Did Green MP Sue Bradford con the gullible into believing that her ‘anti-smacking’ legislation was needed to end Child Abuse?

A Growing list of child homicides in New Zealand suggests that the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 has had no positive impact whatsoever on reducting the incidence of child abuse and child homicides in New Zealand. If anything the problem has become worse. The legislation, championed by Green MP Sue Bradford, that criminalises every parent that uses any form of force “for the purpose of correction” must be repealed. The latest shocking report of yet another child homicide must cause all decent-minded citizens to cry out “Enough is enough! We must fix this disasterous problem!” Read more

Shameful Decision by Judge Kevin Phillips in Bondage/Sadomasochism Dungeon case involving the scarification of teenage girls by Mr "Dragon"

The Society is appalled that a Christchurch District Court Judge has only sentenced Richard Jeffrey Barker, 52, to nine months home detention and reparation payments, for scarring two teenage girls, aged 15 and 17, during bondage and discipline sessions involving “blood play” – staged in a specially built “bondage/sadomasochism” facility in a Linwood house. The girls wore leather bras and knickers and gothic-style dresses at the time of the offences and candles and horror movies were part of the dungeon scene. The judge found that the 17-year-old had taken party pills and nitrous oxide at the house.

On 25 November Barker was convicted by Judge Kevin Phillips of “wounding” both girls “with intent to injure” and was required to pay $5,000 to each of his victims by December 20, 2008. The court was told that the scarring by the use of a scalpel had had a serious impact on both victims and the reparation payments were to be made for the emotional harm caused to the children.  Barker says he met the girls through friends and daughters of friends in Christchurch’s bondage, discipline and sado-masochism scene (BDSM).

In one incident on January 2, 2007, a 15-year-old girl was chained with her arms outstretched while Barker used a scalpel to design a dragon cut into her shoulder.

In another incident on December 20, 2006, a 17-year old teenage girl in a leather corset was chained up while Barker, flogged her with a “cat of many tails” whip. According to the NZ Herald, she was “suspended” standing with her arms outstretched between two loops of rope while Barker cut the first lines of a “corset”, from her waist and up between the girl’s breasts. He then made cuts on the girl’s wrists and showed her how to smear the blood on a large mirror with her arms outstretched to create a “blood angel”, a gothic reflection of the snow angels children make on winter days.

Barker claimed all the scarification was strictly consensual, the practice was merely a “hobby” he engaged in and that he had no sexual contact with the girls. The police laid four charges for sexual indecencies against Barker but the Judge dismissed all of these. However, he did note that there had been offending by Barker for dishonesty in 1985, convictions for drug offences in 1995 and indecency convictions in 1996.

The Press reported that Barker’s “Lindwood house bondage playland” had several “themed rooms”, including a “medical” room with a surgeon’s table and dental chair and a “dungeon” with a rack for tying up people.

The Society is outraged at the failure of Judge Phillips to issue a sentence commensurate with the gravity of Barker’s offending and one that will send a much clearer signal that society will not tolerate or deal leniantly with adults who intentionally injure and wound our precious young persons, or who inflict emotional harm on them and morally corrupt them through any activities involving sexual perversions such as sadomasochism, etc. (It is noteworthy that our censorship laws recognise that children and young people, as well as adults, can suffer serious harm when exposed to publications containing sexual violence and other objectionable content).

In justifyng the sentencing he imposed on Barker, Judge Phillips stated:

“Young people need to be protected not only from themselves but from situations where someone of more maturity can take inappropriate decisions for them.”

The Society finds these PC-weasel words (“inappropriate decisions”) offensive, given the circumstances. It believes Judges have a statutory and moral duty to address the true nature of the crimes committed against young people by those who manipulate young people, wound them with the ntent to injure, and have a history of committing sexual indecencies against children.

The court impact reports relating to the two victims revealed that one girl had been scarred physically, mentally and emotionally and suffered depression, anxiety, paranoia and panic attacks. The other suffered shame and fear and was on anti-psychotic medication.

Christchurch parents with young girls can sleep tight in the knowledge that Barker is not currently living at the house where the sick “bondage/sadomasochism” dungeon – now dismantled – was built. If they loitter in the streets near Barker’s present abode, they can be assured that he will not have exactly the same “playland” fitted out with chains and torture racks used in his recent offences, to lure them into. One hopes he is not busy building a new playland for sadomasochism for consenting adults while on home detention. In nine months time it could well be business as usual except that having learnt an important ‘lesson’ from the wise Judge Phillips – that his female clients will need to be 18 years of age or older and his racks a little longer to accomodate older and longer legged-clients.

One outspoken Member of Parliament for children’s ‘rights’ Green Party MP Sue Bradford would have no problems with this playland arrangement. She has stated:

“Personally, I have no problem with sadomasochism carried out between consenting adults using safe sex practices – what I do have a problem with is a legacy of hidden sexual violence practised on children and young people under a mantle of so-called discipline.”

http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/speech10204.html

The Society would like to know why an MP would choose to publicly condone sadomasochism – a sexual perversion that fosters sexual gratification derived from so-called fantasy/horror violence and why Judge Kevin Phillips has issued such a shameful decision that fails to properly address the gravity of the offences committed by Barker.

It has been reported that Barker intends to appeal against Judge Phillip’s decision.

References:

Linwood house bondage playland

Ian Steward – The Press

Wednesday, 03 September 2008

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4678612a6009.html 

Man who cut girls denies guilt

The Press

Wednesday, 26 November 2008

http://www.stuff.co.nz/thepress/4772632a6009.html

 

 

 

 

Society Granted Leave to have classification of Grand Theft Auto IV (unedited US version) reviewed

Press Release 21 July 2008

The Society was today granted leave by the Secretary of Internal Affairs, Mr Brendan Boyle, to apply to the Film and Literature Board of Review to review the classification of the computer game Grand Theft Auto IV (unedited US version). The game was classified R18 by the Chief Censor’s Office. Read more

Film “End of the Spear” R16 rating downgraded to R13 following Society’s successful appeal

Press Release 4 July 2008

The film “End of the Spear” has had its classification downgraded from R16 to R13 following a successful appeal by the Society against the classification decision issued by the Chief Censor’s Office. The Society contended in its written and oral submisssion to the Board that the nature of the depiction of violence in the film – medium level violence – could not possibly justify an R16 classification. The nine member Film and Literature Board of Review agreed and in a unanimous decision, issued to the Society on Wednesday this week, took the view that 13, 14 and 15 year old children would not be harmed by exposure to the violence which formed only a small part of a compelling Christian message of forgiveness and redemption that is told based on the “true story” of the missionary outreach in the 1950s, to the violent South American Waodani Indian tribe. A revised censor’s note from the Board, alerts viewers to the medium level violence involving tribal warfare that some might find “disturbing”.

This is the second successful appeal by the Society in recent years involving a major Christian film that has led to its classification rating – issued by the Chief Censor’s Office – being downgraded by the Board. The Society made both oral and written submissions to the Board to overturn the R16 classification of Mel Gibson’s blockbuster film “The Passion”, and this led it to being reclassified R15. The applicant in this case was the film’s distributor and the Society opted to take a role as an interested party.

The Society has as one of its six objectives: the promotion of freedom of expression, within the boundaries of good law that safeguards the public good from injury.

Society President Angry over Pro-Abortionists’ Crimes and Deception

Press Release 11 June 2008

Society president John Mills is very angry and says: “In the Silent Screams DVD promoted on our Society’s website (www.spcs.org) an unborn child is torn apart without anaesthetic. Someone needs to be held to account for such brutal murders carried out every day in New Zealand with taxpayers’ funding. By far the most dangerous place to be in New Zealand is inside your mother’s womb. I expect the anti-smacking brigade, who are so opposed to child abuse, would wholeheartedly agree with me on this issue!”

Angry women’s health advocates such as Women’s Health Action Trust director, Jo Fitzpatrick, and Family Planning chief executive, Jackie Edmond, are quoted in today’s NZPA report (Dom Post 11/06), as rejecting anti-abortion lobbyists’ claims that New Zealand effectively has “abortion on demand”. And yet this is exactly what a High Court judge’s ruling, made public yesterday, suggests, and backs up what Dr Christine Forster, Chairperson of the Abortion Supervisory Committee (ASC) has conceded.

“Certifying consultants were using mental health grounds to provide abortion on demand and that she did not believe that all these had a mental health problem”. (Front page article Sunday Star Times in November 2000)

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Application for Leave re Grand Theft Auto IV (unedited version)

The Society has sought leave under s. 47(2)(e) of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (“the Act”), to apply to the Film and Literature Board of Review (“the Board”) for a review of the classification of the highly controversial console game Grand Theft Auto IV (unedited US version) [also known as or GTA 4]. As noted in our application for leave dated 27 May 2008, the unedited game was classified R18 by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (“the OFLC”) on the 21^st May 2008.

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Grand Theft Auto IV: Who is the NZ distributor profiting from this offensive “Crime-Promoting Game”?

Grand Theft Auto IV (also known as GTA 4) – a computer game formatted for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – was launched on April 29, 2008 and sold nearly 2.9 million copies in the United States in its first five days.1 The game – made by Two’s Rockstar studio – with first-week worldwide sales forecast of up to $US400 million, was submitted to the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) on the 4^th of February 2008 by the Film and Video Labelling Body Inc (FVLB).

The computer game’s distributor, the applicant to the FVLB, recorded on the application form, its identity as “TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE”. All other details relating to the company were deleted from the form by the Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, when he provided the application form to the Society, in response to its Official Information Request (OIR). The applicant’s contact person, return street address for the publication and contact telephone number, were all deleted.

The Society Investigates……..

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Is there a causal-effect between exposure to video game violence and violent behaviour?

Video Game Violence and Public Policy

David Walsh, Ph.D.

National Institute on Media and the Family

Concern about violent video and computer games is based on the assumption that they contribute to aggression and violence among young players. That conclusion was originally based on the extensive body of research about the effects of television violence on children’s behavior. Prominent organizations like the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association have all concluded that the scientific evidence shows a cause-effect relationship between television violence and aggression among the children and youth who watch it. Based on this research, many social scientists have hypothesized that we should expect video games to have an even greater impact for the following four reasons.

http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/conf2001/papers/walsh.html Read more

Detrimental impact of hardcore pornography on young people

LIVES CHANGED: The accessability of hardcore pornography is having a detrimental impact on the lives of young people in remote Australian towns and is seen as central to a sexual assault in Maningrida, east of Darwin.

AAP Friday, 21 December 2007

Posted: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4332725a12.html

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Dr James Dobson Interviews Serial Rapist and Murderer Ted Bundy hours before he is executed by electrocution

Ted Bundy explains step-by-step to clinical psychologist, Dr James Dobson, how his interest in soft-core porn led on to an addiction to hardcore porn and then on to a fascination for hard-core violent porn and how that helped fuel and crystallise his homicidal sexual fantasies leading to numerous horrific sex crimes and murders. Bundy explains how repeated exposure to softcore porn can desensitise a person to hard core porn leading to porn addiction and he expresses his concern that other men exposed to the prevalent violent sexual content available in todays film and print media will be affected by such content as he was.

Theodore Robert ‘Ted’ Bundy (Nov 24, 1946 – Jan 24, 1989) raped and murdered scores of young women across the United States between 1974 and 1978. After more than a decade of vigorous denials, he eventually confessed to 29 murders, although the actual total of victims remains unknown. Typically, Bundy would rape his victims, and then murder them by bludgeoning, and sometimes by strangulation. He also engaged in necrophilia. He was convicted of killing 36 women and girls.

Bundy was executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison in Starke Florida. He became a born-again Christian while he awaited execution on death row. He explains to Dr Dobson his deep sense of shame and remorse over his cimes and how, while in prison, he had found forgiveness for his sins through Jesus Christ and peace as he faced his “Valley of the Shadow of Death”. Bundy recognised that he deserved to die and that it was a just sentence. He eventually cooperated with law enforcement agencies and disclosed all the details he could recall about all the homicides he was involved in.

Dr James Dobson says that “circumstantial evidence is overwhelming” from numerous studies that there is a link between hardcore violent porn and violent sexual behaviour. For example, an FBI study he cites involving 36 serial convicted murderers, revealed that 81% of them (29 out of 36) had a long-term and predominate interest in violent hardcore pornography.

Part 1 of 6

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Dr. Craig Anderson: Violent Video Games and Aggression

Dr. Craig Anderson from the University of Iowa is one of the most frequently cited and published researchers in the field of video game violence. Anderson’s work has been used in a variety of venues from scholarly publications to State Supreme Court arguments. Anderson research was used in the Illinois video game legislation defense where he was described as, “The nation’s pre-eminent researcher on the effect of exposure to violent video games.” Anderson’s work has been published in a multiple books, from Children in the Digital Age: Influences of Electronic Media on Development (2002) to his own Violent Video Games Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research and Public Policy (2006).

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Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents Theory, Research, and Public Policy (Oxford University Press, 2006)

by Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile and Katherine E. Buckley

Description
Violent video games are successfully marketed to and easily obtained by children and adolescents. Even the U.S. government distributes one such game, America’s Army, through both the internet and its recruiting offices. Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims that violent games contribute to aggressive and violent behavior?

Anderson, Gentile, and Buckley first present an overview of empirical research on the effects of violent video games, and then add to this literature three new studies that fill the most important gaps. They update the traditional General Aggression Model to focus on both developmental processes and how media-violence exposure can increase the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both short- and long-term contexts. Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents also reviews the history of these games’ explosive growth, and explores the public policy options for controlling their distribution. Anderson et al. describe the reaction of the games industry to scientific findings that exposure to violent video games and other forms of media violence constitutes a significant risk factor for later aggressive and violent behavior. They argue that society should begin a more productive debate about whether to reduce the high rates of exposure to media violence, and delineate the public policy options that are likely be most effective.

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Society Raises Concerns Over Dissemination of Objectionable Internet Content

Media Release 13/08/07

On Thursday night last week The Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced a A$189 million package to deal with the growing problems of internet porn and dissemination of, and availability of, objectionable content to minors via Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The tough measures adopted by the Howard government to stamp out two evils – accessibility to hardcore porn and alcohol abuse in Northern Aboriginal communities – because of their injurious effect on the “public good” and links to child abuse, has been matched by his latest measures. Every Australian public library as well as individual family will be provided with free software to filter internet content to prevent children downloading pornography and other offensive material, service providers will work alongside the government to filter pornography at its source, a ‘black list’ of pornographic sites will be established, and privacy laws will be altered so that sex offenders cannot ‘hide’ on the internet and chatroom sex predators will be rigorously hunted down and prosecuted. In addition a seven-day-a-week hotline will help parents put filters on their computers to block material that is passed on to home computers via ISPs.

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OFLC Ban on Reservoir Dogs Computer Game

Media Release 11/07/06

The Society is pleased that the Office of Film and Literature Classification (see Scoop 7 July) has applied the censorship law correctly and banned the computer game Reservoir Dogs that is based on the Quentin Tarantino’s ultra-violent sick film of the same name. However, the Society’s president Mike Petrus says:

“The OFLC has a very poor track record when it it comes to applying the law correctly – in particular its failure to apply section 3 of the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993 (dealing with the definition of “objectionable” content) to films like Baise-Moi and Irreversible depicting sexual violence and large numbers of videos and DVDs where women are sexually degraded, demeaned and dehumanised.”

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