Some time ago I was asked by the Teina Pora team to evaluate the possible importance of the gang associations of Pora, a Mongrel Mob associate, and Malcolm Rewa, who was at the time Sergeant at arms for the Highway 61 motorcycle club.*

The crown case is that both Pora and Rewa were involved in the murder of Susan Burdett in 1992. Rewa, of course, is the renowned serial rapist whose DNA was found at the scene. Pora implicated himself in the crime, seeking the $50,000 reward. Evidence suggests that Pora was not involved, and their respective gang affiliations support this.

The relationship between the Notorious chapter of the Mongrel Mob (with which Pora was associated) and the Highway 61 during 1992 was extremely hostile. Conflict between the groups began a decade earlier with a series of violent incidents in Hawkes Bay. The first appears to have been in the small town of Waipawa where a large clash occurred, part of which included the Mongrel Mob damaging a number of Highway 61 motorcycles.

This incident sparked further clashes and was the start of a long-running gang war that involved fire bombings, assaults, brawls, and shootings.

As is the case with a great many rivalries within New Zealand’s gang scene, the antagonism between the Highway 61 and the Mongrel Mob was deeply held and enduring: as late as 1999, during a time when warfare between patched gangs was becoming all but assigned to history, hostilities between the Highway 61 and the Mongrel Mob were still evident. That year four members of the Mob followed a member of the Highway 61s riding through Hastings. When the biker reached his destination the Mob members attacked him with a sledgehammer inflicting serious injuries including a compression fracture to the skull. They also stole his patch.

Given the nature of the relationship between the Mongrel Mob and the Highway 61 in the early 1990s, the idea of members from opposing factions having any type of association beyond a hostile one is very unlikely.

Furthermore, amid this backdrop of conflict another extremely unlikely thing would have to occur –that being that Rewa, a senior figure of rank, would have any involvement across this divide with a person who was referred to in the testimony of a long-standing mob member as a “bum boy” – an associate, lower than a prospect. Nothing is impossible, but this scenario is fast becoming inconceivable.

Since looking at this case I have become friends with Tim McKinnell, the private investigator and former police detective, who has been the driving force behind Pora’s appeal to the Privy Council. While I find the gang element of this quite compelling, it has nothing on other elements of the evidence.

I am utterly convinced that Teina Pora is an innocent man.

*Incidentally, Highway 61 kicked Rewa out for his attitude toward women – before he was found to be a rapist.
 Thanks to my colleague Ben Elley for help with this post.

Journalists fulfil an important role in any democracy, but the tradition of the forth estate is at risk. As revenues from newspapers decline, online revenues are not keeping pace. The result is cuts to staff budgets and increasing sensationalism in the news. Neither is desirable.

In the past I was an avid newspaper buyer. My day could not start without the morning paper. I scoffed at online material. Nothing could possibly beat the tactile satisfaction of turning the pagers. Nope. The ability to scan newspapers from around the world was too delicious to resist. I seldom buy a paper now. 

The Christchurch Press is hardly going to be broken by my daily lack of patronage but collectively it – and all other newspapers – are. Decreasing readership means fewer advertising dollars. 

The cost of course is the quality of journalism. If the media are to attract and keep the best talent, they must be able to pay for it. 

The reason I say that both websites need to go behind a paywall is that there is a fear that if one goes alone then people will just switch to the other. I’m guilty of this. When the New York Times went behind a pay wall I stopped visiting. 

A paywall will not be a panacea for the problems facing the print media. Newspapers need to find inspiration from the late and legendary, Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post editor and create a culture that gives them impact and makes them important. But increasing revenues is a piece of that puzzle.

I for one am prepared to pay. In fact I demand it. The cost of not doing so is too high.

The demise of next year’s book awards has me hurting. We all should be. Writers earn fuck all, and the dim credit we receive is our only air. That and booze.

The night before the book awards in 2013 I got drunk. Proper drunk. But with a purpose. I figured if I had a stinging hangover on game day, the chances of me drinking early were diminished and therefore I might make it through things without too much fuss. Fuss being something that often accompanies my drinking.

For reasons I can only ascribe to vanity, I had made an appointment at Manscape to trim what had become a runaway red beard. I’d never before been to a grooming joint, so how was I to know the friendly bastards would offer me a Heineken at 10.30 in the morning? Don’t mind if I do. What would you like done, sir? Whatever you like. Do you have another one of these?

I was seated next to a famous New Zealand cricketer. We gossiped. Anyway, there was a little drinking at the airport, a little more on arrival, I knocked back half a dozen in my publisher’s office, then I headed to a strip joint a mate owned. It was still the afternoon. My cunning plan was unravelling.

With a handful of close friends, each insane in their own right, I entered the venue. Photographs needed to be taken. I scowled and asked for more wine (beer being a breakfast drink). I met Steve Braunias, my competition for best non-fiction book and we reminisced about how he had tweeted that my book was near unreadable. What a wanker, I thought. I could really warm to this bastard.

 I was smoking outside, when a harried producer suggested I make my way back. In a second, I’ll just finish this. She looked at me like the wanker I was and said you need to come now. I knew the tone; my mother used it all the time.

So there I was receiving the People’s Choice award. In a completely off-the-cuff speech that I had rehearsed in the shower at least 20 times before, I suggested Annabel Langbein was my nemesis, ad-libbing to say she was very cute. I heard later that a couple of people thought that was sexist. How much angrier they would have been if they knew I also had been to Manscape to conform to dominant ideas of beauty.

Braunias, that likeable and talented wanker won best non-fiction. I did what I would have done if I’d won and downed whatever alcohol was in sight. Unsatisfied, I awoke the next morning and started again. Missing the winners’ event and angering my publicist. I turned off my phone and really went to work; exactly what that entails is unclear. The next day on the North Shore with a dry mouth and little memory I asked a woman in the house what was happening. She was a cleaner, and could offer no clues. At that point I did the only thing that seemed sensible. I bought two bottles of Moet and a packet a Poppa Jacks. Nothing could settle my nerves and confusion like a champagne buzz.

It occurred to me I no longer had my laptop, my suitcase, or my winner’s cheque. But there were trifling curiosities made clear when I finally turned my phone on. It was now day three.

The tone of all callers started causally but ended frenetically. Among them was my publicist and publisher, of course, but also the police, my lawyer and the Hells Angels. It seems that on leaving the latter’s clubhouse I had left my possessions in a cab, the police were alerted…yada yada. A member of the Angels had called my lawyer and asked as to my whereabouts because the cops were calling. The Angel knew if I was up to mischief, my lawyer was never far behind.

You all right, he asked. Yeah, bro, fine. What day is it? I need to get the airport.

And so I found myself back in Christchurch, home but extremely fearful of reality. The comedown from this particular mission would jar like careering head-on into a parked car.  Memories would surface, apologies would be needed. I instructed the cabbie to swing by a journalist’s house who I’d met during publicity for the book. I stopped off and got two bottles of Moet and a packet of Poppa Jacks. She’s now my girlfriend. It was perhaps my greatest non-fiction prize.

These experiences should not be lost to the world. Sponsors please step forward.

I nominate Moet and Poppa Jacks.