***MEDIA ADVISORY***
Battered Women’s Support Services creates interactive TSA to simulate the experience of being trapped in an abusive relationship.
WHAT: Battered Women’s Support Services has built an interactive Transit Shelter Advertisement that allows the public to step into the shoes of a woman experiencing violence by their intimate partner. What appears at first glance to be a nondescript apartment door is actually a digital peephole into the frightening world of domestic abuse.
The public one-day stunt is part of their 2018 campaign launching for the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. The campaign hopes to raise awareness of BWSS services that support women experiencing violence and encourage the public to donate and take action to end violence against women and girls.
Every year more than 30,000 women and children are affected by intimate partner violence in British Columbia, with one woman killed every week in Canada.
WHEN: November 2, 2018. Availability to film the event and interviews from 12-1pm.
WHERE: Transit shelter at Lonsdale Avenue and 27th Street East, North Vancouver V7N 3J1
WHO: Angela Marie MacDougall, Executive Director, Battered Women’s Support Services
DETAIL: Media are invited to experience the interactive TSA. Interviews with Angela Marie MacDougall will follow.
ABOUT: Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) is a Canadian not-for-profit located in Vancouver that provides education, advocacy and support services to assist all women in its aim to work towards the elimination of violence.
Please confirm your attendance by contacting
Rona Amiri, Violence Prevention Coordinator
communityengaement@bwss.org, 778-558-7179
BWSS Crisis & Intake Line at 604-687-1867 or toll free at 1-855-687-1868
On October 1st 2018 the Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould made the decision to surrender me for Extradition.
Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould has come to the conclusion that surrendering me to the United Kingdom on charges of Child abduction would simply not “Shock the Conscience of Canadians”, her words not mine. I simply disagree. Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould is in receipt of a full custody order in my favor detailing that both boys then aged 12 and 14, had every right to spend their half term holiday with me in Canada or Timbuktu if I so chose in 2015. Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould is in receipt of all of the Hague rulings and subsequent appeal in my favor returning the application to the lower court as it was felt that the judge erred in his ruling not taking into account the boys charter of rights of which they are guaranteed. Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould is also aware that the so called aggrieved party does not wish to return to court on this matter. Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould has confirmation from Stephen Thompson that he did and continues to consent to both boys being in my sole custody, this is also documented through his lawyer that was representing him in Canada, Teresa Riley who works for legal aid in Alberta. Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould has RCMP documentation that this is in fact the case and that Stephen left the country leaving both boys in my care. Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould is also aware that prior to the RCMP negotiating consent RCMP officials made sure that all of their actions were complicit with Canadian law. Unfortunately for me, with this plethora of evidence and abundance of Canadian official involvement – Alberta Supreme Court, BC Supreme Court Department of Family and Social Services, RCMP, RCMP legal representatives, Justice JJody Wilson-Raybould has taken only one thing into account. The ROC from the UK. The ROC is based on Stephen Thompson walking into a Liverpool Police Station declaring that he does not know where his children are and that they have been kidnapped by their mother. He does not say to the investigating office at the police station that he has just traveled back from Canada where he saw his children an gave his consent for them to stay in Canada. He does not say in the slightest that he is working on a contact consent order through the Alberta Supreme Court. These are important snippets of information are simply omitted in his narrative.
My goal is to raise awareness, to demand change to our laws and our treaties. Under our extradition act, no one except the Justice Minister has the authority to overturn a surrender, and she seems to turn a blind eye. She has detailed that I did not supply her any of the evidence that was referred to in my submissions, however the prosecution insisted during court and his submissions that everything be supplied to the minister, at the prosecutions request as well as one of her own party members, Mr Alistair McGrowan. This was disregarded by Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould .
For me personally, I go to work, I raise two teenagers, I nurture all of my relationships with family and friends, I worry, I can’t sleep, I’m in a constant state of exhaustion. Most of all I’m scared. Scared for me, my kids, my family. I’m also scared for every other person that may have started on a similar journey navigating through domestic abuse, scared that they do not know how far it can go, legally. Never once in my entire marriage did anyone say this could happen to me, simply because I did not want to be in a relationship with someone anymore. Someone who could not take rejection who was and continues to be an abuser.
So my hopes with this lengthy email. Contact me. Sign my petitions. Ask me questions. Talk to other people. Share this. Write about it. Do everything that you can think of so that no other person ever has to endure this type of injustice through the legal system. For those who wish to write about it, any and all information will be provided. My goal is to stop this extradition. No law in the UK or in Canada has been broken.