There are only two stories on the front page of this morning’s Herald. One, headed Secrecy over ex-All Black’s child assault, occupies the left hand side of the page. The other, headed Attacked girl’s mum faces court, occupies the right hand side.

To be strictly accurate, the right hand story consists  of nine  column inches of text and a 10 x 6 inch photograph of Melissa Anderson, the mother of the attacked girl, appearing in the Waitakere District Court to face a charge of assault. Ms Anderson had slapped one of two girls who had attacked her 13-year-old daughter Summer, leaving her with a black eye, a welt on the side of her face and cuts to her eyelid.

The left hand side story begins:

Name suppression for a former All Black who yesterday pleaded guilty to child assault flies in the face of Parliament’s aims, says a legal expert.

The former rugby star is the latest in a long line of top sportsmen who have appeared in criminal courts and been allowed to keep their identities secret.

The justification for the name suppression is given later in the story:

He was reportedly given name suppression because of his standing in sporting circles and in the community as well as to protect the identity of the complainant.

Another former high-profile All Black appeared in a Wellington court last week and he, too, was given name suppression.

In that case, the 45-year-old was charged with assaulting his partner… resisting police and possession of cannabis.

The Herald goes on to list eight cases since 2002 in which prominent sportsmen were granted name suppression. The cases involved a range of offences from spousal and child assault to rape, abduction and sexual violation.  Read the rest of this entry »

Stuff.co.nz

Ashish Macwan, whose son Aarush drowned when the family’s van rolled into a Central Otago lake, has been discharged without conviction. He was not fined and was allowed to keep his licence.

Though the father had pleaded guilty to a charge of careless driving causing death. Judge Charles Blackie found that he had suffered enough.

This morning’s Herald summarised how the tragedy occurred:

“The accident happened at Easter when Macwan was holidaying with his wife Kinnery, son Aarush, and family friends.

“The group stopped at Lake Dunstan near Cromwell for a break. When Macwan, who was driving, got out of the Toyota Hiace to stretch his legs, the vehicle rolled backwards into the lake.

“Macwan reportedly forgot to put on the handbrake and left the van in neutral.

“The adults and an older child escaped, but Aarush, who was strapped into his seat, was unable to be saved.

“A group of people, including Central Otago Mayor Tony Lepper, tried to swim down to the van but it was too deep.

“Police charged Macwan the same day.

“Lepper was one of many who questioned the decision to charge Macwan, saying the death of his son was punishment enough.”    Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s assume just for the moment that Darren Hughes is telling the truth when he says he did nothing wrong when he took an eighteen-year-old back to his lodgings in the early hours of March 2.

Let’s set the bar even higher and assume that Hughes is not just relying on the letter of the law when he says he did nothing wrong, but  that  nothing of a sexual nature, nothing ‘improper’ in any way  took place. They had a cup of coffee and continued talking politics until the 18-year-old left.
And finally, let’s not worry about the probability or lack of probability of these assumptions or where this leaves the 18-year-old and his complaint to the police.
We’re simply considering a hypothesis: Darren Hughes is completely innocent.
This hypothesis was debated  on last night’s Close Upby three very experienced and very knowledgeable commentators: former Labour Party president, Mike Williams, former Labour MP, John Tamihere and Dr Bryce Edwards, blogger and lecturer in Politics at Otago University.

Asked whether Hughes political  aspirations were dog-tucker even if no prosecution were taken against him – effectively a declaration that he had broken no law – all three agreed that that was indeed the case. One expressed the reservation that if the police dealt with the matter quickly, there was a chance that Hughes might survive – a reasonably unlikely scenario, given the cops’ historic tardiness in dealing with this sort of matter.  Read the rest of this entry »

Someone recently defined stupidity as repeatedly trying the same ineffective solution to a problem. By that definition, we New Zealanders are a very stupid people indeed.

The problem in this case is crime. The ineffective solution which we’ve been trying since Pakeha arrived here and are still trying today is punishment, particularly the imprisonment of offenders for longer and longer periods. I’ve compared this to throwing water on a fat fire which of course has the effect of spreading the flames and, quite possibly, burning down the house. The solution to this problem is not to throw more water on the fire, but to find a more efficient way of depriving the fire of oxygen.

Anyone who reads the papers must now know that New Zealand has the second highest daily prison muster rate in the developed world, second only to the United States in the number of  people we incarcerate per head of population.

If this approach to crime were working, the numbers of people being imprisoned ought to be dropping, as the deterrent of imprisonment and longer sentences discourages people from committing crimes. Clearly it isn’t working.   Read the rest of this entry »

Pic: John Selkirk

Pic: John McCombe

Pic: John Selkirk

The issue of ‘celebrity justice’ is in the news again – ‘famous’ Kiwis getting name suppression in criminal trials because publicity for their offending might  cause them ‘unreasonable hardship’. (I put ‘famous’ in quotes because when I was told the names of the defendants in two recent cases, I was none the wiser as to who they were.)

As Phil Taylor demonstrates in an excellent piece in this morning’s Herald, this is a complex question. On the face of it, the principle that we are all equal before the law should apply. The TV star and  the All Black should receive the same treatment from the justice system as everyone else.

I accept this principle. But should ‘the same treatment’ not include the same punishment for the same crime? I would have thought that it should. Read the rest of this entry »