Teina Pora granted parole
Twice-convicted murderer and rapist Teina Pora has been granted parole at a hearing in Auckland today.In a brief statement, the Parole Board said Pora no longer posed an undue risk to the safety of the community.
He would be released on an undisclosed date.
This despicable and racist miscarriage of justice by the NZ Police is finally starting to see a response by the lazy and reluctant NZ Legal system.
The horror of the Pora case is clean cut. The NZ Police bullied a young brown kid into a confession that should never been allowed to stand straight in Court but did because of our systems intrinsic racism.
Congratulations to the NZ Herald and Paula Penfold from 3rd Degree for forcing this story into the consciousness of the NZ Public. If they hadn’t highlighted the gross abuses of power by the NZ Police, Pora would have been allowed to rot in prison.
Now we must see a system so terribly caught out by their incompetence and racism to set the record straight.
The disgusting reality is this case demands the question, ‘how many Teina Pora’s are there rotting away in prison’? Has our media fuelled blood lust to punish set up a legal system that is jailing innocent people for crimes they did not commit? Are we mature enough as a country to comprehend our legal system is imprisoning innocent people? Will we ask the question?
A person serving over 2 decades for a crime they could never have committed demands answers, let’s hope we are courageous enough as a country to hear the answers.
Will Teina Pora be a catalyst for a culture change within the Police force? I will hope that he can be, I will not hold my breath, just the same.
It disgusts me to think that some of what has gone on here, may have been in the name of the Police not admitting their own guilt and the govt trying to avoid paying out the massive amount of money this guy is surely owed. Sad
Nothing will change until judges and juries stop pretending that they believe police lies, out of some sort of shallow convenience and belief that the accused was probably up to something anyway. Real change will come about when the police are made fully accountable on an individual level. What would be the appropriate sentence for a group that kidnapped a young man and held him for 20 years? That they did it with the authority of the state makes it worse, so double the sentence. The police involved should be in prison for at least 20 years. As an institution, they don’t care if compensation is paid. After all, it doesn’t come out of their pockets.
[…] shows NZ Police still have much work to do in securing the appropriate counter balances. With the failed Teina Pora case where Police bullied a confession out of an immature young man, to the case last year where Police bullied into a suicide a cannabis activist, NZers need to trust […]
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