its hearings. Under the Act, ‘Custody and Access’ were replaced by ‘Shared Parenting’ - meaning that, ideally, both parents share equally the responsibility and joy of their child’s day-to-day care; neither parent has full control and neither parent can be left out of their child’s life. On paper, it seems wonderfully fair.

Changing legal terms, however, is a far cry from changing attitudes and it is the same judges making the final decision - often with the same gender bias they used before. An example of this lingering attitude can be seen in the case of one father who, having been left with sole care of his child for several months following the breakdown of his relationship with the mother, filed proceedings in the Family Court for an Interim Parenting Order.

Now, one might say that - as it were he who initiated proceedings - the father cannot complain about the treatment he received from the Family Court. However, this man went to the Court after indications that his former partner was about to take the child to live with her in an unstable environment. There were also indications that his former partner would not be keeping to the equal care arrangement they had previously agreed on as she required Majority Care of the child in order to qualify for the DPB. His fears were:

* That his child’s living arrangements while with her mother were far from settled - ie the child’s mother had no fixed abode and was relying on the generosity of friends to provide a roof over her head on a day-to-day basis.
* The mother would not make the effort to keep the child in Early Childhood Education
* With an informal agreement, the mother would use the child as a weapon or leverage whenever she wanted/needed something (as had happened on at least one occasion)

He also suspected that, once in receipt of the DPB for having Majority Care of their child, it would be HE who had the child for the bulk of the time - while having to pay Child Support to the mother.
Having remained in the family home, and having kept to the stable routine his child was used to, this father felt it best for his child’s wellbeing that the child remained with him in the interim until such time as his former partner was in a more suitable situation. He also assumed that the Family Court would feel the same way.

He was wrong. Within minutes of the preliminary hearing, this father realised he was quite possibly on a hiding to nothing. His former partner accused him of keeping their child from her for months, labelled him controlling and domineering, accused him of prolonged domestic abuse and insinuated that he put his career ahead of all else - all without a single shred of evidence.

The judge responded by suggesting to the mother that she had grounds to limit the father’s time with the child to Supervised Access, and accepted that the child had been withheld from her mother for months - despite the father providing written proof of dates and times that his former partner had refused to see the child due to social engagements.

Both parties were then given time to come to some kind of access agreement; once this was done and ratified the judge recommended that the father attend a parenting education course - a suggestion that was not made to the mother, whom he thanked for coming along.

And, so, the bias against fathers continues.

The fact is that politicians are right: ‘deadbeat dads’ DO need to lift their game and be more responsible for the welfare of their children. But at the same time there needs to be more equality for those fathers who truly want to be involved and are doing all they can - spending thousands upon thousands of dollars in lawyer fees - to do just that.

It is time for some real change. Politicians - indeed, New Zealand society as a whole - must take a closer look at the plight of these fathers. Perhaps if we improve the incentives for estranged fathers - and take away the unfair challenges that leave many left out of their children’s lives - we would see a drastic reduction in the number of fathers who are so beaten down by the system that they give up completely and play no part in their children’s lives.

Law firm Kensington Swan has topped the list of recipients of legal
aid payments, a legal website says.

LawFuel, a legal news and job website, has published the latest legal
aid payments, obtained under the Official Information Act.

The figures showed Kensington Swan as the largest beneficiary of
legal aid payments for the 18-month period until December 31, 2007.

The firm was paid more than $3.6 million in that period, including
more than $1.3 million in the six months until the end of last year.

Second on the website’s “Legal Aid Rich List” was Wellington lawyer
Sonja Cooper, who has been suing the Government on behalf of
psychiatric patients for the past several years. She was paid $2.8
million in legal aid in the 18-month period.

Other top earners included the Auckland Maori law chambers of Charl
Hirschfeld (more than $2.8 million), Wellington’s Rainey Collins, who
also handle substantial Maori claims work, (more than $2 million),
Rotorua’s Rangitauira & Co ($1.6 million), Wellington barrister Greg
King ($1.4 million), and former Victoria University lecturer John
Miller ($1.3 million).

The highest earning region in the past six months was Waikato/Bay of
Plenty, with the top 10 recipients receiving more than $3.8 million.
By contrast, Canterbury’s top 10 earners took $1.7 million.

CHEQUE LIST

Top Five legal aid earners - 18 month period to December 31, 2007,
rounded to nearest $1000:

* Kensington Swan $3,625,000
* Sonja M Cooper $2,865,000
* Charl Hirschfeld $2,818,000
* Rainey Collins $2,080,000
* Rangitauira & Co $1,618,000

nzherald

……. as Judge Boshier (head Judge of the FC) tries to make us believe is a question I raised on another site that helps fathers through this difficult time. Here is an agreed comment back from fathers who work with cases.

My personal experience is that - here in Hawkes Bay - changes for the better are happening. Just recently for example, we (UoF - no lawyer) put together an application for a Without Notice Parenting Order and it was granted. I have to say that a couple of years ago, this would never have happened. We have also been far more successful in recent times achieving shared care.

It is important to note that Hawkes Bay is an area organised and the ‘Father’s Coalition’ and ‘Union of Fathers’ have protested outside the FC in numbers and were part of a documentary on TV.

While I do have to give the local Judge credit for making an effort, there are still far too many problems and we are a very long way indeed from “have things balanced out”.

Here are some of the more obvious FC problems:

Fathers accused of whatever have to prove that the allegations are wrong. In contrast, my impression is that if a father accuses the mother (even if he has all the evidence), at best the court completely ignores the allegations and at worst treats it as him trying “to make her feel bad about herself” (i.e. he is using [a form of] violence).

I have yet to see a case where a person is charged and convicted for perjury for knowingly making false allegations in affidavits or in the court

Court staff are generally unhelpful in providing information regarding FC procedures to self litigants (perhaps this is a training issue)

It still appears that the FC makes sure that lawyers and psychologists make a lot of money (”in the best interest of the children - as long as it fills our pockets”).

Cases still drag out far too long.

There is still a reluctance by the FC to come down heavy handed on people breaching orders.

Much larger are problems with current legislation and practices affecting cases which go through the FC:

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YOU CAN’T SAY THAT!: The Government’s Electoral Finance Bill is being called the most serious attack on democracy and free speech in New Zealand since the country was colonized. If passed, it will make newsletters like The Briefing illegal if they touch in any way on political issues. Likewise, personal emails that you send to your friends and colleagues could likewise be decreed illegal by police and you could be prosecuted. Don’t believe me? Read the submissions from the NZ Law Society and Kiwiblog’s David Farrar in the latest issue of Investigate and see for yourself just how draconian these laws will be if we let the government put them into effect on January 1 next year. There is something else you can do: the weakest links in this unprecedented grab for power are the minor parties locked into coalition with the Government, New Zealand First, the Greens and United Future. It is possible that if enough New Zealanders email them to let them know how they feel about the proposed law changes, those MPs will get the message and drop their support for the Electoral Finance Bill. If all of you who feel strongly about this new law go to the front page of the main Investigate website, http://www.investigatemagazine.com you will see two email links to send a message to politicians: one goes to NZ First/United Future MPs, the other to Green MPs. People power can change this.

Once free speech is gone, it’s gone. Don’t let it go. Do it for your children’s rights at least. It is not hard to write to a politician. They are just an everyday person like yourself. Give it a go.

With the latest ‘No Smacking Bill’ that has only last week passed it’s second reading which was introduced by Green Party MP Sue Bradford there has been a lot of debate, protest and lobbying for and against a law to condemn parents who smack their children for discipline.

MP Sue Bradford has done a lot for low income earners over the years and her party was against the drug “P” from becoming a class ‘A’ drug. However this time she has put a bill forward on behalf of Labour so that Labour can vote as a block instead of a conscience vote which basically means Labour does not want to give individual MPs a single vote but one as a whole for an agenda of theirs.

Anyhow it seems that 80% of parents do not want this bill which questions whether we have a democracy in New Zealand and whether voters being New Zealand citizens or such get a say in anything at all when it comes to running this country.

So, I am going to show you how you can have a say on this issue and any others you may wish to contribute to.

HOW TO LOBBY
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After spending a lot of my day trying to find useful information on how to deal with CYFS so that I could give you a run-down of your rights and what to do if they become involved in your life, I found other groups are trying to do the same with finding just as little.

But then I came across a group solely providing information and giving support to those who are under the scrutiny of the state (nanny) funded agency.

But just quickly, if you do find yourself in a situation of dealing with CYFS always stay calm. Any outburst can be detrimental for you and your children. Find out exactly what they want and what their concerns are with you. Try to step outside yourself for moments when dealing with them and get support.
Check out this site.

www.panic.org

Also look through other pages that specifically tell you what to do and how to deal with CYFS.

The site also has a forum which you can read other’s tips and stories as well as get involved for support. The team at panic will assist you in any way they can.

What do you do when the police coming knocking at your door?
This article is to give you some knowledge about the police and your rights when you come into contact with them.

The one thing that you are obliged to do (if asked) is to identify yourself. You must give your full name, address, phone number and possibly photo I.D.
If you are questioned, detained or arrested by Police, your legal rights are:

1. You have the right to consult and instruct a lawyer, in private and without delay
2. You have the right to refrain from making a statement
3. You have the right to ask why you are being questioned, detained, or arrested.

Police.govt.nz

Remember

1. Before you answer any Police questions about an offence they suspect you of, always talk to a lawyer.
2. Ask to see the list of PDLA lawyers.
3. Phone a lawyer from the list for advice.

If you’re under 17, and the Police want to question you about an offence they suspect you’ve committed, they must first explain that you have:

1. the right to talk to a lawyer, and
2. the right to see a “nominated adult” – either a parent or other adult of your choice

You have the right to talk privately with the lawyer and with the nominated adult.
The Police must also contact your parents or caregivers to tell them that you’re being questioned or have been arrested.
Youth Law
The Police Detention Legal Assistance scheme
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Wenesday 7th June 7.30pm

Welcome and Introduction meeting is holding a guest speaker. So if you are wanting to join this month, come along and sign up.

“Child Support Act” and Child Support Issues
Guest Speaker – Mark Shipman
Kelston Community Centre,
Cnr Gt North Rd & Awaroa Ave, Kelston

This guest speaker meeting is open for the public. You do not need to be a member to attend.