Sunday, October 17, 2010

Judge, Please Explain...

Name suppression has been a very hot issue of late, with a certain blogger (possessing a judge-and-jury attitude) being found guilty of suppression breaches.
Last week Minister of Justice, Simon Power, announced stricter criteria for granting name suppression - those changes don't come into force until the end of the year.
So now a marriage guidance counsellor, with two convictions for male-assaults-female and injuring with intent, can happily continue his life under the cloak of anonymity...even though he threw his wife into a door frame (in full view of her child), split her head open, then dragged her down the hall by the neck!
Oh, don't worry - I'm not revealing anything that's in breach of the court's wisdom. I'm merely questioning Judge Semi Epati's decision, in view of the violence of the situation, and the fact that this toe-rag (the counsellor, not the judge!) who professes to be a Christian is allowed to basically walk free, albeit wearing a home detention anklet. As his counselling is home-based, he will essentially suffer no financial pain, no embarrassment, no social down-side at all from his actions - while she wasn't even allowed to read her victim impact statement in court!
I'd be fascinated to hear the judge's reasonings on this case...

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