She thought the court would protect her. She was wrong

Thursday, 15 March 2018

Olivia* was once strangled until she passed out. She spent the next 14 years as a virtual ghost, hiding from an abuser the Family Court considered no threat. 

On the week that ended with Olivia curled into a ball on the floor, two uniformed police officers had turned up to her workplace.

Olivia — whose real name cannot be used, for legal reasons — is Pākehā, with piercing green eyes, and her manner is direct. As a civil servant, she managed a large team. They knew her as their boss; confident, outspoken, sharp as a tack.

Avoiding their gazes, Olivia ushered the officers into a fluorescent-lit meeting room. As they talked, the events she had tried to forget rushed forward to meet her. The strangulation. The bruises. The bite.

The police were there to serve her with a notice. Her ex-partner had applied to court to overturn the final protection order Olivia had against him.

'But what do you mean?' Olivia asked. 'It's meant to be final.'

It was not.

READ MORE: On her deathbed, domestic violence victim challenges Family Court failings

Workplace policy dictated that Olivia explain the police visit to her superior. She did not want her boss, who she had worked with for several years, to know she had been in a violent relationship. But she had no choice. 'I had to be like: this is my life,' she says. 

Two days later, she received a letter in the mail from the Ministry of Justice. It was the notice of a court date. It had been sent to her, and to her ex-partner's lawyer. 

There in the second line of the letter, clear as day, was her address. As she stared at the paper, wet drops began to land.

'I thought: they've just sent my abuser my address, which I have spent countless hours protecting. I just felt ripped apart. How could a court expose someone they are supposed to be protecting?'

That day in 2010, she had no energy left to fight. Less than two months later, the protection order she had spent $150,000 and three years of her life securing was unceremoniously discharged. 

Her former tormentor was free to find her.

'I couldn't believe it,' she says, today. 'I'm an average, law-abiding citizen. I thought the police and the courts were there to protect me, to protect women. Now I know they're not.

'The worst time of my life was when I was with my abuser, because he could have killed me. But the court process was a close second.'

Olivia takes a moment, looks out the window of the hospice. She had asked staff not to tell her how long she has to live. Since being diagnosed with terminal cancer in October, Olivia has spent the time she has left advocating for changes to the Family Court.

During the days Stuff spent with her, which were to be her last, Olivia's condition deteriorated. At times during conversation, she put her head down to sleep. Her family were concerned about her being part of this story, worrying her former partner would try to contact her on her deathbed to gloat.

But her sister said they supported Olivia's dying wish. 'Every time she reads that another woman has died, or had a protection order and it's been overturned, she feels bad because she feels like she could have done something.'

Olivia says the system currently enables women to be re-victimised by their ex-partners, through continuing psychological and financial abuse.

'As soon as [the court] see a woman who is functioning and has a job, it's like; 'Really? Are you really a victim? Could you not have tried harder to get out?' I felt horribly judged, I didn't feel listened to, and the process made me feel isolated and trapped.'

She has met with Justice Minister Andrew Little and Ministry of Justice officials, pushing for a formal review — which Little has now announced.

'As soon as I found out about the cancer, I decided I wanted to do this. I mean what's he going to do, kill me?

'It is so important that other women don't go through this. New Zealand is never going to be free of domestic violence unless we wise up and sort the system out.'

Olivia did not live to see this story published.

DENIED A NAME 

Olivia does not have a Facebook profile. In today's hyperconnected world she has no LinkedIn, no social media. As far as her digital footprint goes, she is a virtual ghost. 

Since she left her ex-partner in 2004, Olivia has put an inordinate amount of time and energy into disappearing. As an international expert in her field, this has been challenging. When she is asked to speak at conferences, she requests her name be omitted from promotional materials.

Organisers are not always understanding. 'There's only so far you can go, career-wise,' Olivia says, 'without having a name.'

In the past eight years, her efforts have doubled. Without backing from the Family Court, hiding is not easy.

Olivia met Paul (not his real name) overseas, and they moved in together. 'He bowled me over more than anything else. He wanted everything to go really quickly,' Olivia says. 'Then I got really sick, which gave him the opportunity to be in total control.'

Paul began to isolate her from family and friends. 'When he was in good form he could be fantastic, a real charmer. On an off day it wasn't so pretty.'

It was on one of these days, Olivia says, Paul first hit her - a backhand across the face after an argument about dinner. The violence escalated and within a few months, she says, he was regularly threatening that if she ever left him he would kill her. 

In July 1999, three years into their relationship, Paul was charged with assault. The police report seen by Stuff alleges he assaulted Olivia by grabbing her by the throat, causing several injuries. Olivia's memory is of pure fear, as he strangled her until she was unconscious.

He was never convicted; the bruises faded and two weeks later, at Paul's request, Olivia withdrew her statement. The charge was dropped. After that, she says, he got better at hiding it.

When asked to comment by Stuff, Paul accepted he had been accused of this abuse but maintained it was 'not true or proven.' In regards to the alleged assault, he said he did not speak to Olivia before she withdrew her statement, which was false.

She tried to leave. 'I must have left him 20 times, but I always got stuck with the fact I had nowhere to go.' Her family, in New Zealand, were worried about her but had no idea of the physical abuse. 'I'm a little bit proud,' she says. 'I felt like the fact I hadn't left him instantly left me wide open. I felt stupid.'

A pattern developed; an argument, usually beginning with a small thing like food — where to eat, how much sugar was left in the cupboard — which would escalate. Olivia lost count of the number of times she was spat at, kicked, punched, pinned up against the wall, and dragged and pushed down stairs. 'He was particularly fond of asphyxiation — he would put his hand over my face and hold up my nose like this,' Olivia says, demonstrating; 'So that I couldn't breathe. I would look into his eyes and they would be dead, absolutely dead. I used to think 'This is it. This is where my life finishes'.'

Paul told Stuff the allegations of asphyxiation were 'rubbish.'

There were periods of calm, of contriteness after particularly bad incidents, Olivia says. He would promise to reform and she would take him back. But it never lasted, Olivia says.

During one fight in 2004, Paul bit Olivia's arm until she bled. In court documents, Paul argued that Olivia's hand went into his mouth when she hit him, and he bit her to make her stop. 

Soon after, Olivia returned to New Zealand and told her family about the abuse. They fielded calls from Paul. He left messages on Olivia's phone, and flew to New Zealand to try and see her. Olivia applied for, and was granted, an urgent protection order. 

Protection orders are designed to operate as the name suggests. They have two main conditions — no violence, and no contact with the person who made the order. The penalty for breaking a protection order is up to three years' imprisonment.

A victim can apply for an urgent protection order, which is typically given immediately. After three months, and if there is no defence raised, it becomes final.

If the perpetrator defends it, then both parties must go to court and have a lawyer argue their case. 

If it is granted, though, the word 'final' is misleading. If the perpetrator applies to overturn it, a Family Court judge can do so if they are convinced the victim is no longer in danger.

Paul fought the order. He denied the majority of the abuse, saying Olivia was using the protection order to gain advantage in an overseas property case he had filed against her. He reiterated this claim in an email to Stuff, saying Olivia had been trying to 'entrap' him.

Over the next two and a half years, a hearing date was continually delayed by what are known as 'directions conferences.' This is where the judge assesses both sides, and asks for further information. Documents show what appear to be deliberate attempts by Paul to complicate and prolong proceedings.

Olivia attended in person just once. The judge, she says, told her she was being 'over-emotional.'

'I was crushed,' she says. 'Their attitude was like 'Why do you even care? He's [overseas].' My argument was that he had come back before, and he had the means and the motivation.

'At that point I realised they didn't give a s… about me. The fact that I'm a New Zealander and I'm a victim, and I've got the proof I'm a victim. That didn't mean a thing.

'He's a middle-class, educated white guy with a lot of money. They could see themselves in him. We thought we could go back to court, and they would listen to us. That did not happen.'

By now, Olivia's legal bills were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 2006, as part of the terms of an offshore shared property case, Olivia's lawyer negotiated that Paul would agree to the final protection order. Olivia left, buoyant. 'I never cared about the property, I just wanted to feel safe,' she said. 'It was a wonderful feeling.'​

Four years later, the cops showed up at her work. Paul wanted to overturn the order, and take her back to court.

For his part, Paul says he 'spent very little' fighting the order. 'Just because she wanted it does not make it right – so of course I defended myself.' 

He said he never agreed to a lifelong order. 'I only agreed originally to finalise the financial dealings between us even though the protection order was baseless.' He says he later decided to apply to overturn the order as he believed it could be seen to reflect on his character and prevent him from travelling and owning property.

He said Olivia had used vexatious litigation against him during the property case and buried him in paperwork. 'Of course this type of thing is par for the course when money is involved but at the time was extremely upsetting for me.' He said the proceedings were stressful.

SHOULD VICTIMS PAY FOR PROTECTION?

Waikato University's Dr Neville Robertson investigated women's experiences of protection orders for the 2007 report Living at the Cutting Edge, and said nothing had changed since.

Barriers included the cost of securing an order, and the re-traumatising nature of defended hearings.

'These are long-standing issues. Well-off men can tie women up in litigation, at considerable economic and psychological cost. In some cases the actions are intended to harass and intimidate, and they have no real chances of success.

'When it's a clear case of court action being used to further abuse, then judges should step in.'

He wants to see all victims eligible for legal aid, and judgements geared around women's and children's wellbeing.

Family Court lawyers spoken to by Stuff agreed legal aid should be available for all victims. Income thresholds for financial help, they say, are currently restrictively low - a single woman earning over $23,000 would not qualify.

Nationwide, around 650 applications are made for protection orders each month.

Family lawyer Liz Lewes said if a defendant opposed the order, a victim could expect to spend upwards of $5000 to get to a final hearing. In other cases, like Olivia's, the cost was crippling. 'I think it puts some people off making these applications and securing protection - it just adds to their re-victimisation.'

Of course, both sides often felt they were in the right, and it was important for both sides to have a fair hearing. But Lewes considered this was currently weighted in the perpetrators' favour. 'The victim shouldn't have to pay to get protection.'

Add to this, Robertson says, the fact that some judges still do not understand the dynamics of family violence.

'They minimise the risk. This particularly happens when there are manipulative abusers whose threat to harm can be quite subtle. They have almost a code they might employ against their partners.

'Some decision makers do carry an implicit stereotype as to what a domestic violence victim looks like, and if you don't fit that the judge will have real difficulty understanding the challenges and risks that you face.'

Jill Proudfoot, client services manager of domestic abuse charity Shine, says she frequently works with middle-class women who have been tied up in Family Court litigation for years. The worst case she'd seen went on for more than a decade.

The perpetrators were typically upstanding members of the community in other facets of their lives, she says.

'They are personable, they are articulate and well-educated and they have great skill in convincing people that the women they are abusing are irrational, incompetent, and deranged.

'They have tons of money, are sometimes lawyers themselves, and they take people back and back to court and just ruin them financially and it's how they continue the abuse.

'They do all sorts of things to discredit the victim and make it impossible, especially if it's over child custody.'

Court of Appeal judges have been critical of Family Court decisions in the past. In 2016, Justice Rhys Harrison granted a schoolteacher a protection order which both the Family Court and High Court had refused her.

He said the Family Court was wrong in considering whether the victim provoked the abuse, and assuming the woman was not in need of protection because she appeared 'robust and resilient' in the workplace.

Chief District Court Judge Judge Jan-Marie Doogue said all judges received ongoing training in family and sexual violence. 'We devote considerable resources to keeping up with latest knowledge and call on a wide range of experts and academics in the field.

'We take a solemn oath to do right to all manner of people…I have yet to meet a judge who would suspend that fundamental pledge on the basis of social or economic standing or gender, especially in a matter as dangerous as family violence.'

Proudfoot does some work educating judges on family violence, and believes as a group they are improving. But in general, she says, the system does not always work in the best interests of victims.

'Successive Governments have said 'we're working on it, things are getting better' but actually most women's experience is that they're not.'