Wednesday, May 30, 2012

George Gwaze - concisely innocent.

Are these the reasons why George should never have been charged?

*His Wife's testimony that he never left their bedroom.
*His Daughter's testimony that nobody entered her room.
*There was none of his DNA found on her or in her.
*There was none of her DNA found on him.
*The first time blood was evident in her anal region was after the second suppository was inserted, and no injuries were noticed first time around.
*Rape and suffocation can not cause all of the damage her body suffered, but untreated HIV can.

On a broader dialogue Charlene was aids infected, a sure deterrent if for no other reason that self preservation. The Crown said that George may have strangled her and if he did not she therefore died from blunt instrument trauma. So the inconceivable persists George killing one daughter in front of another by strangulation to uphold secrecy of what was said to be a regular event - no purpose in that. The blunt trauma was revealed in the autopsy as less than the sum total of the clinician's observations by a wide margin, and even then, as set out above, there was a potential reason for it. Thinking about the 'secrecy,' a dead girl, some secret there, certainly a murder inquiry anyway so what would possibly have been avoided. In George's case he was subjected to 2 trials anyway, the later with what an appears to have been one juror that made me feel uncomfortable that a rogue verdict might have been entered. Though in the end, as we know, nothing could demolish the facts and the lack of facts in this case - not even prejudice.

I believe there was a prejudicial element in George's arrest and like other similar cases where the wrong person is charged, or in this case a person charged for a crime that was never committed, the police did not understand the evidence before the charge was laid. They had a prejudicial weave against a black man, a back ground of aids, immigrants, witchcraft beliefs, a poor child, all the ingredients of mediaeval times and which allowed a Prosecutor to make allegations against George as though they were facts. It seems the Prosecution is no longer bound to differentiate between speculation and proof and this man could tell the Jury that George was the killer of Charlene despite there being not clear proof that she was killed rather than having died from her condition.

George and Charlene, their entire family, were terribly let down here, and in all reflections one cannot avoid that the Supreme Court ultimately permitted this retrial in an unprecedented step that overlooked double jeopardy in order to what could be seen, as enabling the Crown, rather than Justice.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

George Gwaze - something missing in the narrative.

I think we've got the Crown story, George Gwaze sodomised his adopted daughter Charlene causing her to die shortly after from anal blunt instrument intrusion during a time in which George's natural daughter was in the room and heard nothing, absolutely nothing.

I'm entirely confident that there has never been another case in nz recent memory, or reported law, where a child has died within hours from being sexually assaulted in the way the Crown have claimed. Put the obvious narrative discrepancies aside, that George's family including his natural daughter and wife would lie to protect him, put aside that a professional man would not be concerned as to the danger of having sex with somebody  infected with aids, put aside the idea that the Gwaze family might not have revealed their adopted daughter had aids, or was suspected of having aids when they brought her to New Zealand - and try to find a case, not just in nz but worldwide, where a child has died an almost immediate death from a single act of sexual assault, one it is alleged was among a number. Try hooking that together.

The prosecutor in his final address is reported to have commented 'that good men do bad things.' I'm sure they do, and the narrative proves that George Gwaze is not one of them.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Annette Curran - folding under the inevitable.

I heard from a correspondent that Annette Curran is at this time reducing the content of her secret site. An interesting point about her actions is that she took up the site (changing the name in the process) when a former site host michellemosse fled the scene just after the not guilty verdicts were returned in the Bain case. I remember michellemosse  posting to me in the aftermath of the trial on TM that she wished she wasn't in the position of being in the debris of the failed prosecution. At least michellemosse had the good sense to opt out, perhaps she may have already realised that the 'nutters' on the team would go on, acting illegally, misusing cyber space and stalking, as Annette Curran would do. Good decision it turns out to be.

Despite there being a number of individuals such as Curran still starkly preserved on an emptying landscape, common sense prevailed and many of the former hate-siters just simply moved on or indeed fled, leaving those that continued to agitate and stalk to deflect interest from them. Another issue was particularly dealt with by those that fled: being that time changes perspectives and lessens interests in those that had the good sense to withdraw. For those remaining like Curran and Parker their problems became more obvious because as their number reduced those left were more able to be concentrated on and analysed in terms of what their full roles had been. Where Curran had once been in the background, orchestrating cyber attacks, stalking and bullying ,while keeping her hands clean, the foreground of defence and shelter was suddenly gone. Something that it appears could have occurred to michellemosse before she hit the road.

Of course the background noise remained, nobody would 'dare' take them on because they'd turn it into a 'third' trial, they were right thinking nzers and their various defeats were the result of not their own misadventure, or purpose, but because of others accidentally being listened to, or having undue influence, or because they were absolutely dumb and couldn't see the truth. Not seeing the truth seems to be a long term affliction of Curran. The truth is that she is a stalker, the truth always was that message boarders and the host were responsible for the publication. So that which Curran has published she is responsible for, the largest NZ board has admitted such liability even in the case of its users breaking board rules publishing private information, defamation and lies. So when NZ's bigges,t and most financial board owner, makes that concession and apologies, all Annie has left is freshly soiled jocks.

Long and large on Curran's site was the idea that it had been infiltrated when no doubt it had, but the biggest infiltration was by google who Annie invited into the site to cache material and put it elsewhere on the internet. I got a copy. Now that the penny might have dropped a little bit for Annie Curran she's sifting the contents of her site to remove material that has already come into the public www. Belatedly she's trying to protect herself from a flood that happened some two years ago, where people plotted false complaints and harassment campaigns gloating over the potential outcomes. If Curran needed any further first hand evidence more than michellemosses' adbrupt departure in 2009, the legal action against some of her 'members' should have hit the mark with anybody with half a brain and instinct for survival. But both of those two situations are dwarfed by Karam's comments recently that there is 'more dust to settle' and since then we have seen the disclosures by Trade Me that spell out the position clearer than a 180 page High Court Judgement could ever do. Yet still she persists fiddling. One of her 'friends' might simply warn her to shut down her site rather than turning her powerful intellect into a futile 'editing' exercise, shut down and leave an apology - then hope, realising at least that the shut down and apology, however belated, becomes a mitigating factor in her favour.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Teina Pora - 20 years prison for being a liar?

Nobody deserves to be falsely imprisoned for 20 years even if they were once a neighbourhood lout, a wise-arse strutting his stuff and casing the hood. Even if that person demonstrated a propensity to tell lies to such an extent you got the totally unbelievable with the maybes. Where do you get off believing a guy like that, we all probably know somebody like that. Somebody where you finally reach the point you don't believe anything they say, without checking or being absolutely sure they're telling the truth.

Such people are a menace particularly in situations where people must rely on each others honesty to survive, where critical information must be able to be relied on straight away and not need an assessment of the truthfulness of the person offering the information. They're not the guys you want in the Army where your life might be put at risk, nor in security situations where a number of steps need to be taken to ensure safety of a machine shut down or start up, the freshness of food, the reliability of a water source and so the lists go on. Fantasists and liars are a danger, not only to themselves but to others.

Teina Pora from all reports was all of those things when he was a teenager and may still be now. But if you were a gang member, armed forces personnel, police officer then Teina Pora's danger to you increases because Teina Paora is also somebody that would drop you in it for money. He wouldn't care for example that you hadn't done anything but would accuse you anyway if there was something in it for him and if he could get away with it. That's Teina Pora, once a street slouch, leaning on the not so bright side, brown and down and out talking in a police station in response to offers of rewards for information leading to the conviction of person responsible for the murder of Susan Burdett featured in the Herald links above.

By then police were 12 months down the track with an unsolved murder, one with no apparent direction and clues. They were soon able to stitch up the fantasist to the point they could charge him with the Burdett murder and a load of pressure was off them thanks to the various stories a co-operative Teina gave not realising he was dropping himself in it. By 1994 Paora was serving life for the crime and 2 years later semen linked to Susan Burdett's was identified as that of serial, lone acting rapist Malcom Rewa. Rewa was twice acquitted of the murder, but remains convicted of her rape. Police still stuck with 'their' man Paora as being guilty and he was convicted a second time at a retrial in 2000.

So we have Rewa raping Susan Burdett but not killing her, while we have Pora linked to the scene only by his own inconsistent statements and no supporting evidence but 'killing her.' Time to have a closer look at Rewa. At the time of Susan Burdett's death he was a 40 year old 'senior' member of the Highway 61 motor cycle gang, this was the reason police said that he hadn't been fingered by Paora because he was scared to do so. Apparently, the Mongrel Mob of which Paora was once a youthful associate held no similar fears for Poara and he named at least 3 Mongrel Mob members in his early efforts to gain the rewards. Worth considering here that the Mongrel Mob often have young members and associates, some of whom 'take the rap' for older members to get their gangcolours and that type of thing - but mainly because they're stood over, threatened or have their family threatened. South Auckland could be described as the turf of the mob. And by the same token an unsophisticated liar looking for $20,000 would settle on the mob as an appealing, and persuasive group to fit the criteria of public opinion of South Auckland rapists. I recall that this may have been about the time of an infamous rap at Ambury Park at a mob 'convention.'

It should be recalled that when Pora 'showed' police where the crime had happened he couldn't find the right street in the first instance and then later when 'assisted' with directions couldn't identify the right house. Take a look at Rewa, going under the nickname of hammer, fit and fairly physical as a younger man but no enduring physical presence under pressure, tough except for when the chips were down or real tough guys about. Highway 61 may have been around from the sixties but their heyday was passed by the early seventies when the characteristics I've described of Rewa saw them ridiculed for being informants and renamed the Hideaways in many circles because of lack of courage in many street fights that featured earlier on before gangs settled down to their 'own business' and largely avoided feuding. Of course the mob, much bigger, and less sophisticated took longer to 'settle down' and probably could really be described as out of the public eye even now - largely because of lack of discipline and unity while using soft options such as kids like Paora once was to commit crime or nod the head to it. That was their power, coming back at individuals or their families who broke the already 'broken code' that operated among many of them.

So a brighter spark than Pora wouldn't have fingered the mob for a crime that Pora had no idea who had committed, if only for safety reasons and understanding how the streets work. But as the links point out Paora isn't blessed with brains. So it's a mess, a bloody big mess because the cops took an easy route to solve a crime, got their 'man' only to find out it was somebody else. True to this type of situation, they didn't shut down and have a think about it, perhaps have the evidence reviewed by an independent senior officer from another district see that there must have been a mistake, realise they'd pick from Pora's lies that which suited them for a conviction and discarded that which didn't. Instead they linked a 40 year old gang serial rapist who always worked alone, who in fact raped within his own gang 'community' to a 17 year old fantasist with connections to another 'rival' gang.

Bizarre enough? When the Pora case got to be reconsidered in the Appeal Court for the very good reason that evidence emerged that was at odds with every different thing that Paora had said when selling himself, and some people he falsely named a guilty, down the river The Chief Justice observed that the Crown had appeared to be 'selective' in saying that Pora 'told a pack of lies' about almost everything except his involvement. I note here that when Pora was convicted the second time the police had found 2  good old reliable 'gaol house informants' but still no direct evidence that he was ever at the Burdett home  before the day he needed to be shown where it was.

So we have the often routine miscarriage of justice tools at work, no direct evidence, reliance of prisoners singing their heads off out of tune and most of all the selective words of a psychopathic liar, the defendant himself. There are problems everywhere but a foremost one seems to have been the Appeal Court, when the Chief Justice pointed out the police 'selection' of facts to suit themselves how could it have resulted in a retrial where the only 'real' evidence were informers that took years to surface? Sometimes witnesses are not allowed to give evidence because of their unreliability, some times confessions are ruled inadmissible because they were bribed from a suspect in some way. In the Pora case we had a 'confession' that was totally unreliable from start to finish, undermined not only for that reason but because none of the detail could be  sustained by other evidence. In many cases a confession proven a total fabrication - in fairness it was too unreliable to go to a second jury. Once the remaining 'case' against Pora was examined it had one significant reason not to go to a jury - the rape of Susan Burdett by Rewa. The secret witnesses are an absolute joke. All they can possibly tell is there own versions of what Pora might have been saying, and more than likely of what he didn't say but which might help them out of prison.

The head of the inquiry Andy Lovelock now relies on the 2 convictions as proof of something, when there must be abroad opinion that the 2 convictions are proof of a 'conveniently' solved crime by a liar of convenience who has been rewarded with 20 years in the slammer. This is a case that would be pulled apart by the Privy Council, particularly where there has already been judicial note of the 'safety' of the 'confession' but allowed to circulate through police files, police prison deals and back to the High Court. What makes the police position even weaker is that they are now criticised for not releasing material to Pora's defence team, while at the same time a noted 'crime profiler' and recently retired officer Dave Henwood has given his opinion that Rewa, like the time of a clock, always acted alone. Henwood said that 'it's one that has stuck in the craw.' One it now remains clear that the police couldn't let go and which even our Chief Justice was unable to recognise it was a case to be thrown out along with all the other lies of Teina Pora.

Friday, May 18, 2012

I made a mistake.

It took some debate with an analyst but I think I can agree that the blood on Robin's right shoe came from his own wound. There was always the argument that because Robin's footprints were found throughout the familicide scene he wasn't wearing shoes during the time he killed his family. However, I've long thought that Robin went back to finish off the killing of Laniet, and when he did he may have already changed and put on his shoes with his bloody socks and clothes discarded in the wash, 'cleaned up' such is the characteristic and common ritual of familicide. I considered this could have happened and may have explained the shot to the top of her head that was fired through fabric. Robin could have been 'sated' and exhausted by then, perhaps sobered by the reality of what he'd done and unable to 'face' to 'face' that final shot. The blood on Robin's shoe was his with a DNA mix of another, not  a totally insurmountable hurdle for my thought but certainly making it difficult really, but a forensic scientist might have another view of that.

I remembered writing earlier about Robins dna found inside the rifle barrel and silencer and thinking the travel of that dna was relevant to it's entry or vacuum into the barrel before the pressure equalised with that outside the barrel. Of course the force of the initial discharge of dna back through his wound would have also had impact on where that dna contacted inside the rifle. Now I think that when Robin's head separated contact with the silencer tip just after he shot himself, and as he and the rifle were falling, that some of the initial discharge deflected off the silencer and toward Robin's right, the bulk however, after the separation spread airborne falling across the floor some also settling on the alcove curtains.

None of this removes any doubt that Robin killed himself but explains, to me at least, a reason why some of the blood went the 'wrong way' across his shoe - a the way a high speed water jet will deflect. As I pointed out in my last blog on this below, the initial finding of the blood destroyed the Crown's theory of Robin kneeling, praying or sitting on the floor when he was shot. Something else, with appropriate care and consideration, the original investigators shouldn't have overlooked and wouldn't have overlooked had they taken the time and not been consumed by impressions of behaviour rather than evidence. This underlines again the stupid haste with which the Dunedin Police convinced themselves of David's guilt, before they knew the evidence or even had lab tests and results. I say 'stupid' but maybe it was deliberate.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Wrong Carlos in Texas dies.....

The above link shows how the State of Texas put an innocent man to death when all the indicators were that it was for a crime he can't have committed. From the fairly brief details some things stand out starkly, a man by the name of Carlos DeLuna was found 40 or so minutes after a fatal knife attack robbery on a woman Wanda Lopez at Shamrock service station. Eye witnesses saw the assailant running away to the North and later Carlos DeLuna was found hiding under a car to the east. Carlos Deluna when arrested said he had panicked and run following witnessing the attack by a man he knew and who he'd been drinking with that night, Carlos Hermandez.

As the picture in the link shows the precints of the killing were blood covered, with blood raised high on the walls. Yet Carlos DeLuna had absolutely no blood on him. That had to be a big warning, as would finding that he did not have any injuries or blood smears. But Carlos DeLuna had that story that he freely told police, how he'd been drinking with Carlos Hermandez, a notorious local and at a point, after Carlos Hermandez had been away for a while buying something, he went looking for him. Perhaps that is the only weakness in Carlos DeLuna's story but it didn't constitute murder or involvement in the murder that witnesses described as a lone assailant. De Luna said he found Hermandez inside the Shamrock service station wrestling with a woman behind the counter and ran, later saying he ran because he was afraid. When he heard the sounds of police sirens he panicked and hid under a pick-up truck where the police found him and were sure they had their man.

Reading the link it's easy to see by the photo of the police head investigator standing on evidence within the crime scene at the Shamrock that the case was being treated as cut and dried, just another file to number and eventually close. Investigators were finished with the crime scene within 2 hours and neglected some basic policing and exhibit gathering. Despite that blood was 3 ft high on the walls and their suspect was clean of blood, or a weapon, or injuries, the crime scene investigators 'boxed on' with was to them, at least,  an ordinary everyday robbery gone wrong for both the victim and the 'assailant' that had been arrested within 40 minutes and his fate sealed. People could have been off shift early that night, thinking already what it might be they would do. No scrappings were taken from under Wanda Lopez's nails, no evidential items found on the floor were dna tested, a shoe print in Wanda Lopez's blood on the floor was not even mentioned. Everything in the investigation indicated that the officers knew evidence was not needed because they had their man already in custody.

Even though DeLuna had identified Hermandez it seems no effort was made to find him, despite Hermandez being a notorious figure, parolee and known user of weapons. Even though the case by virtue of the poor, or non-existant forensic, another named assailant, was weak Carlos was convicted primarily on the evidence of a single witness who would later, after Carlos was dead, admit that he had trouble telling one Hispanic from another. Carlos's own public defender, suffering the same malaise that came over the entire case, said that it was probable Hermandez never existed. So running from a crime scene, an unconvincing eye witness, and Carlos was on death row still telling the same story until he was put to death. No body listened to Carlos, or if they pretended to. it seem far too obvious that an innocent man doesn't flee the crime scene, so obvious that any evidence showing doubt didn't matter. After that folks get tired, a petty crim, just another face, just another saying 'hey man I didn't do it, it was Carlos Hermandez the knife man not me,' it seems, at least in this case  everyone went to sleep. No Judge or police official cared about it, no prosecutor or defence attorney, it was just another day of feeding a perfect justice system in order that it might consume a life and somehow put things back in order on a balance sheet in the sky.

But Texas took the wrong Carlos. The right Carlos was to beso  inconspicuous that he was arrested a 'mere' 39 times and spent his entire adult life on parole, in the view of Law Professor James Liebman and his students who spent almost 5 years poring over the case, because he was a police informer - so not only known to the police but used by them to put others, on the word of Hermandez - who until he died would freely admit having killed Wanda Lopez, into prison. As the link shows Hermandez was found in just a single day after Liebman commissioned a private investigator to see if he could locate him. One day to find a man that the police and prosecutors said didn't exist, but who in fact at times worked with police and prosecutors on other cases where Hermandez freedom was brought by informing.

There are a lot of comparisons I could draw between this case and that of David Bain particularly about the premature arrest and the lack of diligence in investigating both the crime scene or looking for another suspect, if only to completely rule them out, but the point is more to complicity of a false conviction and what happens afterwards. Was Police Detective Escobedo complicit in a crime whereby the state of Texas put an innocent man to death? How is the quality of that investigation compared to an attempt to pervert the course of Justice, will she be brought to task for rubber stamping a death warrant by being photographed standing on exhibits in the death scene that were not properly gathered or even tested? If the people of America, like those of New Zealand, if the investigators and the lawyers and the Bench take little or no interest in what are seen to be the dynamics of injustice, if they don't look squarely at the culpability of those that knowingly bring injustices, and ensure that the force of the law is applied to test them, then the strains of the cruelty that sees men and women take part in overlooking or ignoring the truth will continue on and only the innocent will pay - just like Carlos DeLuna paid with his life - perhaps just like our own John Bolton.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Answering anonymous....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Those glasses that nobody (apart from a few hate-s...":

Nos you say above "" the blood of a family member on Robin's right shoe"" can you tell us which family members blood was on Robins shoe and if you could supply a link to where you obtained this damning evidence thanks. 

I have obviously no idea who anonymous is, but there have been others who have asked the same question. Each time I point to the evidence of Manlove below 3392-2.

A.           This is a bloodstain of airborne origin and again it's tending slightly towards that exclamation mark pattern that I described earlier, so you will see by its slightly smaller leading edge, if you like, that it is travelling in that particular direction.  Now to orientate it on the shoe itself from exhibit L1 if I may.

Q.          Yes that would be helpful.

A.           The stain is travelling from what we call the inner aspect of the shoe, which is the side of the shoe that touches the other when you place your feet together, towards the outer aspect, slightly at an angle.

Q.          So if you can just locate it for us on that shoe, just show us where it is, yes.  And the direction is going from the middle of the shoe to the outer edge, to the right, is that correct?

A.           That’s correct, yes.

Q.          Can I just take you back to your reference to airborne, can you just describe what you mean by this mark being airborne?

A.           Well the mark itself isn't airborne, it's indica – the bloodspot that is on the item is characteristic of a drop of blood that has travelled through the air and impacted the item, it leaves a characteristic stain that indicates it has originated from the air.  The blood to begin travelling in an airborne manner, a force needs to be applied to it in the first place as blood pretty much likes to stay as it is, unless it is disturbed.

Q.          So from your examination of this, was it your conclusion this was from an airborne position, that it dropped onto the shoe, is that what I am understanding?

A.           That’s my conclusion, yes.

Q.          Just in relation to scene A, and if I can take you back to what we saw in scene A, perhaps if we could go to photograph A5.  What can you say about the stains that you have observed on the shoes being consistent with the position of Robin Bain, namely whether before the shot or at the time of the shot, whether he was kneeling, sitting, standing, what can you say?

A.           If these stains originated at the time of the shot then the shoe would not have been occluded from the source of the blood.  By kneeling you would tend to occlude the upper surface of a shoe, and therefore these spots couldn’t have originated as they did at the time of the shot.

The evidence on this is more extensive but the final sentence is my source, supported by the description in lines 1, 2, and 10 in particular. Before I look at that, there was no identification of dna, but in evidence elsewhere it was determined as blood all of which is probably too extensive to place here. So it isn't proven on the face of it to be a family members blood, but to a high test in must be for the following reasons.

1/ It's description of having been air borne and therefore having 'changed shape' from pressure applied to it. Apart from pressure from head wound shots I don't know of any other pressure that would have changed the shape of air borne blood that morning, so it must have come from someone shot that morning.

2/ It didn't come from Robin's own wound, Manlove contends that in the final sentence having first built the reason for this as him having already determined the direction of the blood as from the inner to the outer aspect of the shoe.

3/ Robin's wound was to his left temple, spatter and air borne blood came from the wound as the exit point which was also the entry point. The absolute maximum angle downward from that wound could have only been vertical (under extreme difficult and probably 20 to 30 degrees less from 90 degrees favouring to the left, or across the floor could only possibly have been from right to left in a half arc toward that direction.

4/ Manlove in the evidence above was discounting a 'crude drawing' proposal produced by the Crown to show how Robin 'might' have been kneeling if shot by another party. In effect he was able to scientifically disprove the Crown's theory on how Robin might have been shot by another, he did this with the spatter and air borne blood patterns. The spatter was also on the curtain to the alcove on Robin's left and had no 'shielded' area where a gunman would have shielded part of the spatter range by his own body - just in the way of a person standing in front of the wall and being hosed by water will shield part of the wall behind them because of their body mass coming between the wall and the water spray.

5/ Most who have followed the trial or read 'Trial by Ambush' will know that the Crown virtually abandoned the lounge scene after 14 years of saying it held the answer to Robin's murder, when in fact it had held the proof of Robin's suicide. The blood from his wound can't have moved left to right from his left temple, it is an impossibility.

In terms of 4 others killed that morning, all suffering head wounds where blood was exited and had it's 'shape changed' changed under pressure, it means that blood on Robin's shoe can only from one of the victims that morning, arriving there under pressure, if there was another source I challenge anybody to prove it.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Cyber space harassment - you can act now!

The law appears to be moving slowly on the cyber space harassment issues that the Herald newspaper has been featuring this week. However there is law going back to 1997 that covers in under the Harassment Act 1997. While the The Act is not specific to on line harassment it actually includes the language for its use in Section 4 (1) where dealing with a specified act in
ss (d) making contact with that person (whether by telephone, correspondence, or in any other way. )
also (f) acting in any other way

I'm aware that the Courts have been somewhat reluctant to define what 'any other way' might mean. However, common sense is that 'any other way' must have been seen by the legislators as the vehicle by which the communication or threat was made, being simple language to ensure that a harasser wouldn't not be able to say 'I didn't telephone or correspondence with the person or attend their house or work, therefore I could not harass them' as somehow letting types of harassment fall outside the Law. Parliament can never have intended to do that, so they left in specific language but also included a vehicle for harassment to fall outside the specifics into the category of 'any other way.'

None of the above over looks 'correspondence' mentioned in 4 (1) (d.) One not need to consider too deeply that an email is correspondence, and that a message board post or blog is a derivative of correspondence in that it conveys a message by text - particularly so, where it addressed to another individual whether they are named specifically or not. For example a nick name, an offensive term or the reconstruction of a situation that makes it clear to the 'target' that they are the victim of the allegation or threats.

In the last few years there has been little progress with policing cyber space bullying because of what I believe has been a tardiness of mind of lawyers and the Courts to consider the elements of the Harassment Act as contemporary to the electronic age. I am aware of a case where a person threatened and harassed over a trade on Trade Me eventually took an order out against the individual but not against Trade Me. Although the individual was granted a restraining order the 'restrained' person was effectively allowed to continue their behaviour on Trade Me who eventually told the victim that perhaps TM wasn't the place for them. In other words because TM hadn't been named specifically in the order they chose to ignore it even though the harassment continued on TM.

Objectionable as that may be, last year when a director of Trade Me was faced with a application for a restraining order (later withdrawn) Trade Me almost immediately amended it's users rules to specifically prohibit on line harassment. While that measure might have been reluctantly taken the result was the message to not only internet users but also to The Courts that the owner of the largest message board in the country recognised that harassment can take place on line and acted after an application was issued under the 1997 Act. There is further evidence abroad of blog owners appreciating the need to abide by the Harassment Act 1997. When requested for details of board users allegedly using Kiwi Blog as the venue for a cyber attack, owner, David Farrar, acted according to the request in the following way....(altered to protect the 'privacy' of the alleged offenders)

I e-mailed the contact e-mail addresses for both Morris Minor and hiphip asking if they would object to their details being released. Morris Minor has asked me not to, and I’ve decided to respect their privacy and not release it. You may of course request a court order to reveal details.

The hiphip user has not responded to two e-mails, which I am taking as not objecting to the release of their details. The details I have for hiphip are:

M... S...

The IP address used is XXXXX, which is with the Orcon ISP.



This being another display of appreciation by site owners to their obligations under the Harassment Act. Farrar went on to submit to the Law Commission recently the following:

'A supporter of David Bain and Joe Karam said commentators who had named him were harassing him and requested their details for a Harassment Act claim. Asked commentators for consent. One refused, one did not reply. Have decided to only release details of the non-reply"

Showing again the 'good faith' of board owners not to have their sites involved in harassment, this is the reason why I blogged earlier in the week that the common Law was recognising that the frontiers of cyber-space were actually no different from print media (whether by telephone, correspondence, or in any other way. ) I wrote that in relation to the apology posted on Trade Me this week to Joe Karam for defamation and other offensive material published on TM in respect of Karam, the apology is a rich sink hole for the quandaries that seem to have beset the minds of those that thought there was no remedy in Law, or that a new Law was needed to prevent cyber space bullying.

In fact Justice Ministers Judith Collins is talking about fast tracking one law recommended by the Law Commission to which David Farrar submitted the comments above when it becomes available. However, in a recognition of the existing Law, and presumably understanding the complexity lawyers and Courts labour under simply stated that the Harassment Act might need to be more specific in terms of cyber-space relevance. For the foregoing reasons I don't agree, particularly because in  the common Law of practice, the owners of sites have already advanced to that position either from goodwill or from pressure to understand more fundamentally that a word is a word whether it be written in a letter, uttered over a phone or transported to a receiver in cyberspace. Nevertheless, the Justice Minister is sending out the right message now.

The Act is caught to some degree in a no where place, not prevailing under civil or criminal law but rather a hybrid, user friendly cocktail that has different levels of proof, production and evidence and so on. A particularly good opportunity for people to get their situations to Court for no expense (unless they decide to use a lawyer) and with the gritty reality of the situation able to be presented without the normal legalese tongue.

In a relatively short time several of the larger sites have cleaned up their acts, they have not lost 'customers' or members to any great degree as people have adjusted to the idea that they're responsible for what they say and will be 'found out' and exposed if they transgress into on line harassment or bullying. The Courts have followed that to some degree but I imagine will soon adopt to the ease that the original legislators envisaged to ensure that all perpetrators could be dealt with in a changing society using different communications.

If  Karam v Trade Me has shown  for all time that defamation does happen on line in NZ, then, in approximately comparative time, also it is being acknowledged that so does harassment and that the Law can be brought to bear. In the case I brought against a TM director, TM's lawyer, Marissa Flowerday, swore in an affidavit the number of letters of complaint that I had made about the on line harassment of Karam and Bain, as though the number was a reflection of me as a serial complainer without a substantial reason to complain, in fact as time has shown  the reflection was against TM itself as being a serial defamer and harasser and being unwilling or unable to deal with it. That is the reason they apologised to Karam and came to some financial conclusion with him, something they would not have needed to do had they heeded when I wrote to them outlining the activities of the hate-site members using TM to attack Karam and others. They also would not have needed to have amended their rules in 2011 to specify 'harassment' if they'd simply read the Act and complied. How far off the mark they were then is recorded in a letter to me where they claimed they 'were not susceptible to action under The Harassment Act.) I still wonder what sort of legal appreciation of the law their 'experts' had. Whatever the level, had they simply done what the message board 'Sella,' owned by the NZ Herald, had done when I wrote to them about an influx of hate-siters 'bringing their message' and shut all blogs relating to the topic down, after issuing an on line message, they would not have needed to be dragged to the reality at great financial cost and to the personal cost of those that were harassed on their boards. The later being an issue still yet to be resolved and which TM and others are no doubt hoping will go away.

Friday, May 11, 2012

What about Annette Curran ...hate-siter.

That's golfergold, or goobergoof as I sometimes use to call her.
She was a feeder. She fed information into the hate-campaign. against David Bain. She often attributed some of that material to Michellemosse a person attached to Otago University. Michellemosse herself spoke of information she was aware that would be presented at the retrial from a famous Forensic Pathologist she knew, ultimately paving the way for the disastrous conflicting evidence from the Crown's own experts.

The source of Curran's other lies are unaccounted for, but work continues on that. Her campaign was short on confirmation and high on accusation because she is a stalker. She sought out every detail of anyone that opposed her group, noted where they worked, their families and fed it to the hungry pack of mangy dogs that gathered about her. She keeps a site going that she should shut down. If not shut down made public, with a public apology to the people and children she attacked, or encouraged others to attack. The site leaked into cyberspace her and the other hate-siters at work discussing their 'enemies' and what they might do to them or their families. Curran even briefly attended the retrial and may have been among the hate-supporters that hissed at the Jury in the lift one day.

Annette Curran has been among the vanquished from the time her hate-site spilt it's guts into cyberspace. The question is why she still retains her 'private' site, perhaps she is waiting for an order for it to be closed down, perhaps she is inviting litigation similar to that faced by Trade Me and which they had to settle at high cost.

The hate-sites are reeling and this weeks news that another internet player has acknowledged that people can be defamed and harassed on the internet is the worst possible news for them. They don't laugh now, no doubt many of them have worked hard to separate themselves from among the number that once felt they ruled the New Zealand internet with their defamation, stalking and threats against anybody that dared oppose their 'superior' wisdom and 'fight' for Justice, never seeing for a moment that a campaign to apparently 'right' some perceived wrong can be unlawful because of some entitlement of 'good and power.'

The 'good and power' has fallen quiet now, lying on the shores as a rotting carcass killed by its own vitriol and hatred, a self poisoned wreck that failed to ever reach the high water mark. Cast down in it's own lies and deceit. How proud Curran, O Brien, Newton, Cochrane and others must feel now to see their 'good' fight exposed as flesh rotting from the core of its own poisoned gut. If Curran can't find the courage to apologise she should just delete her site and hope that it is soon forgotten.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Where to now for Vic Purkiss?

Vic has always pretty much been in the shadow of Kent Parker, shadow and influence of course. It's obvious that Kent is the leader who probably made a fairly credible impact on Vic at an early stage although I believe their friendship goes back some time. You could judge Vic as considering himself a bit of a bother boy, the brawn to Kent's apparent 'brains.' So if that's the deal how successful has the leadership been?

Not very obviously, taking into account they're both being sued and have made no progress with a defence even after 2 years. I've read one of the earlier Judgements for amendments and strike outs and Kent frankly has no idea which way is up. He's also obviously refusing to take any legal advice offered and can't afford counsel. No blame on the later, but sheer stupidity on the former. Throughout all this he must be feeding Vic a line, and, well, Vic's swallowing it with increasing difficulty going by the radio 'interview' where the interviewer was some kind of raving lunatic mocking them one minute and bursting into speeches the next. Not only that, but there were earlier indications, that Vic didn't really want any trouble. He had an opinion, a belief even but didn't want that to become life dominating as it now has. We've all noted Parker' statements and claims that he later backs away from or doesn't fulfil, Vic would  have noticed those as well - particularly the claim that Kent would never spend one minute 'in Court with that man.'

Kent is so inexperienced or such a bull crapper that he thinks when Karam consents to a request for a settlement conference that it's something more than routine for High Court or District Court civil proceedings for Judges to encourage settlement. It's clear to me Karam will only settle on his terms, as he has plainly done with Trade Me. A pig payout I'd estimate to be around $500,000 with 60% of that being costs. Vic will be now thinking about that settlement and perhaps finally understand if the guys with millions at their disposal settled it wasn't because they didn't have the money. He'll also know that there was no effective issue on whether or not the defamatory statements were defamatory or not, that finally it was accepted that they were and then in the next step TM accepted they were the publisher despite their message board rules and self-'indemnity.'

That's where it becomes an even bleaker picture for Vic because his posts on TM were among those 'agreed' to have been part of the settlement bond as defamatory. In other words TM traded out on Purkiss's own defamatory statement, with their site accepting that they were defamatory. That being the very last position TM ever hoped to be in but upon which they saw if they didn't settle it would cost them a hell of a lot more than my estimates. So Vic is going to war on argument that has already been lost, you could call it a suicide mission and for what? For nothing, because he will lose all chance of negotiating away out for himself and his family. So his own family will pay the price for his blind following of Parker and for not showing caution and decency to others over matters he didn't understand.

Vic will know that I've written to Kent a couple of times offering to negotiate a way out for him from the defamation wrangle. Now maybe it is time for Vic to consider taking the first step toward a settlement not in the High Court of Auckland in the next few weeks where their judgement could be struck out and all will be lost, but before then. A question would be why would I offer to help. The answer is helping settle this would restore a situation that should have prevailed for David Bain when he was found not guilty, people could have opinions but they didn't have to be driven by hate and lies, language could have been tempered and people maintain their rights to go on about their own business without being harassed by virtual strangers who also sought trespass into families and friends of those they targeted. But most of all it would probably be because I told Vic, Kent and others what might happened and they laughed. I'm not looking to laugh last or any other such trivial nonsense by return, but it the small part of me that is a fighter that drew the line and who has defended it - that would be some satisfaction when the chips were down and people being sent to my house 'to sort me out.'

So if you read this Vic, you'll know I've stuck with everything I ever said on this matter and never made an offer that isn't genuine. Your next question is why would Karam listen to me. Yes, why would he? But he did listen when I spoke to him about Trade Me, and about Counterspin as you now know. So he would listen now I'm confident if only because he is a business man. He knows there is no financial reward from his endeavours against you that could match the costs even though he obviously prepared to bear them, more so  now because 2 organisations far bigger than Parker and Purkiss enterprises did so from pockets far deeper that you or I may have. But there's something else about the man, he's bloody fair. He's aware that sometimes these things might be settled for a 'penny.' But that the penny might have various elements. One
I imagine would be closing down the hate-sites and undertaking a bond on that, another rightfully (and we can see that from Trade Me) would be an apology, some frank information he might require or be interested in, a 'penny' or some amount not too restrictive to your own future, maybe a handshake and a look in the eye.

Sound far fetched Vic. It did to Marissa Flowerday of Trade Me and look how much that has cost because she knew better. So why not try. Why not be the leader, offer Kent the opportunity to come along if you wish, or simply say you need to give this a go. What have you got to lose, a bloody mountain I would say. What have you got to gain, your own life back and in the process other peoples lives back that you have effected. I'm happy to meet you or talk to you Vic at my own cost, if it works out maybe there is something you could pay me back - who knows? But this could go away very quickly if not for you and Parker then certainly for you. Very quickly. If you think I'm tricking you or have something to gain, contact me and tell me what it is. If you want to progress this, sincerely, then offer me the challenge and see if I let you down or if I just give you a fair go. Think about it Vic, but don't be too slow.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Things that leave one cold...Defamation Karam.

Defamation reminder: Keep it clean 

Written by The Trade Me team in General at 2:00 pm, Tue 8 May
We remind all members of the importance of complying with Trade Me's terms and conditions and message board policy. These include requirements that members not post comments that are defamatory, abusive or offensive.
Trade Me apologises to Joe Karam for some members' use of the message board in breach of the terms and conditions to make comments about him personally and as a supporter of David Bain.
If anyone posts on the message board in breach of Trade Me's terms and conditions, they will have their message board privileges removed at Trade Me's discretion and without notice.

First of all it was reflecting on the 5 not guilty verdicts. A lot of people were excited by the result and expected that I would be the same but I wasn't because it's hard for me to celebrate a 'victory' from a battle that never should have taken place. David Bain should never have been charged, should never have suffered over a decade of false imprisonment and so while the verdicts were welcome I was left cold by what the man had been put through, by thinking that it had happened to others in the past and will happen to others in the future. The great victory, and even David might agree, would have been not only his deserved freedom but the system looking into to itself and making the appropriate corrections able to be observed by an independent authority with swift access to the Courts to adjudicate any decisions or omissions - much like Judicial Review.
Which brings me to the apology published on Trade Me today, it's been almost 3 years in the making but what it shows is that the common law has moved faster than statute. Whilst the Law Commission grapples with on line law breaking of any sort the common law has broken through. The apparent difference between a word written in a newspaper, on placard, in a public place is finally seen as no different to that written in cyber space. Common sense has prevailed, where the Law has reached out for new codes, common sense has shown the existing Laws fit cyber space and all that was needed was for the Courts to plug in, not to complexity but into the simple fact that language, not presentation is what makes a threat, an obscenity or that which is judged defamatory.
Clearly, Trade Me never defended their publications as not being defamatory. They simply claimed not to be responsible, however overwhelmingly naive that was being that they are the owner of the site and therefore the publisher. I'm not surprised to see they have settled, made a written apology, and apparently have banned or will ban for life the errant fools that thought that they had the right to publish what they liked. The settlement has now become a established precedent for cyber space publishers in New Zealand and probably overseas, a good step against which to measure how every person should conduct themselves in cyberspace as being no different than as if they were writing a letter to the editor of the daily which they hoped to have published.
There are some suggestions that the settlement figure is substantial, as it of course should be. But whatever the amount, the costs Trade Me would have agreed to have paid would have far outstripped the settlement figure. I asked the question yesterday, where to now for Kent Parker and the hate-siters? Today the answer has become even more obvious. I recall coldly the raucous laughter that accompanied the hate-siter's claims that 'Karam wouldn't dare sue.' The pompous obook making claims that cyber-space was like 'having a chat in the pub,' all the idiocies that one could imagine. And also the attacks against my family that attended some of those.
Kent has never been too bright, so I'll make it clear once again. TM didn't contest that the publications were not defamatory, they denied responsibility - the first was obvious the second was hopeful to the extreme and the reason on which they settled. There defence case was matchsticks and glue, albeit stronger than Parker's and Purkiss.
In the last couple of hours I have been recalling letters from TM asking for further information on what I considered was publication of defamation or hate-message on their boards, a serialised response to something they couldn't understand or didn't want to know about. Nor could they understand that if a thread was running, the theme was alive and any language signalling Joe or David didn't have to be specific - just as the Law says.
It isn't lost to me that the apology is not to David and I have said earlier that his case is the strongest, as have other commentators who consider the verdict in the retrial as a complete answer in Law to the defamatory filth that has been stacked against David. So things may not necessarily be finished there.
Van Beynan becomes more obvious on the landscape now, along with all the material passed to Parker and co. Parker by any measure is finished as he was before he even began, just like all the 'right thinking' hate-siters.
In the meantime congratulations to Joe, he's helped common sense prevail through complexity, allowed a word to be seen for what it is, whether in a letter or on a world wide computer screen.

Monday, May 7, 2012

A 1st for New Zealand - what do you do?

We have a rare example of a situation unprecedented in New Zealand - the exoneration of a man besieged by hate-sites for literally years. Some one who even had his supporters targeted as though the supporters had a personal relationship with David when in fact they were, are, mostly those characterised by a distinct New Zealand quality: fairness.

A recent report ranked New Zealand high in the fairness stakes, we fare not so well with the poverty gap, crimes against children but high in trust of one another. Trust and fairness are examples of the same thing. Nzers put fairness first, trusting that others do the same. That compares with Americans who place freedom first. Interestingly, the difference of what price freedom permits if it isn't accompanied by fairness could have been a qualifier to any answer in the polls, because freedom alone could stand highly in American minds beyond an element of fairness. So, perhaps Nzers view fairness as freedom as well, and consider that without fairness freedom can't exist from the average point of view.

It's that point of view that has been threatened by the hate-sites and some sections of the media who convinced themselves that David Bain was guilty and were unable to comprehend that a jury found him innocent. Before advancing on that guilt or innocence question, and where fairness fits into it, there have been a whole range of beliefs about the Bain case, some which couldn't stand scrutiny in the fair public mind but most which were dismantled, destroyed in the retrial. The only place false information about the Bain case can now be found is on the hate-sites so it must be assumed that drive behind the hate-sites was never toward fairness. That's an easy decision courtesy of Kent Parker's site which remains holding onto destroyed evidence as if it were true and only he is able to see that. I can report that the sum total of the objections currently on the hate sites is because a reporter referred to the Bain case as infamous, something which Parker considers to show a sinister meaning, along with that is the exhaustive attempts to deny that David Bain was stripped searched and no injuries to his chest were recorded that showed he had been in 'massive fight' with his brother Stephen. On the one hand the common use of the word 'infamous' and on the other the complete denial of an actual medical report that took David away from the murder scene at the time of the deaths.

So where does this fairness thing kick in? Judging that most Nzers are fairly moderate, and relatively restrained even on the internet, one could say that droves that have left the circle of Parker, shows that fairness kicks in when evidence is refuted, a fair trial heard and a jury makes a decision. Some of those that left may have later read the book 'Trial by Trickery' and felt not less than embarrassed by the attack which they took part in against Karam and Bain. It's hard to hold offence when a forensic specialist finally says no, 'the fingerprints were not in blood' when for years a person might have been considering that evidence as guilt, or the 'full' bladder that is shown now to have never been full. So it would be embarrassing for those folks that got hooked in firstly by the Crown then by Parker, Curran and others to discover they were manipulated by evil folk, intent on hiding the dark side of the Bain familicide, and what was sought to be hidden even below that. But those people go on about their lives now, wiser for the experience hopefully, fully cautious about being duped to the point of accusing and harassing others because you are 'right' and because you 'know' the evidence because it's on this really cool website where lies can be swallowed hook, line and sinker.

In this first instance of trials within trials, part of which is carried out on the internet (a situation I hope never happens again and which some advice is given from Justice Binnie perhaps to the Law Commission or Government) the malcontent's are beaten back, and the previously easily influenced, are strengthened in their detachment from the experience. What we are left with is that it isn't 'fair' to be driven into a frenzy by something we might desperately wish to believe in because it shows we are 'right thinking Nzers' and those that don't believe are not 'right thinking' and are therefore acceptable to attack along with their families and associates.

We are also left with the oddity that is Kent Parker and the disquiet that he and others sought to hide something in the life of Robin Bain. Even though there remains the possibility there was nothing to hide one must look at why Parker and the others chose to lie, and continue to lie even when evidence had overwhelmed their position. This is not a public matter for them but a personal matter, a matter which allowed them to lie and threaten others because of a common cause. If they had simply been mistaken they would have perhaps shrugged their shoulders, apologised even, said 'I got it wrong,' because those reactions are 'fair' and it would have set them among the majority that see fairness as foremost. Some simply walked away, probably a little embarrassed - having decided they'd got suckered but accepting they hadn't gone too far over the line in public or private forums, but others didn't, haven't - that's why it's obvious they're not driven by being fair, or even being honest, that's why they have been unable to appreciate the damage  they caused and moderated their position, or simply walked away. It's the hate, and the thing they hide being why they could never be fair.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Banksie, famine then feast.

After 2 weeks of side steps and prevarication Banksie came clean. He'd cleared the matter up, well sort of. The bit that he cleared up was that he hadn't really forgotten anything when he said he didn't remember or didn't recall conversations, meetings and even a helicopter ride courtesy of Kim Dotcom. He admitted that he was just lying about that because that's what some naughty lawyer told him to do. He pointed out that he'd always been forthright, a fair dinkum straight up bloke really, who took poor advice against his own better judgement.

Well, I suppose that was some traction. He even waxed lyrical about lobbying for Mr Dotcom and what a good citizen Mr Dotcom was. He was most certain that he didn't know of any donation from Kit Dotcom and that only came to his attention when he saw the cheque details on bank statement reprinted in the Herald. Of course this is the same Dotcom that Banksie trying to put daylight between the two apart from a cup of tea once at Dotcom's home. Suddenly there were at least 4 meetings, phone calls, more contact than an ordinary bloke would have with his mothers-in-law in 5 years. So we are to presume the same lawyer told Banksie earlier this year to just admit having a cup of tea with the German millionaire and that's all.

To this point we haven't heard from the lawyer but I'm sure Banksie will be attending a media conference with the lawyer very soon so that the lawyer can confirm that he told Banksie just to say he had a cup of tea with Dotcom and after that pretend he couldn't remember anything else and that at that moment a puzzled expression passed across the face of the Crown Minister which the Lawyer considered to be subdued reproof.

But it's still pesky pesky, because it now clear from Bankster himself is supporting the story that won't go away, that Bankster took a donation from Dotcom, asked for it to be split into two separate cheques, later rang to say thank you when the cheques had cleared after which, the now Crown Minister, had them entered as anonymous donations. So John Banks has come right in from the cold and is supporting what Dotcom has said from the outset, given him the credibility in this situation but still denying anything about the claim that Banks asked for separate cheques and rang later to say thank you.

So far everything which Dotcom has said, and which Banks couldn't remember, has proven to be true. It remains that what Banks earlier said he wasn't aware of, he is now sure didn't happen, the request for separate cheques, and the phone call. Of course anybody would be sceptical that a lawyer would advise a Minister of the Crown to be anything apart from truthful, only Banks can prove that now. Putting even that aside, sceptism is raised that any Minister would take advice not to tell the truth. The vast playing field has narrowed considerably to the cheques and the thank you. All the meetings, party, toasts etc. are confirmed even by the last person to admit them. Banks is yet to make a single score in the credibility column, whilst shoring up the credibility of the man Banks was happy to take money from on the basis of a favour or favours that may yet find their way into the public forum in specific language.

In his great relief to come clean yesterday, Banks only came part way, perhaps the relief from pressure of being silent prevented him from understanding that a complete disclosure was needed - warts and all, or that this job, half done, remains unresolved as to whether it was Banks lying or Dotcom, with one of the men shown to be a persistent suitor of the truth and the other.....well he forgot, or it was a lawyer.