What's gone wrong in South Auckland - 3 strikes?

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/7418485/Only-a-pawn-in-the-game

Before looking at the above case involving Nathan Williams who it seems plainly was set up for false imprisonment by a known con, and a compliant police inquiry, I think there is a need to look at South Auckland and where it now appears to fit on the map.

Not geographically but in the national consciousness. Has the rest of NZ turned it's back on Southern Auckland, seeing it as cot case surrendered into the grip of crime. Well South Auckland is actually the heartland of a lot of heavy industry, a port and distribution centre for the rest of New Zealand, commercial property prices are high and it is well linked by motorways and to the airport. Around its edges to the east and the south in particular there are some good housing developments continuing that contrast with what the national view of the area might be. It is not the homeland of crooks, it's a thriving and generous community in most cases that has had a relatively high crime rate reduced through good current police and community initiatives. It's the new workplace of Willie Apiata, the home town of Owen Glenn one of our most successful business man. Home of John Walker, Dick Quax and other Olympic and sporting greats. It's in the areas of Mangere, home town of David Tua, Alfriston and Manurewa, pockets of low cost housing, much of it Government owned, almost dreary in repetition and apparent cheapness, third world style shopping centres, booze outlets scattered among the many churches which would have the highest attendances on any comparable area in NZ, possibly the world. It's a mixture of hard-working people and the desperate, no where in NZ would the income gap be so distinct. It must also by now be one of the largest accumulation of voters and by that reason alone politically important. But it surely is more important for other reasons, it's population will be the engine house of our economy far into the future. South Auckland could be determined as the place that when going well indicates the country is going well. If South Auckland is looked after, cultivated, the soul of New Zealand is also. No man, woman or child that lives there is less important than the person or people addressing the future of this country. What South Auckland suffers we all suffer, what South Auckland triumphs over we all triumph over.

The greatest distinction of South Auckland lies in the origins of recent immigrants from the Pacific Islands joining 2 and 3rd generation Maori who drifted to the cities in the 50s and 60s pushing the farming land further from the heart of the city. Both these groups suffer a cultural isolation of sorts but it seems the Pacific Islanders are largely able to maintain their culture if still being crippled to some extent by more sedentary lifestyles and diet choices. The biggest epidemic would be in the areas of health, fast loans, fast food, pokies and welfare mentality, not the popularly considered crime. Though it's something else that makes the case of Nathan Williams stand out - because it's one of 3 unsolved murders on the books of South Auckland Police where innocent men have been sent to prison. The question to ask is how can 3 such cases of injustice, rare as they mainly be, have accumulated in one part of the country? Ian Steward has brilliantly demonstrated the Miscarriage of Justice which happened to Nathan Williams in the piece called 'Only-a-pawn-in-the-game,' a title that may be more broad reaching that Steward perhaps intended. What game is being played in South Auckland and why do the rules that apply elsewhere as to the treatment of citizens not apply there?

It's convenient for the police and Justice Department to isolate this case which has drawn little attention. Most of the country wouldn't have known about Nathan Willliams until yesterday and not given it much thought since. Maori, South Auckland, turn the page - but that's perhaps what is wrong, no outrage or concern that 3 major cases have shown themselves distorted by police inquiry and the reaction from the Courts in one part of the country, and none apparently resolved. Teina Pora remains in prison 20 years after trying to falsely claim a reward for an unsolved murder and rape, in the process talked himself into being convicted for the crime which in all probability was committed by Malcom Rewa a serial rapist whose dna was found inside the victim. Malcom Rewa will probably never be released from prison, there is no reliable evidence that he even knew the boy, as he then was, Teina Pora, a supporter of a rival gang to that which the much older Rewa belonged. The same Teina Pora, when helping the police in order to gain the reward, couldn't even find the street or the house where the deceased woman had been killed. So maybe the killer Rewa is in prison albeit for other crimes but so is Pora in prison for having a low intellect and being a liar. Crime solved, I don't think so.

Then we have Alan Hall, quiet, modest height, slow minded, reliable and non-violent European that morphed into a youthful Maori or Polynesian one night and  stabbed a man to death in his own home, fighting with both the man and his sons who injured 'Alan' before he ran away and returned to being a middle-aged pakeha, small, slow minded and without any injury. Alan served around a decade for that crime while the real killer, tall, dark and athletic was never found. Solved, no.

The situation Nathan Williams found himself in was that a convicted robber recently released from prison for permanently disabling a man during a robbery, went onto kill a drug dealing youth at his own home by striking him with a hammer. He then coughed to police that Nathan Williams was the killer. The two men went to trial together and the statement of Tumata, a not so plausible ex con, was read to the Jury as evidence against himself, while the Jury were told by the Judge to put it out of their minds. That included the fact that the statement was videoed, pointed the entire blame at Williams and was unable to be questioned in the normal way had it been direct evidence and not un-contestable hearsay. There was also one of Tumata's mates who claimed that Williams had 'confessed.' When Nathan called in a QC David Jones, the lawyer understood from the outset the perilous video and other evidence couldn't have been trusted to have been put from the jury's mind and the Court of Appeal agreed. When the Jury returned a verdict  at the retrial the Judge said 'Mr Williams, your nightmare is over. You are discharged.'

I'm sure the Judge felt some pleasure and relief that the system, with the strong help of QC Jones, had ultimately worked. Well at least to some degree, and in this case had only taken around 5 years, add that to the 30 plus combined years spent inside by first of all Hall and Teina Pora who is still clocking up the years and the reason for celebration becomes a little muted, more so when police indicate they are not looking for anyone else in Nathan's case just the same as the other two cases. I don't where that leaves the families of the victims, certainly the police make no comment on that. I wonder where it leaves the wider population of NZ, able to accept men from South Auckland serving false imprisonment - not so bothered perhaps? Maybe that is the attitude that builds walls within our society, we can imagine only bad things happen in South Auckland and it's the fault of the natives that live there, relegate them all somehow into a convenient picture able to be accepted as really not quite NZ or NZers. It could be that type of thinking that sees cases like that of Hall, Pora and Williams happen in the first place where police seek the co-operation of the real crooks or simply just ignore them in favour of a lame duck target. The police unwittingly unable to see that we all become lame duck targets, fence by fence, street by street, border by border. We have a Commissioner of Police, a Minister of Police, and a Prime Minister why are they silent, why do they lead with silence, why are they not offended by this situation? If it's not right in South Auckland it's not right in New Zealand.