Shelley Bridgeman has much to say about the perception of women in society in this Herald article:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=10788386
 She discusses the case of Christie Marceau,  a perfect example where women’s rights are trivialized by courts and the repercussions are visited violently upon unsuspecting victims.
On 7th November last year Christie Marceau was killed outside her parents home, allegedly by the same man who was bailed near to her home, after being charged for kidnapping and assaulting her. This mongrel has name suppression while 18 year old Christie lies in a grave. And she is not the first female victim murdered by a killer bailed to a close by address. Â This TV3 news story details other cases:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Victims-and-Sensible-Sentencing-Trust-unite-for-Christies-Law/tabid/423/articleID/244385/Default.aspx
The judge David McNaughton who bailed the alleged killer appears as a daft menace at the very least. Perhaps he had no alternative to the decision to bail, working within the existing legal framework.
The legislation needs to be changed quicker than you can say:”Simon Powers’ Exit Survey”.
Greater transparency is required. The public needs to be able to see why judges make the decisions they do to maintain respect for the profession. We should be able to ream it home to them and the politicians if they don’t give enough weight to victims rights. They interpret the law; they are not the law.
On another level, Judge McNaughton’s sympathy for the alleged perpetrator outweighed his considerations of the rights of the victim.
 I imagine the perp had only one location as an option to be bailed to and that was near Marceau’s home. The judge felt he had no alternative but to let him be bailed to be Marceau’s neighbour. He concluded that the harm to the killer being kept in custody was going to be greater than the mental and possible physical harm to the victim. On this level he had an active hand in Marceau’s death.
At another level judge McNaughton could be that most dangerous of persons, someone working at the coalface who has no idea how the mind of a criminal works. Some are able to be rehabilitated and some are not. Only experience with the latter teaches you the difference. Ignorance in a judge causes lasting societal harm.
On yet another level, judge McNaughton is a male and has no idea of what it does to you being an abused female . A physically slight female who has been assaulted by someone trusted. She was a teenager who now lies in a grave. This was the worst of consequences. She might not have died. She may have lived on with the impact of the first offenses against her.
If you are assaulted as a teenage female by a male you trust, part of you remains stunted into adulthood. You retain a wariness. You both want to please and maintain the upper hand in your relationships with everyone. You tend not to hold the gaze of other people.
You might be proud and refuse help but wear an invisible “kick Me”, sign.
And people being people, some of them do kick you; it is generally females who sense weakness like sharks circling in the water.
When you find you have broken covenant with both males and females, the universe is a lonely place. You’re an actor with a normal life in one scene; in another you’re a perpetual Gulliver. Breaking free of the restraints is a lifetime journey, one that Christie Marceau will never take.
I now refer back to another recent Shelley Bridgeman article: It suggests that harassment is the price of being female:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/shelley-bridgeman/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503061&objectid=10782348
At the end Ms Bridgeman states that she feels angrier, the more she thinks about it.
I say anger is a great place to start.
