Kerre Woodham: Justice lost in legal system

Gregory Meads was convicted of murder. Photo / Christine Cornege

This has been another week where our legal system has failed to deliver justice.

Perhaps Simon Power's position within Cabinet should be renamed Legal Minister because far too often justice has nothing to do with the court process.

The first case that got under my skin was the Gregory Meads murder trial.

The prominent Matamata horse trainer shot his vivacious, attractive wife at point-blank range because she was leaving him.

His lawyer, Murray McKechnie, said his client never intended to kill his wife.

He had made a foolish decision to take a loaded gun into the stables to confront his wife over why she was leaving their 12-year marriage - and the gun had gone off accidentally as she walked past him.

If it wasn't so tragic, there'd be a bloody Tui billboard in it.

Meads and his lawyer portrayed the marriage as being a happy and loving one, one with ups and downs certainly, but nonetheless one for life.

His lawyer attempted to paint his client as a man blindsided and distraught because his wife had arbitrarily decided to leave her husband.

I don't know how Meads can sleep at night.

The jury didn't buy the defence bulldust for a second and returned a verdict of guilty and it was only then that it was revealed, a little more than a year ago, Meads had beaten his wife so badly he crushed her larynx.

She was left bruised and bloodied and her parents were so concerned about her safety that they moved to a farm cottage next door to support her.

When news of her daughter's death was delivered to her mother, Pam White's first response was relief "the bastard can't harm her any more".

How is it this information was not presented in court? Same man, same woman, same relationship.

I can accept at a pinch if Meads had attacked a different woman, it might be considered prejudicial to disclose that at a trial for the murder of another. But beating his wife had everything to do with her murder.

The lack of information for the jury appeared to go unchallenged in court.

The defence team has to do the best for their client - but what was said seems plain wrong.

Hard on the heels of that travesty came another - the Staranise Waru inquest.

Staranise is yet another New Zealand baby to be killed by one who was supposed to care for her and whose death will go unpunished.

Staranise died in Christchurch Hospital in 2006 after being admitted with swelling on the brain, oxygen deprivation, spinal cord damage and bruising to the head.

She was a classic shaken baby but nobody has been charged with her death.

Her mother and father - in biological name only - were interviewed by police but declined to be reinterviewed on legal advice.

The coroner this week declared the perpetrator of the injuries was either the father or the mother but again, at the inquest, Nyree Hopa and Robert Waru declined to answer questions.

How can this be so? How can these two woeful wastes of oxygen be allowed to get away with it? What about invoking the "failing to provide the necessaries of life charge"?

Why is it journalists can be charged with contempt of court for failing to give their sources and people don't have to cough up the name of a killer?

There is nothing just about our legal system and, until mute baby murderers are made to account for their crimes, there never will be.