The former Vivien Thomas passed away Friday last at home in Queensland at the age of 68. I think it is very difficult to imagine how the deaths of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe and the subsequent arrest and false imprisonment of her then husband Arthur Thomas played out in the life of Vivien.
It appeared to an outsider that she was thrust into the limelight and a particular role to bolster support for Arthur before and after his convictions. In many ways she was the public face of a tragedy this country has never quite got over. Not only did she have to deal with her husband being imprisoned for life for murders she knew he hadn't committed but there was also the successful 'stroke' of rumour that she had played a part by feeding the baby Rochelle Crewe in the days preceding the discovery of the murders. In a case with evidence planted it is easy to fix upon the tangible things such as an axle or bullet casing but forget the stroke on innuendo, that without any tangible proof or over riding logic it was suggested that Vivien had played a part in a cover up of the murders. The confounding logic that her husband had killed the child's parents and then she had fed the baby, never having been seen to have done so and ignoring the distance between her home and the home of the Crewes.
In a case that was built of fantasy and fabrication what better way to blacken the alibi witness for Arthur than claim that she knew about the murders and went out of her way, at great risk but never seen, never linked by any proof, to feed the baby Rochelle. So the alibi witness had a credibility problem induced by a claim for which there was no proof. And what was the personal toll of this woman, how was her life affected, was she ever the same again? Was she compensated in any form, apologised to, no. Even her attempts as recently as last year were side-glanced to 'preserve' what is already seen as one of the blackest instances of policing in New Zealand. I wonder if the effects for her were any less than that that of Arthur, she lost her freedom, unwillingly became a public figure of whom some would willingly buy the story that she was some kind of an accomplice after the fact. She lost her marriage and her future that she had chosen when marrying Arthur.
I can only imagine some of the secrets that have gone to the grave with her. The conduct of some of the officers and officials when she was seen as some sort of wanton figure and accomplice to the acts of murder. What a truly magnificent dignity she held and it was great to read today that Arthur spoke of what Vivien endured where he acknowledged the stress she was under during his imprisonment, 'something that dawned on him later in life.'
So for now a minute or 2 to think of a woman victimised by a system that had no real degree of self-analysis, no willingness to double check and check again, no willingness to hang out to dry the good old boys doing their jobs to fit up someone for a murder unable to be solved 'any' other way. And where does it stop, right at the top, when a man hasn't got the guts to say 'that's wrong, that doesn't make sense,' a man entrusted by the law and the public to do that. Arthur reported her pet phrase 'was that there were only 3 people who knew for certain (the killer of the Crewes,) herself, Arthur and the detective (Detective Bruce Hutton) who led the case.' And a reminder, as in the Bain case, the detective's that 'moved' evidence, 'forgot' to record changes to testimony were not acting as anything other than part of a team overlooked by one man, overlooked by a Commissioner of Police and that's how it works, or indeed fails to work.
So Vivien is gone now, and for many of those of us that didn't know her, but only had the experience of seeing her thrust into a role nobody could be envious of, or prepared for, she was a real beauty with a fine heart and unflinching dignity as she was slowly destroyed by lies and heartbreak.
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