This morning, news of another acquittal in a high-profile murder case. That’s the second in a week. These acquittals are coming faster than petrol price rises. And this one was criticised as “shoddy” and “selective” by the defence counsel, a QC no less.
No, this blog is not about bashing the cops. They’re not perfect, but they do a difficult job. It’s about NZ’s silliest columnist, Garth George, and his fantasy world.
Normally, I can’t be bothered reading George’s fusty old right-wing tripe. (The fact that he was a judge in this year’s Qantas Media Awards explains a lot.) But today, having already mused on this latest acquittal, I was drawn to his views on the problems with today’s constabulary.
According to George, the cops’ problems stem from all of this PC stuff they’ve had to swallow. None of this would have happened in the good old days.
Where to start? George seems to have missed the trials of various members of the Rotorua station back in the good old days, for rape and other abuse of women and covering it up.
We should be careful about generalising from this one station, but I have a vivid recollection of my cousins’ descriptions of local miscreants in their corner of the Waikato receiving unofficial corrective behaviour applied with rubber truncheons. By the local constabulary. Back in the good old days.
Mistreatment — or worse — of women. Rough justice. Oh for those good old conformist, sexist, monocultural days, eh, George. Before the terrible blight of political correctness set in.
Fortunately, the antidote was close at hand — the bottom of the page, in fact. David Garret, an Auckland barrister, argued that the police should admit they got it wrong on the Kahui case. In so doing he reminds us of how the cops handled another high-profile murder case back in George’s good old days.
Then, when the police decided that they had their man, they stopped investigating the man who had been the prime witness until then. When they didn’t have the evidence, they manufactured it. And perjured themselves. At least, some of them did.
Remember now, George?
Tags: cops & robbers, troglodytes
Jafapete's Weblog 
May 29, 2008 at 5:33 am |
I’ve got an idea: how about the enforcers of the law being the first ones to observe it? You know, leading by example.
Regarding the Kahui tragedy, why did the Police just leave the whanau to sort it out amongst themselves, instead of locking them all in a (big) room and knocking a few heads together? The PCs are too PC.