Joe Karam: The cost of winning.

No one would ever legitimately accuse Joe Karam of not walking his own path. He demonstrated that during his sports career, leaving behind his All Black jumper to etch out an opportunity in professional league. A situation at the time that was unorthodox at the least, breaking all the considered rules of the old war between the popularity of rugby and league, courting outrage that an All Black would 'cross over' for money. In that respect he was a trend setter, years before his time, years before rugby would become the professional sport it is today. In a country were rugby is the national sport Karam's desertion was seen by some as a treachery of the codes, a retreat from everything that rugby was to be measured in terms of national pride.

Something lingers in the nz psyche that rejects walking away, not seeing a job through, hanging in there with your mates no matter the cost. Could it be the barbarism of survival in the lonely isles, relying on one another even without communication, but most of all having others know they can rely on you when the chips are well and truly down. Did Karam display to the nation, where All Blacks are all dominant heroes, that he couldn't be trusted, that he would walk away when the pressure was on. However Joe Karam is judged now, it will never be as someone that will walk away. He has admitted in his writing of being a bit of a 'red neck', conservative in other words and of the 'lock em up and throw away the key mentality.' That was who he was before the Bain case engulfed him, pro authority, possibly even subservient to the belief that Justice in New Zealand is what is fair and right. A person comforted by the safety of our own society, by its laws and administration of the law.

He has written about his surprise that the police didn't simply accept the faults Karam observed in the Crown case against David Bain, that they effectively shut up shop on him ex Al Black or not, they closed ranks. More than anything else Karam's efforts on behalf of David Bain showed the public that there is something amiss inside the 'system' a total aversion to acknowledging fault, an unwillingness to consider fault in anyway and a historical defence of 'shutting up shop' rather than observing a problem - simply denying that there is one. Eventually, if the point is pushed, attacking the inquirer.

There are many ironies in the Bain case that will ensure it will be studied for decades to come. One obvious feature is that a man without legal qualification unpicked a deliberate miscarriage of justice, found one or two things that didn't make sense or add up and followed them until the things that made no logical sense outweighed the few that did. But there are far more subtle points of interest for students of the case horrified that Robin Bain was never investigated, all evidence which pointed to him, or which may have pointed to him had it been investigated, was ignored. A main suspect in a murder case was ignored, along with evidence which showed he was the killer. That brings me to one of the bizarre features not much in the public mind: when the police association laid charges of defamation against Joe Karam on behalf of 2 officers they set about investigating Karam. Investigating everything they could about his personal and business life, by my message Joe Karam was the 2nd most investigated person in the Bain case and he wasn't even a suspect. But what he did wrong was not walking away when it was made clear to him which way the wind was blowing and it wasn't blowing toward getting to the truth of the Bain murders/suicide, it was getting Karam to be a 'good chap' and shut up.

When thinking about the police reaction to Karam ask yourself a question, how do you react to the suggestion that you are wrong or might be wrong? With anger, with denial, or by considering your position on the thing that you may be wrong about? A reasonable person does the later. A police officer must do the later because that his duty, to the truth, not to denial. By then of course the police were performing what some might consider Karam didn't do with his All Black career, they were closing things down and sticking together, edging forward in the ruck, maintaining position. But of course a man falsely held in prison is no game of rugby, no game at all. Worse thing for police might be was that Karam wouldn't fold, that he wasn't some nosey reporter, or determined lawyer working for a bad guy, as much as anything he was Joe Public with the heart not to walk away when pressured.

From records of the case in and out of Court we can assume the relationship between Karam and the police was down hill from when he wouldn't back off. Now, that isn't the function of the police to become partisan at any point, the police don't have a 'them and us' role with the public, they are servants of the public, sworn to uphold the law by oath. But what we saw demonstrated was the very thing to be most fearful of in a free society, a system capable of being blind to the truth on the basis of loyalty to itself, rather than those to whom it is sworn to protect who ever, the person. or persons might be.

I titled this 'The cost of winning.' I say the cost is ours, we share the cost with Joe Karam whether we like him or not, consider him to a good guy or a pain in the arse, his concerns should be our concerns. His venture into the system is by proxy our venture into the system, his effort to find the truth is the obligation of us all. I've read people say that if you were falsely convicted you'd love to have the help of a Joe Karam, that might be true but isn't the true message we want to see is that the system will react without self-protection, act by way of its duty. What Joe thought might be sorted out in a few hours by showing the results of his investigations to senior police is surely where the public expect these things to be sorted, not a decade or 2 later. Look at the stick with your mates cliché, look closely at it and think about sticking with the truth and who you would most want in the hour of need, the truth or the man sworn to uphold it looking away. That is the lesson here and all other cases of miscarriages of justice.