KEY POINTS:
A woman who mysteriously disappeared from Wainuiomata Forest Park in 2005 may actually be a murder victim.
A little girl may have been kidnapped and killed by a man bent on revenge against her mother instead of wandering off and falling in a lake as first believed.
Both cases are being reinvestigated by police after TV2's Sensing Murder programme aired a reconstruction of the events and the show's psychics said they had contacted the spirits of the people involved.
The show uses three psychics, Sue Nicholson, Kevin Cruickshank and Deb Webber, who say they "speak" with spirits about unsolved murders or missing-person cases.
A recently released book about the show and with the same name aims to silence some of their critics who say the psychics must be given inside details about the cases.
It says the psychics are given no details about any of the cases and they are filmed continuously so it could be shown they did not have a chance to research the case.
However, Vicki Hyde from Sceptics NZ dismisses the show as "exploitainment".
"That's entertainment that exploits vulnerable people to make money for those involved."
She said any of the information gained from the readings the psychics did was "banal" and not anything new.
"I just find it really, really morally reprehensible, quite frankly."
People who turned to psychics for answers about missing or dead loved ones were simply desperate, Ms Hyde said.
"Who's more desperate than a mother with a missing child?"
She said if psychics had the abilities they claimed to have, police would be turning to them for every unsolved case they had. "There's a reason they don't."
Ms Hyde also criticised the police who have taken part in some of the episodes. She said it took away their credibility.
A spokeswoman for police national headquarters said the police strategy to be involved in the programme was based on the show's "objective to trigger actual or potential witness[es] that have not previously been spoken to by police to come forward".
The spokeswoman said that in order to solve crimes it was necessary police maintained an open mind and were amenable to looking at information from a variety of sources.
Police were unaware of any credible instance in New Zealand or elsewhere where clairvoyant information had led directly to the finding of a lost person or the solving of a murder, she said.
The show's producer, David Baldock, said for a case to get to court, physical evidence was needed and a psychic's information was not allowed as evidence.
Baldock accepted there had been no prosecutions, but said that was not the point of the show.
"The whole emphasis of the series is to get some kind of insight and closure for the families in terms of what's happened to their loved ones."
He hoped that people who knew concrete details about the cases the show covered would be courageous enough to pass the information to police.
"Everyone focuses on 'where's the court case?' but I'm focusing on where's the thorough investigation to ensure that every stone has been turned," Mr Baldock said.
There was no benefit or advantage for the police to fool the viewers and give the psychics information about the cases they were looking at.
"To be honest that is the absolute strength of the series. That's the gift and strength of what our psychics do."
He said he was constantly impressed at the detail and insight the psychics offered.
Sensing Murder psychic Sue Nicholson said she was always nervous before a show.
"It is hard going. You've got to come up with the goods, with what's expected of you.
"I'll go in there and I want to give 200 per cent, because it's the families I'm there for."
She said she saw herself as a "switchboard operator".
"The call comes in from the spirit and I listen to them and I hear, see and feel them. And so the thing is I can only give what they give me."
- NZPA
