Cushla Fuataha, Lucy Akatere and Tania
Kavi were jailed for a crime they did not
commit
Girls accept compensation for wrongful imprisonment
11.40am Tuesday October 10, 2006
Three young girls jailed for a crime they did not commit have accepted an offer of compensation from the government. Tania Vini, Lucy Akatere and McCushla Fuataha have accepted compensation ranging between $162,000 and $176,000 each after a long battle for an increase on the initial amount offered.
Ms Vini will receive $176,621.36, Ms Akatere will receive $162,830.36, and Ms Fuataha will receive $165,330, Justice Minister Mark Burton said today.
The trio, then teenagers, were convicted in August 1999 for the aggravated robbery of a 16-year-old girl in Mt Roskill.
They served eight months in prison and were unable to finish school after being convicted of the gang attack and robbery of the teenage girl in Three Kings in August 1999.
They were acquitted in 2001, when the witness admitted she had lied, and the three were proven to have been nowhere near the scene.
After they were acquitted the government recommended compensation of $135,000 for Ms Vini and Ms Akatere and $137,500 for Ms Fuataha and a Government statement confirming their innocence. Later that month the Cabinet policy committee agreed to make an ex gratia payment in terms of the recommendation, on condition that the girls take no further legal action against the Crown. The trio turned down the offer.
- NZHERALD STAFF
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Nau te rakau, naku te rakau, ka mate te hoariri
"Patience is a virtue of a revolution."
Tuiki said:
Go to this site and listen to the girls on the radio: http://www.radionz.co.nz/__data/assets/audio_item/624561/mnr-20061011-0707-Payout_Not_Enough_Claim_Lawyers-wmbr.asx
The money won't even buy them a house in Auckland. Yet this was an improvement on what they were offered earlier, which as their lawyer, Gary Gotlieb, said, would've been gobbled up in legal fees and costs (etc).
Backwards and forwards for packing boxes from the supermarket, I was busting for the loo, (I was moving out of Mt Roskill at the time) when the 3 Kings toilets area were cordoned off by the cops. Obviously they'd had their "culprits" and that was all they needed (bugger checking out the facts eh?) Prior to this, we'd had burglaries and I had a home invasion by girls roughly fitting their description.
Anyway, one of the girls was in her school uniform getting ready to go to class, when the cops knocked on the door and arrested her. She protested her innocence as did the others but never got to finish her education, (suspended from school because of the charges) so being Polynesian, without school quals, doesn't help get jobs. She says she's hoping to use the money for her children's future schooling, maybe to get the education she was denied.
If Tania Vini's father hadn't pushed it and Gotlieb hadn't seen the sincerity of the father and got the PI got involved, none of this would've come to light. Thank goodness she had a father's support, or they'd have been stuck in prison for the full sentence! Cops stuffed up those girls future.
Humiliated, these poor kids had had to strip naked in front of screws and made to use the toilet with mirrors in the toiltes and screws watching them. Imagine that for polynesian girls to go through.
I don't know if the complainant will be done for her filing false statement or perjury. We haven't been privy to what has happened with that girl. Who knows, maybe she's a psychiatric case?
Anyway the chief cop went to the wrongfully accused later, to formally apologise for the police not having done their job properly.
Quote:
Wrongly jailed women 'mistreated because young and brown', say lawyers [+audio] http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405371
Wednesday October 11, 2006
Lawyers claim three wrongly jailed women did not get higher compensation because of their age, race and social background.
Yesterday it was announced that Lucy Akatere, Tania Vini and McCushla Fuataha are to get payments ranging between $162,000 and $176,00.
Their lawyer Gary Gotlieb has said the compensation is not enough and he believed the girls had been "mucked around" because they were young and Polynesian.
Another lawyer, Peter Williams QC, who is also president of the Howard League for penal reform, said today there was "no doubt the colour of their skin" was a factor and if the women were people of high status their compensation would have been far greater.
Mr Williams told National Radio this morning: "I think there is a prejudice against people in what you may call the lower economic strata, I also think there is a prejudice against Maori people -- I think there is also a prejudice in this country against anyone who is a minority group."
The women each served seven months in prison after being falsely convicted of the aggravated robbery of a 16-year-old girl in an Auckland shopping mall in August 1999, before being cleared in 2001.
Mr Williams said an additional payment should be made because the amount was "very shabby".
Three previous legal opinions said the women should get at least $250,000 each and considering the length of time the payouts had taken with no interest the payout was inadequate, he said. However, he wasn't surprised by the outcome.
The women had been in prison as girls and suffered degradation and humiliation of imprisonment.
"I won't go into detail but some of it apparently was pretty awful, they'll have nightmares for the rest of their lives and this paltry sum that's been paid out is really very insignificant," he said.
'No evidence'
However, Justice Minister Mark Burton said there was no evidence of racism and the final figure was determined by an independent QC.
Mr Burton said independently appointed QC Kristy McDonald had looked at all facts of the case in 2003, made a recommendation that the Government accepted, and the offer was made. Subsequent court action caused the ongoing delays.
Ms Vini and Ms Fuataha were 14 at the time of their imprisonment and Ms Akatere was 15.
In October 2001 the Court of Appeal quashed the trio's convictions, offering them the court's sympathy saying they had been "let down by the system".
The women in 2003 rejected offers of between $135,000 and $137,500 in compensation, but decided to stop fighting for a higher figure in March.
The final payouts of $176,600 for Ms Vini, $162,800 for Ms Akatere and $165,330 for Ms Fuataha included pecuniary losses.
Mr Burton said the claims of racism were "generalistic" and a fair process was followed.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10405371
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"If you tremble of indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine."
Che Guevara
Kia Ora Tuiki
Yeah this has been a sorry saga indeed. Many of us here would know of many instances of police witnesses lying for the police so that the police can gain convictions....as to a percentage fitted up by the cops, I wouldnt hazard a guess.
The parents of the girls are awesome for standing by their daughters. They were 14 & 15 when this happened. I would agree with the comment from their lawyers about embedded institutional racism within the pakeha judical system.
Quote:
Their lawyer Gary Gotlieb has said the compensation is not enough and he believed the girls had been "mucked around" because they were young and Polynesian.
Another lawyer, Peter Williams QC, who is also president of the Howard League for penal reform, said today there was "no doubt the colour of their skin" was a factor and if the women were people of high status their compensation would have been far greater.
Mr Williams told National Radio this morning: "I think there is a prejudice against people in what you may call the lower economic strata, I also think there is a prejudice against Maori people -- I think there is also a prejudice in this country against anyone who is a minority group."
This is a country that is still in settler denial. Every institution that hides behind so called 'democracry' in NZ is just a front for fuckn white supremacy...Racist Land theiving, Genocidal Colonising bastards
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Nau te rakau, naku te rakau, ka mate te hoariri
"Patience is a virtue of a revolution."
The worst thing about this kind of racism, is that Maori and civil libertarian lawyers who work with "offenders" know the police culture is racist and sexist. Civil Libertarians will tell you about the cops who spot Maori /Pacficans on the main Auckland city street (Queen St) will turn around to persue and 'question' those Polyesians.
The difference between the racism of the South and the discrimination here is that it is no longer as blatant as it was, when we took to the roads in the Land March of '75.
Even so, 30 years ago, a seafaring uncle (his mum a pom and father a rangatira) wasn't black enough for the black pubs in Apartheid Sth Africa. He also got kicked out of the whites pub for being coloured. He wasn't white enough. However he said Sth Africa was better than NZ, in that respect, simply because the racism was in his face, readily identifiable, unlike the more masked (hypocritical as you say) discrimination here!
http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/1998/maori-perceptions-of-police/maori-perceptions-of-police.pdf
"White supremists' as Uriohau says...
Tiuki wrote:
Civil Libertarians and lawyers such as Peter Williams know it's only too true, your korero ehoa. I saw Peter at the gas station on Tues but was too distracted to go over and say hello. He was once my father's lawyer and I liked his arguments this week on John Campbell's Crime & Punishment series on TV3 http://tv3.co.nz/News/tabid/67/articleID/14122/Default.aspx as well as his recent comments about the racism against the 3 Polynesian girls, wrongfully jailed for a crime they never did.
Aye cuzz
I watched these last night. All bar Peter are apologists for the system. Ron Mark goes down like "cold cup of sick'" and just writes off those of us at the bottom of the heap who are subject racist cops & their racist judical system. Is his mention of a "three strikes" policy part of his and that hukery mole helens solution to "youth crime". Im sure our Aocaf members from the US could tell us about the impact of that(policy) in non pakeha communities.
The other wahine advocated "intervention" (surveillence)from pregnancy. No korero at all about giving tautoko and empowering mothers and familes, no talk at all about useless (mainstream) schools where for years & years our tamariki have fallen out the other end. No talk at all about how generational welfare dependancy was created when Roger Doglas and the Slave labour party "restructured the economy". No talk at all about the ongoing genocide (cultural or otherwise).
You right Tuiki Peter for years has defended many Maori on "criminal" charges. His knowledge and experience of how Police and the judical system exercise their powers against Maori & PI is informed by his long advocacy on their behalf and his long time calls to reform the Pakeha Prison system.
The time has come though for whanau to speak directley about their suffering and living under endemic racism, and for us to stand up for our rights and Independence as Maori.
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