My latest column for the New Zealand Herald on the 1965 Mt Eden Prison Riot can be found here
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Today one of the men convicted of killing crown witness Christopher Crean was released on bail. This is the story of that sensational and tragic murder. In March 1996, a group of Black Power members had attacked a member of the Mongrel Mob outside Christopher Crean’s house in Taranaki. The incident was brutal. The Mob member’s face was slashed, and several of his fingers were severed with a tomahawk. Crean witnessed the attack and chose to testify against the attackers. Black Power threatened him and suggested that testifying would not be in his best interests. Police offered witness protection, but Crean refused it – a refusal which, while brave, ultimately proved fatal, as Black Power set about plotting his murder. Since 1988, Black Power members from the Taranaki region had twice beaten murder charges. Crown Prosecutor Tim Brewer felt that these cases helped convince the gang they were invincible. Crean, a street-preaching Christian, told his family that God would protect him. His family was less certain. His mother said: ‘I told him he was dealing with the real world, not the spiritual world. But he didn’t have any fear.’ Twice, on the last two Sundays of September 1996, the planned hit on Crean was abandoned – on the second of those nights, Crean was carrying his child and the would-be hit man felt compassion for the youngster. On 6 October, it was deemed that the hit would proceed regardless of circumstances. That night, a gunman carrying a 30-30 Winchester lever-action rifle approached Crean’s house and knocked on the door. As Crean went to answer, a shot was fired. The glass panel in the door offered little resistance and the bullet flew through it, entering Crean’s stomach and exiting out of his back. He died in hospital the next day. The use of a stomach shot was pre-planned as it was considered that a head shot through the door might miss. A Taranaki Black Power member said that the killing had sent a clear message to potential pros- ecution witnesses: ‘Oh, well they know now. Who . . . wants to get in the stand now?’ The implications of this killing for the justice process were plain: if the gang escaped penalty this time, future testimony against gangs would become increasingly difficult to obtain. The police moved quickly to bring closure to the case. Despite the seeming confidence that the killing would deter further wit- nesses, it was from within the gang that crucial evidence was to come. The New Plymouth chapter’s president and the gang prospect who drove the getaway car both gave evidence against their own gang. Four Black Power members were convicted of murdering Crean and given mandatory life sentences. The fact that the Taranaki Black Power went after what in the gang scene is often referred to as a ‘baldhead’ or ‘citizen’ (meaning a person without gang or criminal associations) is highly unusual. In 2009, Crown Prosecutor Brewer confided: At the time I was unaware of a precedent, and I’m not aware of one [other example] now. This guy [Crean] wasn’t in the gang milieu, he wasn’t in a gang, he was a bona fide member of the public – and it was a very big line for them to cross . . . they didn’t see themselves as the enemy of everybody – they saw themselves as the enemy of the police and the enemy of other gangs. This was stepping outside their ethos. Most gang members limit their violence to other gangs or gang-associated people. Despite rhetoric about the pressing danger of gangs, ordinary people, or ‘citizens’, ordinarily have very little to fear from gang members, a view endorsed by Cam Stokes, former detective sergeant in charge of the police unit investigating outlaw motorcycle clubs in Auckland: ‘Indirectly they cause harm to many people [via the drug trade and associated problems], but in terms of direct things, no, not a great deal of risk, unless you are involved somehow with them.’ An undercover police officer who infiltrated gangs during two operations in the North Island agrees: ‘The only people who I think have got anything to fear from gangs are people who are intimately connected to them in some manner. They don’t give a toss about the other bal’ heads and squares . . . I mean, you know, who are they to the gang? Nobody.’ Another undercover police officer, when asked if gangs were a threat to the wider public, said: No, no I don’t think so. But if you have a debt with them or you have done something to one of their family members or you are exceptionally wealthy [and in their circles] and you flaunt that and they see you as an easy target, then yes you do. But your “average Joe” blue collar worker who goes to work in a factory and goes home at night, no. The fact that Black Power’s New Plymouth president testified in the trial against the killers of Christopher Crean is strong evidence that he, at least, considered the actions of his fellow gang members had crossed a line. ----------------------------------- NOTE: All references for quotes etc can be found in Patched pp.201-203. Dr Don Brash gave a speech at the launch of the New Zealand Public Interest Project (NZPIP) on issues on injustice. It was stunningly good. Here it is: Forty years ago, I met Pat Booth for the first time. He was working to prove that Arthur Allan Thomas had been wrongly convicted, and that to gain his conviction the Police had fabricated evidence. I was shocked. I had been brought up to believe that the New Zealand Police were beyond reproach in every respect. Pat Booth told me of a number of cases where he was quite certain that the Police had planted evidence. One I remember involved a man Pat interviewed in jail. The man had been convicted of breaking into a safe and stealing its contents. He told Pat that when the Police first arrested him, they searched his car for incriminating evidence, and found none. They later took him and his car to the Police station, and searched the car again. Lo and behold, this time they found some detonators underneath the driver’s seat. The man didn’t claim to be innocent – indeed, he admitted his guilt – but, as he told Pat, “I don’t drive around with a bunch of detonators underneath me bum!” I still believe that the New Zealand Police force is among the very best in the world – largely free of corruption and largely free of the temptation to plant incriminating evidence. I similarly believe that the New Zealand justice system is among the very best in the world. But we all know that miscarriages of justice sometimes occur. Police are sometimes guilty of planting evidence to incriminate people whose guilt they are convinced of. They are sometimes influenced by bias and preconceptions. Juries and judges sometimes get it wrong. Why does that happen? Mainly because, like the rest of us, Police, judges and juries are human. They can and do make mistakes. In the United States, more than 300 people on death row have been exonerated after being found to have been wrongly convicted. There is little doubt that many others have been executed for crimes they did not commit. Since 1989, a total of 1250 innocent prisoners have been released according to the National Registry of Exonerations. In the United Kingdom, the Criminal Cases Review Commission was set up in the mid-nineties following public disquiet over a number of unsound convictions dating back to the seventies. To date, over 70% of the cases which the Commission has referred back to the Court of Appeal had their appeal upheld. This British experience has led Sir Thomas Thorp to estimate that there may be 20 people wrongly convicted in New Zealand jails at any one time. And certainly I know of no reason to believe that the situation in New Zealand would be fundamentally different to that in the United Kingdom. We know that Arthur Allan Thomas was convicted on planted evidence. We know that Teina Pora was wrongly convicted. We know that there are very grave doubts about the soundness of Peter Ellis’s conviction. It was reading Lynley Hood’s remarkable book, “A City Possessed”, which convinced me that there was something very seriously wrong with Peter Ellis’s conviction. The book shocked me profoundly. There seemed to be just so many flaws in the case against Peter Ellis that I found it utterly incomprehensible how any court could have found him guilty – and simultaneously see nothing odd about the charges against four women initially charged alongside him being withdrawn. The book prompted Katherine Rich and me to launch a petition calling for an independent review of Peter’s conviction in 2003. We were both in Parliament at the time and had limited time to canvass for signatures. Katherine thought we might get 30 or 40 signatures. I thought we might get more than 100. In the event, we got more than 4,000 signatures without even trying very hard. And it was not just the number of signatures the petition attracted. It was the particular people who signed the petition – David Lange, Mike Moore, Winston Peters, Rodney Hide, Judith Collins, Clem Simich, David Parker, Chris Finlayson, 11 law professors, umpteen QCs – not the kind of people who lightly sign petitions of any kind. Despite the total absence of any solid evidence that a crime had actually been committed by anybody, despite the utterly preposterous nature of some of the assertions of the very young children who testified to what they remembered, despite the now irrefutable evidence that the memory of very young children is often highly unreliable, despite one of the key Crown witnesses recanting on her evidence subsequent to the original trial, in the eyes of the justice system Peter Ellis remains a convicted child molester, and his life has been utterly ruined. And the impact of that conviction has been extremely serious not just for Peter’s life. There can’t be much doubt that the conviction has deterred many men from having anything to do with early childhood education, with the inevitable result that far too many children have no positive contact with male role models until much later in life. The social costs of the conviction have therefore been enormous. Leave it to the court system to sort out, argue those who see no need to establish a body like the UK Criminal Cases Review Commission in New Zealand. But as Herald writer Brian Rudman noted in an article calling for the establishment of a Criminal Cases Review Commission in New Zealand late last year, “the problem with leaving it to the court system is the emphasis is about process, and did the lower courts make any errors in law, or break any trial conventions”, rather than making any wide-ranging inquiry as to whether a miscarriage of justice has occurred.[1] I still strongly believe there needs to be an independent inquiry into Peter Ellis’s conviction but I also believe strongly that New Zealand needs a Criminal Cases Review Commission. (For more information on the NZPIP see the website) [1] New Zealand Herald, 29 October 2014. Here's my latest column from the New Zealand Herald. Looking at murder rates, we can see that we are safer now than we've been for more than three decades.
Read it here. It was a miracle that I beat Steve Braunias. And thus I was Canonised in that most important of Auckland’s cathedrals, Sky City. In a curse hitherto unknown, however, it means this blog will be rather average. The afternoon had started well. I met Sir Thomas Thorp, a legend of New Zealand’s judiciary. I was honoured by the assignment but it also had the latent consequence of ensuring I didn’t start drinking early. I told him this and he smiled a 90 year-old smile. There’s a man, I thought, who knows the perils of awards. In the end, though, that detour proved to be a curse. The New Zealand Herald, with whom I have started a column courtship, said I could join them for a pre-drink. But I arrived on a cold engine. I had no lubrication on which the gears of my important nights run so smoothly. The company was great but I tried to catch up, to drink myself into my mojo. Despite what others say, awards nights are not about acknowledging the greatness in a given field, they are about an adventure; unmitigated, throw-it-all-to-the wind adventure. There are few times in life when society gives you a free pass for madness. I tried to make up my ground but I was lacklustre. I’m not a fan of crowds and lacking fuel, the crowd suffocated my social desires until I was squeezed to the side of good manners. I moaned at the brilliant Jolisa Gracewood’s husband before realising the person I was speaking to preferred the intimate company of another gender and was consequently not married to Jolisa at all. For a few seconds I was anathematised to my wider social awkwardness and riddled with simple personal awkwardness. I reached for another drink. Being canonised in the media isn’t what one might call exclusive. A Canon Media award is given for so many categories that the ability to starve off sleep should really be one of them. By my last count there were 42.000 awards. Best feature writer, columnist, photograph, video, best news story involving a trampoline etc. My interest was piqued by some fine people winning (and some fine people losing) but the only thing to really wake me from my slumber was my name being read. I leapt to my feet, confused. Reality enveloped me in the form of Beck Eleven who whispered congratulations before suggesting in menacing tones that I mention her in my speech. A speech. I hadn’t considered a speech. That would have meant considering winning. A few weeks earlier I had done a poll at the Wintec Press event of journalists I greatly admire. The most polite of these considered the possibility of me winning for about three seconds and all concluded Braunias was a genius and I had no chance. As I grabbed at my award like a starving man might a sandwich, I was offered a microphone. You shouldn’t have, I said. The last time I was given such an opportunity I had threatened to punch Annabel Langbein in the pavlova, but there was no such eloquence here. I rambled a few words, looking rather awkward. I was in a wave of shock. My usual confidence and boorishness left me making me feel like I had immersed naked into my own surprise party. And this is where things get really disappointing. Instead of rolling around drunk and railing at the injustice of loss, I was forced to contend with the kindness and goodwill of congratulations. I gritted my teeth through this and bristled at the poor fortune that victory springs upon an unsuspecting man. History gave me no comfort. I wasn’t standing on the shoulders of giants; I was standing on the stomach of a giant idiot. The hugs from some great friends aside, my only pleasure came when I met Hilary Barry and could tell her I thought her crying at the great John Campbell’s departure was a truly beautiful TV moment. I lent forward and whispered in her ear that Michael Laws, who had called her unprofessional, was a cunt. Beck asked if that was the first time that word had been whispered in her ear but Hilary was nonplussed. I figured maybe it wasn’t. I went back to skulking around. Creating no madness. No stories. At this point I fear my ungrateful tone may sound churlish. But I hope that’s offset by the fact that when I awoke, I gained a not insignificant comfort. I looked at those who had won awards (and many who hadn’t) and I felt rather privileged to exist along side them. This was an achievement of which one should be proud. And all of a sudden my swagger returned. Next year I will win best columnist! For that I will plan a speech. And if I don’t win I will drink myself into an impeccable rudeness and by god the blog will be a great one. The strange and secretive community of Gloriavale often bursts into the news. On occasion for good reason, such as when its leader Hopeful Christian, was convicted of indecently assaulting three girls and young women aged between 12 and 19 in the 1980s, but other times simply because they are, well, strange and secretive. Having visited twice I can attest that the place is indeed mighty strange. Wonderfully interesting: in parts deeply troubling and in others incredibly admirable. Like all societies it’s nuanced. You wouldn’t know that from much of the reporting of the place. And this morning’s effort in The Christchurch Press is a terrific example. The story leads with the accusation that men are “groomed” to have sex with underage girls. Yet in the next breath it goes on to report that underage sex is “not rampant” and occurs only in isolated cases. One might question how that differs from mainstream society but of greater concern: when does a single source, without objective evidence – in this instance a disgruntled former community member who has had nothing to do with Gloriavale for 30 years – have an undisputed word on any subject? Nicky Hager would kill for that privilege. Bloody hell, even Eleanor Catton was cut down in certain quarters for having a differing view to that of the prevailing norm. This is not a defence of the place. I find the mere fact of indoctrinating kids to gain truth from a man in the sky and a confused and contradictory book an abomination, but I do believe in balance and a critical mind that at least considers cultural relativism. John Key will surely agree. He’s in Saudi Arabia making trade deals with a country that engages in terrible acts of violence and misogyny. We are not writing that place off like we do Gloriavale. (Coincidently it was the Christian community’s industry that impressed me most, they were among the first to use a floating dairy platform to milk cows, for instance). Yip, they are incredibly severe on those who leave the flock. The Saudi’s, that is – the punishment for apostasy in that country is death. Parts of what happen within the West Coast community, quite openly and without secret are at face value troubling. Adults who don’t hide from children while having sex surely creases all but the most liberal of brows. As The Press reported, those in Gloriavale are not taught that parents having sex is “gross”. I’m among those who have been taught those sexual more are gross but if I were to find a culture somewhere in the world that saw sex among a committed adult relationship as an open and beautiful thing that isn’t kept secret within the family home I wouldn’t die of disgust. Still, the paper did report being told that one member of the community who left went off the rails and ended up as a stripper! Temper your shock at that unique social occurrence, the stripper was never interviewed and may very well not exist. And neither might the sexual abuse at the heart of the story. There are exactly zero complainants. Not a single one. ‘Let he without sin cast the first stone’ proves there are some things to be learned from the Bible. That’s considerably more that I can say about The Press this morning. In a scathing commentary, prominent University of Otago academic Bryce Edwards wrote in The New Zealand Herald that there were serious failings with the New Zealand police. Police commissioner Mike Bush responded in the same medium with vitriol saying Edwards was out of touch and wrong. So, what’s the truth? Edwards took his concern from a number of high-profile police errors, including the ‘Roast Busters’ issue, the Urewera Raids and several troubling convictions and cases. These are not just Edwards’ concerns, they are problems reported by many including an important report by Dame Margaret Bazley as well as the Privy Council. For my money, he could have focused on one specific example: a swab of David or Robin Bain’s hands and arms for gunshot residue would have concluded one of the country’s most recent ‘whodunnits’. That one test was not done and it has cost the country justice (and millions of dollars). At times, though, Edwards drew a long bow and one might argue that his tenor was overly harsh. Certainly, he used some data he shouldn’t have, most specifically his use of a phone-in TV3 poll was astonishing. That’s about as scientific as the Bible. Commissioner Bush did, then, have some ground to play with. A right of reply was called for and given. The police have made noteworthy improvements in certain areas, some of which I spoke of when reviewing the Louise Nicholas book for Metro. Yet Bush didn’t play the argument, he played the man. He said that Edwards should get on the police front line, as if somehow this is a panacea to all the concerns raised. It’s that smug response – if only you could see through our eyes you’d see we’re right – that goes a long way to proving Edwards’ point. Bush rounds off his response by suggesting that Edwards might be among a 'minority who just don’t like police'. The implication being that if you criticise us you’re against us. Ugh. This undeniably ingrained culture of us versus them is a real failing of the police. And Bush is happy to ignore certain failings. In April 2013, at the funeral of Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton (who planted a bullet to secure a conviction against Arthur Allan Thomas), Bush said that the crooked cop had ‘integrity beyond reproach’. If Bush accepts that, then I’m afraid he’s not the right man to judge the uprightness of the police. Neither the funeral statement nor the response to Edwards’ concerns were off-the-cuff. They were deliberate and considered statements. This speaks to a problem of culture that I call "Blue Vision" in Patched. Blue vision creates myths and an inability to look past prevailing views that can lead to negative policing and injustice. Notwithstanding that, Bush, who has done much fine work, made some strong arguments, notably that the rank and file 'make difficult decisions every day while displaying courage and resilience'. And as somebody who has been on the front line with police, I recognise this. I genuinely respect the coppers I know (even when we disagree). The world that the police see is often far removed from that which most understand from a privileged middle class position (like my own). Being spat at and abused is a terrible occupational hazard. I think we should be proud of the New Zealand Police for the most part. Professor Greg Newbold has spoken about a lament in the underworld that cops don’t take bribes. This is important. Organised crime is reliant on a crooked police force, and the fact we see so few examples of it is a credit to a laudable integrity. The many ways in which the police are great, though, is largely beside the point. There is an internal culture that without doubt needs correcting. Edwards has done well to illuminate this. Bush did nothing to counter it – everything is fine it seems, and therein lies the problem. As an academic, a member of the fraternity that acts as a critic and conscience of society (as outlined in the Education Act), Dr Bryce Edwards did his job. The fact that the police failed to counter his concerns in a meaningful way is the real concern here. We ought demand better. In this instance, at least, those hard-working cops working under Commissioner Mike Bush deserve better. And so does the country. Given a couple of drinks, a microphone and a large, seated audience one evening in 2013 I ranted and raved before concluding that I’d punch a prominent TV cook in the pavlova. Those with a memory for matters of little consequence will recall my nemesis that night was Annabel Langbein. While a worthy adversary, I quickly realised I had a much less impressive cook as a nemesis: Steve Braunias. Like many, I initially knew of Braunias through his page in The Listener. It was brilliant. I had no reason to do anything but enjoy him until he and I were finalists for best non fiction book at the New Zealand book awards. He Tweeted, so I believe (I wasn’t on Twitter at the time), that my book was “scarcely readable”. My editor told me it was probably tongue-in-cheek. But full of booze I bristled when I met him on the night of the awards. I liked the bastard immediately. Apparently that night he Tweeted that I was a ‘good cunt’. Surely the best thing he’s ever written. The latter of those words I borrowed to describe Cameron Slater on the night of the last Canon Media Awards, albeit it with a different emphasis. The man is a master of satire. Braunias, that is, not Slater: he’s a master of fuck all. I’ve heard that Braunias got fired from a rag for calling somebody a cunt. Whether or not that’s true, all of us should aspire to that. As you might have guessed, he won best non-fiction book. And despite my chest thumping that evening, I was privileged to be in his company. But I’m not even the best writer in my relationship, so that gives things perspective. Then Braunias did something special, and by that I mean something I was immediately jealous of. A brilliant series detailing the 2014 election campaign. The most believable stuff he invented, the rest was pure gold. It struck a cord with everyone, except publishers. Nobody wanted the book he wrote. Ha! At that point, you might think I would be celebrating the misfortune of my nemesis, that slightly misshapened-faced man named Steven Braunias. I was not. The bugger just up and published it himself. The thing made the bestseller list and is now on its fourth print run and undoubtedly entertaining people up and down the land. Madman: Inside the Weirdest Election Ever may be better than anything I ever do, almost certainly anything better than anything you’ll bloody do, and possibly better than all things our kids will do. That and he did it all in a matter of weeks. Fuck Braunias the talented cunt, I can’t help but love him. Fuck me. I'm arrogant enough to expect awards for damn near anything I do, but I couldn't be more surprised or more pleased to be a finalist in the Canon Media Awards for best blog. I started this blog to practice writing while I research a book on murder. I wanted to get better at the craft. Less wordy. I have a tendency to be wordy. I'm up against Steve Braunias for the award. Last time that happened, this happened. I have apologised to those involved. And last time I was at the Canon Awards things were just as interesting. I bloody love awards ceremonies, they draw from me a delightful madness. Obviously, I'm now drunk. I see it as a training for sharing a drink with the likes of Fisher, Vance, and Nippet. These and others who are my friends or my heroes. And, of course, Braunias, who is both. After days on life support and a little time breathing by himself, a prisoner taken from Christchurch Men’s Prison died in Christchurch hospital. He was beaten to death. It has been whispered that three Mongrel Mob prospects were present during the assault that lead to his death. A homicide inquiry is now underway. But it’s not just the state that is looking to exact justice. On many levels prisons run on their own rules. Jails are full of violent men, but not full of violence. Those on long lags want to get on with their time with as little fuss and tension as possible. Prison leaders help enforce informal codes of conduct to ensure this happens. Then there are the exceptions. Pride, small disputes that escalate, and gang rivalries are some of the many reasons violence can erupt. Often these events are small and go nowhere: a clean fight, a deserved hiding. Other times, back-up is a certainty. Utu becomes all-consuming. The prison becomes a place heavy with violence. In the small confines, its threat lingers like a thick mist and reverberates around the walls. Sometimes violence is contagious. Most famously the devastating Mt Eden prison riot of 1965 sparked copycat, though comparatively minor, events around the country. Gang violence can similarly spread. It is said that in the days following the fatal attack two prisoners connected with the Mongrel Mob were beaten up. The potential for snowballing violence is partially being realised. Corrections staff will be taking every precaution to ensure the situation does not escalate further. As required, monitoring, long lockdowns and careful segregations are the order of the day. Despite the rhetoric of some, prisons are not holiday camps. At times like this, that is only too clear. For prisoners and for staff. In all of this, too, there is a grieving family. If they are lucky – and many are not – criminals, like non-criminals, have those who love them. These are people who often suffer through a prisoner’s crimes and who love them anyway. In this instance, a close member of this man’s family has spent time in prison, too. One can only hope, perhaps, that grieving does not lead to more tragedy. And that justice is served by the courts and not in the prisons. But again, prisons often run on their own rules. |
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