GUEST BLOG: Ross Meurant – Once Upon A Time

THE OTHER DAY

The other day I was accosted by a former police colleague. ‘What the hell’s got into you Meurant?’ he said.

Before I could respond, he continued with such passion that I took a step back to avoid the spittle.  ‘I read that Good Cops Bad Cops shit you wrote. Leave boys alone.  They are doing a good job.’

He continued his invective. ‘You!’ he said now, almost yelling. ‘You were one of the nastiest bastards in the C.I.B. enforcing the, rule of police, as you now call it.’

I paused, for several moments while his temperament subsided.

‘I had good teachers, xxxxxxxxx,’ I said.  

Rather than feel hostility, I felt compassion towards him.  After 40 odd years, his mind set had not changed.

‘As did you,’ I reminded him cautiously.  ‘But I’ve changed though it seems you have not?  Nor regrettably, has the culture in the old firm, changed.’

He shook his head in apparent disbelief and disgust.    

THE NEXT DAY

I looked up the 8,000 words that he was referring to, which North & South magazine printed for me in 2011.  It’s a chronology of police fabricating evidence (high profile cases); being exposed – but not sanctioned before a proper court of law (The IPCA as you well know, is not a court of law and barely more than an ‘old boys club’ for cosmetic justice).

I was roundly castigated by the commissioner and police association boss, at the time the article was published.  In unity the chanted: “The stuff Meurant produces about the Crewe case is long ago and does not happen anymore.”

However, all their response did was suggest that they had stopped reading the article after the Crewe case exposer (after all, 8,000 words is a long concertation period) and failed to read the more recent examples of this culture which manifest in the Court sequels of Ngamu, Tamihere, Tuhoe, Dot Com and Red Devils – all far more contemporaneous events.

 

The link is quite a lengthy read but it begins like this:

 

ONCE UPON A TIME

One day on our farm at Mamaranui, about an hour’s drive north of Dargaville, my Dad took me down the back of the farm to tend a sick cow. I can still see that creamy-coloured Jersey girl lying beside the creek which ran across our land.

With one strong grip and swing, Dad dropped me to the ground from my seat behind him on the horse. He dragged a shot-gun from the scabbard under the saddle. “You going to shoot that cow, Dad?” I asked timidly. “Why?”

“She’s sick, mate,” he replied.

“Why don’t you give her medicine?”

“I tried that,” he replied.

My bottom lip began to tremble. “But Dad, you said our cows are special!”

“They are mate, they are sacrosanct,” he said, using one of the few big words he seemed to know.

I thought for a moment then, in desperation, I said, “What about the other cows? Lots of them get mastitis in their tits and you don’t shoot them.”

Dad turned to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “When a cow gets too sick to fix, it is the best thing to do. Shoot it. And if all the cows got really sick, I would have to shoot them all.”

I was stunned. No cows meant no money and no money meant no presents at Christmas or birthday time. I was eight and a country boy but I had figured out the elementary facts of life beyond why the bull was run with the cows.

“But, Dad, if we had no cows, we’d have no milk and if we have no milk, we get no money from the factory!”

“No,” said Dad. “We would have some milk and money because we would start again with new cows.”      

Dad then shot the cow, fair between the eyes, and a whole lot of blood gushed out. When it stopped gushing, it looked like the cow had three eyes.

Eleven years later, I joined the New Zealand Police. I stayed for 21 years and it took me many more years after that before I began to see that blind loyalty to your mates is no more sensible than letting a sick cow go on suffering.

Eventually, you have to muster the courage to do the right thing, or say what needs to be said about what is wrong in an organisation, however painful and difficult, and sometimes dangerous, that might be.

This is necessary even when you want to believe – as I did for a long time – that the NZ Police are sacrosanct.

 

Ross Meurant is a former NZ Member of Parliament and before that, an inspector in the police in charge of the Auckland criminal intelligence and VIP security unit.  He is the Honorary Consul for Morocco.

Ross is an international businessman and entrepreneur.

In New Zealand he is trustee and managing director of absentee Russian owned forestry and commercial property.

From 2004 he lived and worked in Zimbabwe, Russia, Czech Republic, Thailand and the Balkans.

Since 2005 Ross has established business interests in aqua culture and fisheries development – from Morocco to Syria: U.A.E and North Korea.

In 2015 Ross was prime speaker on sustainable fisheries as guest of the Moroccan government at CRANZ Montana ‘Sustainable Resources: Africa’ conference, and an official guest at the 2017 forum.

A former Member of Parliament (1987–1996) and Member and the Executive Council of New Zealand in the National government, Ross was Under Secretary (junior minister) Agriculture & Forestry; Cabinet Committee Industry & Commerce & Chair Select Committee Fisheries.

Subsequent to parliament, he owned equestrian facilities; was elected to local government as a councillor; consulted to several major fishing companies, was engaged by parliamentary services as adviser to Rt. Hon Winston Peters and emerged as a key figure in the Scampi Affair, which falsely alleged political corruption.

Prior to entering parliament, Ross had been 21 years in the police.  Service included: detective on Regional Crime Squad and Drug Squad; 5 years Armed Offenders Squad, second in command of the infamous Red Squad, and commissioned officer in charge of police spies i.e. Criminal Intelligence Section and V.I.P. Security.

Ross has a bachelor degree in politics and management, a master’s degree in economics, statistics, law and policy and C.O.P’s in law.

In 2016 Ross was appointed Honorary Consul for the Kingdom of Morocco.