I am the last person to defend Police, but the Jamie Foster case really is different
A Kiwi influencer and owner of Ponsonby’s The Diamond Shop has opened up for the first time about her relationship with a former police officer jailed for raping his colleague.
Sera Cruickshank spoke exclusively to Society Insider about the backlash she has faced since going public with her relationship with fiance Jamie Foster.
The pair have hired top private investigator Tim McKinnel, who is now preparing an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in an attempt to overturn Foster’s conviction.
Cruickshank, who has two children from her first marriage, says she researched the case herself and believes her husband-to-be, who has one child, is innocent. They hired McKinnel in an attempt to clear his name.
“It’s for our children, for me, and for his family,” she says.
Foster was convicted in 2020 of indecently assaulting and sexually violating a colleague at a motel in Northland, after they had been assigned to help with Waitangi Day events at the Treaty Grounds in 2019.
Foster served two years of a six-year sentence and was released on electronically monitored parole in March 2022.
Tim McKinnel, who was instrumental in helping overturn the murder convictions of Teina Pora and Alan Hall, says his investigation firm Zavest is preparing an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and another recall application to the court.
McKinnel tells Society Insider that after some initial hesitation, in part because consent cases are so fraught, Zavést agreed to look at the case.
“After our preliminary review of the police investigation and trial, it is fair to say we have identified some concerning elements, and we think Jamie’s case warrants a much closer look.”
He says the elements include whether the investigation was truly independent and objective, and whether all the relevant material was provided and disclosed to Foster and his defence team.
He says another area of interest is whether witnesses were able to speak frankly and freely to investigators in the case.
The Daily Blog has been following the Jamie Foster case since he was convicted of rape.
As everyone knows, TDB is no friend of the Police, but after investigating the case, it became obvious very quickly that the Police prosecution was deeply flawed and raised serious questions of impartiality.
There is an enormous amount regarding this investigation and the prosecution of it that points to a miscarriage of justice, which matters, even when the person on the receiving end of a miscarriage of justice is a cop.
I am the last person to defend Police, but the Jamie Foster case really is different
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Cops commit crimes regularly and after 2 years he gets put on EM is indicative of a system that biased because if Maori were sentenced similarly EM wouldn’t be an option especially for indictable charges not suggesting that this guy doesn’t have a case for repeal just highlighting the different treatment regarding race, social status and support
Great points there Stephen. This guy has money and backing and white privilege behind him. A Pacifica factory worker from South Auckland convicted of the same crime, whether rightly or wrongly, would not be able to mount this sort of appeal and public campaign.
Stephen puts the case clearly – that the law is open to interpretation, justice is a lovesome thing! Julian A suffered much because of the differing attitudes adopted
by various players in his game
I wish we could come to terms with our sexual sides – for too long it has been either extolled as ecstasy, passionate longing, or as the opposite, to low, coarse, brutal, animalistic emotions that can bring disease. And religious and purist attitudes may seek to control it to suit some community plan, defer it altogether (USA humanitarian Upton Sinclair was one who considered it should be just for procreation). Yet on the other hand some consider sex as recreation, some as happily filling a need, or just as touching relief in extremis as in the book ‘Emergency Sex (And Other Desperate Measures’). This about being in UN peacekeeping operations over years 1990-2003; where knowing your (Condition) A from your E was a life-saving skill.
Even the attitudes of police to finding, bringing and proving any wrongdoers effectively and justly before a Court in an honest and fair system is a fraught matter. This from an Epilogue in the book ‘Fire Lover’ about a serial firelighter who was an experienced and well-considered fireman himself. He had got a ‘bug’ in his head about his activities and justified them; when discovered, refused to accept that he was a ‘serial’ fireraiser.
In the end, it seems that the most passionate investigators were not career law-enforcement officers, but firefighters. [Two who pursued the case had trained under this man and admired him greatly, and they became the ‘arson sleuths’.] Both…had brought something extra to the investigation : the zeal and drive to right the wrongs that one of their own had done. The cops from both task forces had never taken the investigation so personally as had the firefighters, – for after all, a cop is very different.
[Take note of this point from someone of note who knew all the details] : “Firefighters are cooperative obedient team players.They pull levers, turn valves, man the hose lines, rescue things. Cops look for trouble, make quick decisions, get in people’s faces, sometimes kill things. Firemen never really think like cops, Cops never really think like firemen.”
The cynicism of law-enforcement professionals had caused a great deal of anxiety
[to the two firefighters who followed the case and dug deeper for facts] – they ‘stubbornly followed their intuition as far as they could..’
Fire Lover a true story by Joseph Wambaugh 2002
Points made in the Epilogue above have relevance to what is playing out in general society and politics now in NZAO. Can we pick up on this, and carry it in our minds on our daily round?
Let’s be clear here, everyone.
White Privilege? Jamie Foster is Maori, of Ngti Porou descent, and has always been open about that.
The privileged comment also disturbs me. I recall reading articles where it clearly says ” His family are hard-working, everyday mainstream citizens? Where is the privilege in that?
I think the main takeaway is, if you have some sort of money behind you then justice has infinitely more chance of occurring. I think that would apply no matter what colour you are.
Cut the surprise Dave Matthews. There are a lot of people who have been pushed aside in NZAO from being mainstream citizens. They would tell you that they know they’re not regarded as ‘everyday mainstream citizens’, though they are working hard at just keeping going. But they don’t get a chance to be hard-working, plus on a secure and sufficient wage giving a satisfactory, settled life in the mainstream, (probably the -factory closed down or went overseas.)