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.
John if you can still ‘respect’ someone who has burgled you 4 times and then hit you on the head with a wine bottle – then you are a bigger man than me.
John is extremely naive and judgmental
Same. In impressed they didn’t shoot them
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?
Of course the lefties side with the little shit who stole someone’s car multiple times! The left are criminal symapthisers! That farmer was pushed to the edge, and he taught that little shit a lesson he’ll never forget.
Also don’t forget that the little shit’s girlfriend hit the farmer over the head with a wine bottle before any retribution was meted out
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.
The decision by the jury was a message to the justice system.
“Since the justice system will not protect us, we will protect those who have to defend themselves against people that the justice system let’s down”
I could have imagined that the judge would have done their best to direct the jury to a guilty verdict. But the jury thought “screw you and your ivory tower, we’ve had a gutsful of you being soft on crime”
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!
I wish you would think a bit harder John before you post
It would be poetic justice if some teenager repeatedly broke into John Minto’s house, stole his car repeatedly and then smashed him on the head with a wine bottle. Considering his disgusting reaction to this story
Fully agree with you Freda…I am sure if that happened to John…then it would be woe John
It is of course a humanitarian response not a ‘disgusting’ response as you put it. I have to wonder if any of the people writing filthy comments on this topic have actually followed the case.
The person concerned was 17 years old, his parents have said he has a mental age of a 10 year old.
Aren’t you all so lucky to have kids that apparently didn’t do anything wrong in their teenage years.
So? what is your point Michal? He is a dangerous criminal…many family members/lawyers of dangerous criminals claim reduced responsibility due to low IQ/reasoning abilities…until you are a repeated victim of violent crime, can you understand why the jury finding was not guilty
120kg teens that like to break into houses and attack pensioners, with the mental age of 10 year olds are very dangerous going forward, so lets hope the millions being spend by the woke for social causes that don’t seem to help those that need it but their own privileged pockets, are thrown out and the teen gets some proper help, such as education or a legal job that he wants to do and paid for it.
Lets also hope that people who actually help other people and society are given the funding to stop the crazy woke/right wingers creating a positive environment for criminals and those that help nobody in NZ who seem to be claiming the funding and instead offers an alternate future where there are decent well paying jobs in NZ and people leave school with a good education.
John is showing good Christian values, “love your enemy”, “do good to those who despitefully use you”, etc. I can also understand the actions of the men involved & it could only be the grace of God that would prevent me from having the same reaction in the same circumstances. There is nothing disgusting in John wanting to have a rules-based society without vigilante justice due to the inevitable downward progression that would create where those with the most power are not subject to the law.
I think there would have been something seriously wrong if they were convicted but I would prefer to live in a society where chopping an assailant’s finger off is not considered normal practice.
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.
Teenager has zero respect for people, people have zero respect for teenager.
Maybe you need to have done to you what was done to these guys and then let us know how you made some coffee and cookies for the teenager (who is a hardened criminal) an let us know who that went. The rest of us are over being scared of this fuckwits that come and destroy our communities. You want better justice, write a letter to the ‘lefties’ currently running the ministry of justice and police and ask them to put cops out, and start giving sentences that befit the crime.
this teenager will for the rest of his life remember his own arrogance, hubris and stupitidy.
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.
With society going through a political social engineering experiment over the past 5 years or so. This ‘jury’ decision is a reflection of how much society has changed in this short timeframe.
Its going to get worse, not better.
Decades now of decline to this stage of lawlessness, which as you correctly say is only going to get worse.
Neo-liberalism’s final stage is complete societal ruin, preceded by decades of misery.
It’s awful now and has been for a long while, but there’s a real horror show on the way.
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
What do you expect when our District Courts have a ‘catch and release’ policy for serial offenders?
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 father and son farmers weren’t big enough to respect the teenager and keep their hands to themselves”
You have really lost the plot this time Minto
Hope they got some good hits on him is all I can say
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 do you keep defending this little piece of shit? If your house got broken into multiple times and your car stolen multiple times and then you got assaulted by the burglar, don’t you think you might want to teach them a lesson? Get off your high horse you sanctimonious c**t
I am defending the right for proper justice. No one is simply allowed to take the law into their own hands. I wouldn’t call him a little shit, but a silly kid, yeah 17 with a mental age of 10. He needs some help not violence of any sort. I have been burgled numerous times. Get jobs for everyone, get jobs that pay a living wage, get jobs that give people dignity Then drop the unemployment benefit, everybody for their own good should be working unless on the sickness, ACC or DPB.
I wouldn’t call myself sanctimonious really, in fact know one I know would call me that, but someone with empathy and compassion who has raised lots of kids who now work in the world and are doing well. But they did some stupid things on the way just as I did.
I have compassion for the underdog, the poor, the dispossessed. In situations not of their own making but the society that we have developed where the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer.
Your application to the Pope for sainthood is in the mail.
“No one is allowed to take the law into their own hands”. Ok sure but no one is allowed to break into someone else’s house, steal their shit and assault them.
If you don’t like people breaking the rules then why are you not angry at the person who broke them first, and repeatedly?
“Proper justice” caught this kid 4 times and released him. “Proper justice” isn’t good enough any more. Slapping criminals on the wrist and letting them go doesn’t stop crime.
You say “no one is allowed to take the law into their own hands”.
Well also, no one is allowed to break into someone else’s home and rob them repeatedly and then assault them. Bleeding heart lefties like you love criminals and hate victims of crime. It’s disgusting to me and the majority of ordinary people, and thankfully the jury was on my side.
Because The Government by creed is supposed to maintain a monopoly on violence. There’s many reasons for it. One reason is because the child and its victims make none of the regulatory environment that allows crime to flourish.
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.
He didn’t cut off the finger though.
Simple logic. The people have had gutsful. Labour Govt does fuck all about this. So the people will sort it themselves. Expect more of this. It was a good day for the people.
FFS Sour Kraut this happened in 2020. Has there never been crime like this in the past? This is not a left versus right issue despite all the absolute shit that gets spewed forth. Crusher Collins didn’t stop boy racers did she? There is as many white trash petrol heads as there were back then
Yes it is nauseating to say the least, same shit from coward, different day.
Labours fault again, mmmmmm?
They have been running this country now since 2017. Just in case you forgot.
So Labour told him to go in and rob the farmer, in case you forgot?
Here I was thinking the right were all about personal responsibility, yeah nah!
RB I know they have been in since 2017 but SK seems to be riding on the ram raid wave. I am not trying to blame Collins for the continued existence of burn out bogans either. I just find the whole tough, not tough, comparison utter bullshit.
It is bullshit, both Labour and National fail the public with their lack of investment into community policing, and sentencing that fits the crime.
In the meantime you and i get robbed, beaten, shot at, killed and maimed by people who absolutely don’t give a fuck about anything other then their gratification. Thanks Labour. Thanks National.
gotta say I’m a fundamentalist on this one…you break into my gaff, all bets are off.
That’s the one! There’s only so much one can be expected to tolerate. Wokesters and this govt simply aren’t reading the mood. It not a good mood I can tell you.
I’m picking he will receive a healthy cash payment from the Government to compensate for his loss of the tip of his finger.
ACC won’t pay shit, those days disappeared under Shipley.
You’re more likely to be picking your nose with the tip of your finger wee Bob/John.
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.
John Key’s fault.
Very original John, here I was thinking you said it’s Jacindas fault, ask your flat mate SK.
Clozapine for Bob.
Lithium, Bert, Bob needs Lithium.
My Mums still waiting to hear from the cops a week after being burgled
They’re still too busy, that’ll be fixed in the budget.
Both mums?
Yep National fucked it up. They enabled the guy who broke in for the 4th time. That’s why we voted your Jacinda and Labour in – to fix it. And have she fixed it or what!!! Like everything else, it ‘s all fixed. That’s why your Jacinda and Labour are staring in face of a massive victory next election. Expect them to get even more that 50% this time…possibly 60% or 70 %…as a reward for a job well done. Party at your place?
There he is, same shit, different day on repeat.
What are the alternative policies from opposition parties you’re voting on coward?
I thought so.
John Keys fault – as he welcomed the 501’s into Aotearoa, he was reducing the police numbers.
No denying that one even by Bob/John and COWARD.
Agree John Key’s fault.
Nice. I concede the floor to you, Bert.
I agree police resources have been financialized in a way that lowers police outputs.
We the general responsible public and homeowners need guns to protect ourselves and to be legally allowed to shoot the lowlifes dead and not have to worry about going to court afterward. We need the full backing of the law to protect our families and property.
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?
Nasty Bert come on please.
The law relating to self-defence
“Everyone is justified in using, in the defence of himself or another, such force as, in the circumstances as he believes them to be, it is reasonable to use.” (Section 48 of the Crimes Act 1961.)
This means you are allowed to defend yourself from attack, but use your common sense. The idea is to defend yourself, not to cause injury or get revenge. If you use unreasonable force, you are committing a crime.
Your first concern should always be for your own safety and that of others with you. Never take the law into your own hands or take unnecessary risks.
https://www.police.govt.nz/advice/personal-community/keeping-safe/out-about#:~:text=%E2%80%9CEveryone%20is%20justified%20in%20using,but%20use%20your%20common%20sense.
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.
I often hear about ‘nordic prisons’ but what we fail to understand on the left is nordic societies and culture produce civilised people who respond/comply with their penal system….neo-lib societies do not produce civilised people and yes it is that simple..can you imagine treating one of our wannabe gangstaaaaaz under the norwegian model the knives in the communal kitchens would be in peoples backs quicker than jack robinson.
“….neo-lib societies do not produce civilised people…”
VERY TRUE that.
How the hell could they when everything is a commodity and cost bears no resemblance to price.
It’s going to take a while to resurrect any concept of a society, but the natives are getting restless
Yes gagarin very different societies.
Juries are extremely unlikely to convict in self defence cases, especially when the “victim” is an armed & dangerous criminal.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/122993878/no-cowboys-warning-after-selfdefence-verdict-on-kwhia-shooting
Drug dealer defends weed stash with military-style semi-auto & taiaha, kills one & wounds 3 others… not guilty by reason of self defence. Juries rarely convict on self defence cases because everyone has the right to protect themselves & those they care about, even if they overstep the legally permitted bounds.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/kawhia-shooting-accused-sold-drugs-from-family-home-shot-at-intruders-crown-says/CWCHVBL2GEPUNYXEKFA7HH7AIQ/
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.