New Zealand got that little bit smaller yesterday with the jury decision to acquit the father and son who brutally assaulted a teenage boy and cut off the end of his finger after he tried to steal a car from their dairy farm in Piopio.
He had previously stolen other cars from the farmer.
Our social cohesion is fragmenting slowly as increases in inequality are hard baked into our economic settings and none of our main political parties has any intention of changing this.
When people are othered by society and alienated by structures outside their ability to control of even understand the inevitable happens and many adopt criminal behaviour.
The father and son farmers weren’t big enough to respect the teenager and keep their hands to themselves. They attacked him viciously. And because the propertied middle class blame the victims of economic and social policy, this is reflected in the jury decision.
It’s an awful decision – so wrong at every level. It confirms we are a little people – getting smaller by the day.
Easy to be ‘generous’ John – until you are the one being bottled while you sleep. This jury decision is a correction in a justice system that treats the guilty like victims, and the actual victims like fringe stakeholders in some bureaucratic process.
“blame the victims of economic and social policy” don’t we have near record low unemployment and people desperate to find staff to keep their farms, orchards and businesses running? Blame the victim? What bullshit!
If the police and justice system had dealt with this criminal as they’re required to do this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. People will do what they have to to protect their homes, get over it.
Don’t blame the Police, they catch them and bring them to the court, that is the job they are required to do, and it appears they did it well for the previous 3 times the offender broke into the house.
And threatened to kill the father and his family and had a knife. Clearly the reporting on this case was biased and one-sided when you rationale the verdict.
You seem to have omitted some minor details :
*the “oppressed” teens drove from Auckland to perform their crime
*they broke in and attacked the old guy asleep in bed by bashing him over the head repeatedly with a wine bottle until it broke
*when the tables were turned – the farmer got to a gun which he pointed at them -and the teens laying in the floor, the male was repeated saying he was going to get up and “f@$king kill” the farmer
* the male attacker had a knife under him and wouldn’t take his hand out from under him
This is one topic we can absolutely agree on and with you too Frankie.
Question, if this young lad and his girlfriend had not been at the property attempting to rob the farmer at knife point, would he still have all his fingers John? Choice not chance determines destiny.
It would be interesting to know the composition of the jury. It would be a pretty safe bet they won’t be only the middle propertied classes. New Zealand juries are more diverse than that. It is also worth noting that juries need unanimity, either to convict or acquit. So 12 people all decided they would acquit.
The verdict might represent that many New Zealanders, perhaps a majority, are fed up with the increase in crime and what they perceive to be often relatively minor consequences for serious offending. If so, the jury will be acting as the canary in the coal mine. Labour seems to have some awareness of this issue with their latest crime package.
I was surprised at the verdict. I thought there would be convictions on at least some of the charges. I note that David Farrar though so as well, but not the commenters on his site.
Clearly the desicion to take a finger was in pure desperation with a fear for ones life the prime motive.
That would have been the least life threatening option that imobillized the attacker.
The moment you justify violent home invasion on poverty you justify the poor committing crimes against the slightly less poor.
Man, that is alternative reality stuff if I have ever read. Respect???
Obviously on the first 3 occasions this family had “respect” for the law that the criminals did not.
And don’t forget, the female criminal has had her punishment, a “family group conference”, for an aggravated burglary no less. My guess she still waiting for some form of consequences to arrive. But it never will because that’s it folks, the youth court has spoken!
That this young man who weighed in at 140kg treated the justice system like the bad joke it is, had go number 4 meant all bets were off. He was on bail to live in Auckland for charges of burglary at that same home but that didn’t make any difference to him. Off he went to the King Country to commit crime. Again!
He was armed with a knife. The elderly farmer was hit in the head twice with a wine bottle by his chic, in what became an aggravated burglary.
Clearly the law and its impotence nor its well meaning hopelessly muddle headed enablers did not protect the farmer or his family so what are they to do, die? How do THEY prevent this from happening, yet again? Yes, under the pressure of being robbed in the middle of the night, being awoken by extreme violence and having thoughts like am I about to die here, maybe decision making was sub optimal by the victims of the robbery. But who can blame them?
It’s open season on filth that enters your home at night to do harm to you and no jury ever would convict! Never have, never will. I suggest attempt 5 may not end so well for these young criminals!
Yes, good reply.
You are legally allowed to use “reasonable force” to defend yourself. The jury in this case, and generally, rightly recognise that someone confronted with an intruder of unknown sanity and possessed of unknown weapons and intent deserve the benefit of the doubt when assessing what is reasonable. Imagine yourself in the same situation, you would be wise to assume the worst and act accordingly – any help is no use when you’re dead or badly injured; and a long way off if you’re living in an isolated rural setting. That is reasonable.
Might be a good idea to not go out bashing and robbing people. Yes?
I am stunned that this was the outcome of this case. The father stomped on this person in front of the police, I suppose that bit of violence was necessary.
Removing someone’s finger is the sort of thing they did in The Godfather. Most of us thought that was appalling.
The gangs do it for money owed apparently. Are you as horrified?
The gangs do a lot worse but are now valuable members of the woke discourses.
Thus given 3 million from proceeds of crime – and get border access during lockdowns to keep their ‘business’ open.
No wonder gang recruitment up 13%
Yes KCC, because they are most likely criminals. If there is nothing separating us, what makes law abiding citizens any different?
I’ve not defended the cutting of the finger – clearly the jury must have ruled it as justifiable force though, with the farmer and son fearing further assault.
It’s fortunate and shows at least some restraint by the farmer that no one was shot.
So surely as the cops witnessed him being stomped on that in itself is a crime. I don’t support anyone being stomped on by anyone.
Most of us thought it was fair enough, Michal
Most of us’ on this site maybe. But that is because we have become this punitive little country that wants to punish punish punish. That is what prison does, it is not about rehabilitation which it should be.
If the young person had succeed in using his knive on the man would you have criticized him and told him to be respectful.
Your dislike for hard working people who are successful is apparent in this article.
Come on Trevor try to stop getting hysterical. It is all bad but how could it have been handled better within a legal system that tries to maintain integrity in difficult emotional circumstances. You’re emoting like a girl!
Sexist!
Too many thefts turning into home invasions.
Hopefully the situation makes the two home invaders rethink that as a fun thing to do/career.
The victim went too far apprehending the home invaders, but the public clearly don’t like the idea of their loved ones including pensioners being targeted repeatedly by crims breaking into their homes with knives in rural areas.
Home invasions seem to be increasing and pensioners living alone seem to be one of their targets.
People should not be arrested when they fight back, and apprehend offenders.
Know of a purse snatcher who stole and knocked over a young Asian woman, Good Samaritan runs after the offender and then they apprehend her in a shop. She tells the Good Samaritan “you can’t touch me’ – the Good Samaritan then allows the offender to run off as the law has become too confusing whether you are allowed to intervene in crimes and help police or not.
Obviously police never caught the purse snatcher and she will keep on that path as her/others perception of law is that she will get away with it, and nobody can do anything to stop her in attacks and robberies. Young Asian victim shaken up. No winners here.
For those that support offenders not being able to be apprehended by their victims, the woke and right wingers are trying to cancel Jury trials so that the public have even less say in the criminal justices system and undermining democracy.
Haha, I wondered how TDB would react to this case. What do you think should’ve happened Saint John? Do you think those kids be given a severe reprimanding and a cup of tea?
Obviously that didn’t work the first couple of times.
Copa should have done there job in the first place.
I mean 4 times and they still couldn’t catch them? Useless.
Don’t even @me about resources this and that bullshit. Copas should have done there job before things got outta hand.
Not the cops fault the woke justice system kept letting the 140kg little shit back out to reoffend.
They did. He was on bail for at least one of the burglaries. Ok?
Yeah whatever
As a leftie, working class, blue collared tax payer, if that cumstain had robbed me and tried to assault me, I’d send him to hospital in a coma. So with all due respect, your sanctimonious bullshit wont garner much support from the majority of Kiwis.
And is publishing a photo of him, “exposing” him to be a MAGA kultist, supposed to win support for your cause? Because at the end of the day, as someone who thinks Trumpers are completely delusional, your tactic hasn’t worked. As someone who has had to spend a lot of money replacing stolen tools, if i saw that this guy in a brawl with the thief, irregardless of his politics, I’d give him a hand kicking the shit out of the thieving fuck.
Your comment shouldn’t have been posted up, It is violent and disgusting.
How on earth you are a lefty is beyond me. Certainly nothing to do with the lefties I mix with.
“certainly nothing to do with the lefties I mix with ” perhaps you should hang out with less social liberal middle class lefties and hang out with the majority of the left ie working class lefties which are socially conservative but economically left.
This social justice PC social liberal bullshit the lefty’s you must mix with believe is actually killing the left and turning the people who the left exist to represent against the left and on to the right.
The growing extremism of social liberals is going to backfire when the uneducated masses tire of being lectured to by academic snobs and when it backfires how much do you reckon of the social liberal reforms since the 60s will be standing?
Look at America now with roe v Wade, let’s see where NZ is at in six years if the pro crime anti working class woke left continue to turn even their own did hard supporters to the right with this shit.
The “teenage boy” was a 17 year old thug over 2m tall and a Mongrel Mob associate.
I find the chopping off of a finger tip a bit strange: Frankly I’d have shot him dead and claimed self defence.
It’s a reflection of the ineffectiveness of our justice system when people feel the need to take the law into their own hands.
Gee I too have talked to someone in the mongrel mob, does that make me an associate then.
Why don’t we just bring back lynching and get it over with.
Yes Andrew is a lynching man, he should move to the USA.
Some of the comments here are just as off the mark as John Ms. He wasn’t on his own, had a loaded gun on the kid while his son ( who had already punched him to the ground) was at first beating him with a piece of wood and then managed to cut part of his finger off. Call it what you like but you can’t call that act of cutting off the finger, self defence. If the boy tried to get up with his knife Mr Burr would been more justified to discharge his firearm than proactively chopping a finger off someone on the ground. You can say of the boy ‘ serves him right’ but I doubt that is consistent with self defence. I can absolutely see why there is surprise that no charges at all succeeded against Mr Burr.
Exactly. from the sounds of it, the boy was apprehended and restrained until the police were arrived.
Maiming someone is old testament shit and Christian sharia law has effectively been decriminalized by the courts.
This farmer is a full blown Trumpist.
He supports lynching, segregation and the KKK. He also supports the recriminalisation of homosexuality, stripping of all womens rights, and the execution of transgender people. He is out of control and must be stopped at all costs.
Thanks Wheel – knowing nothing of the case beyond that supplied by others above, your reasoned response gave me a hook to hang my hat on. Sure, faced with such an assault, who wouldn’t defend himself with all the vigour one could muster, but, as I read it, John is simply saying that the two farmers should have suffered some censure for taking the law into their own hands. And that, since in our society appellants only ever get the justice they can afford, it’s likely a more expensive lawyer might have produced such an outcome. And it’s that which is to be abhorred and which we are the smaller for.
At the high court level, convictions are over turned about 1% of the time because prosecutors can just paint a picture and say look, guilty. Meaning the evidence threshold is a bit lower at the high court.
In lower courts ruling are overturned a bit more.
All I’m saying is if you’re willing to snitch on your friends you can get lesser sentences or even get let off.
Were the jury all propertied middle class? I’d be surprised if that was the case. Besides, all classes have an aversion to people breaking into bedrooms at night and violently assaulting sleeping occupants. More so when it is an elderly person, and multiple times.
Well, John’s managed to get all the trolls hopping about and grunting self-righteously with this post. The salient fact is that the actions of the farmer and his son clearly went beyond self-defence and yet both were acquitted. This sets a very dangerous precedent that ought to concern everyone with any intelligence.
If National didn’t pull funding from police, reducing police numbers, these types wouldn’t feel free to do this sort of stuff. Instead their rampant immigration increased criminality and this is the type of outcome you will get. Fortunately they were lucky to have police arrive thanks to this governments investment into police.
Nice. I concede the floor to you, Bert.
I agree police resources have been financialized in a way that lowers police outputs.
Fuck we’ve become one insular, insecure, punitive little nation that thinks it’s so suphusticated and still punches above its weight.
If I had my way, I’d put the little fucker with a mental age of 10 in the Army – that’d learn him!!!! Either that or a Serco prison. Actually why don’t we bring back the workhouse. Ray Smith could run it – or eve eeee-ore eee=ore Seymore.
Btw, I happen to live adjacent to one of JM’s whanau and in the last 10 years, we’ve had 2 burglaries and 2 home invasions (one with the culprits being white upper muddle class teens having parents in the Force – needless to say, despite positive ID, including from their former high school, nothing happened)
Yea nah, they/he needs to be lined up against the wall ans shot – or maimed at the very least.
Fucking Ada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z90nKW8VhhI
Being in the army actually requires a brain and a positive attitude.
No chance for Kraut or Bob joining Army then?
NZ getting smaller — pull the other one. Talking to friends in the States, they laughed and wondered how this story even made the news. The home invading crims were lucky the farmer showed restraint and didn’t shoot them on the spot.
The guy has MAGA flags on his front lawn, so what? Weird politics are not grounds for harassment, burglaries and assaults
Suggest you talk to people in one of the Nordic States who have one of the lowest prison populations in the world and we could learn a lot from them.
Having the US as an example of anything remotely bad is not something anyone in Aotearoa should do. After all they shoot people because they are black. And they have a huge prison population because they lock people up for stupid things.
the only lapse of judgment here was the old boy not blowing the criminals head clean off.
John is right on this one. When a magnanimous person takes a prisoner he treats that prisoner with respect. He does not wreak vengeance, regardless of accumulated grievances or immediate provocations. How one treats one’s prisoners is a key test of moral character. Frankly, New Zealand colonialists and their Australian allies have a poor record in this regard, which points to something deeply disturbing in the character of the colonialist regime.
In my experience, prisoners treated humanely and with respect end up showing the same respect for their captors. That is the course that tangata motu will consistently follow.
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