Family seek privacy to celebrate Kahu's return

By PAULA OLIVER AND NZPA

The newly reunited family of baby Kahu yesterday retreated from the public eye.

After nine days of being at the centre of a police hunt and speculation, eight-month-old Kahu Durie is back to playing, sleeping, gurgling and being the centre of the attention for family and friends.

Her godmother, Georgina te Heuheu said the family now craved peace, rest and to be left alone to heal the scars of worry.

When she left the family house in Lower Hutt late on Monday, the day Kahu's adoptive parents, lawyer Donna Hall and High Court judge Eddie Durie, held a press conference to thank police and the country for her return, the baby was still lively and awake, even as others were tired.

"She was very awake and very nosy," said Mrs te Heuheu, a National MP.

Kahu Durie, who was snatched from her pram off a quiet Lower Hutt street but returned to her family after a police hunt eight days later, will visit whanau and friends, who had been keeping a vigil for her return.

As Kahu settled in yesterday, police were finishing scene examinations of the car they believe was used to abduct her and the Taumarunui house where she was discovered.

It was revealed that the blue Mitsubishi car that had eluded a police search for nine days had been hidden in a warehouse not far from the scene of the abduction.

The clues to finding it were sightings of the car near the Wainuiomata Hill - an area that is a maze of industrial buildings.

Police will not yet say how they believe Kahu got to Taumarunui.

More than 50 police are still assigned to the inquiry, although some have been released to work on the investigation into the murder of Lower Hutt woman Kate Alkema.

Amid public concern over two child kidnappings within a month, a Wellington security company head yesterday said he was still advising parents not to panic.

Trevor Morley, managing director of Morley Security and Investigations, said the two kidnappings were an aberration and people should not become obsessed with their children's security.

"We're going to become a nation of paranoids if we do that.

"These are blips on the radar screen of life and I don't think they indicate a sudden interest by New Zealand's criminal fraternity in kidnapping at all."

On April 9, a six-year-old Auckland boy was seized at knifepoint from his West Harbour home. He was released after an estimated $500,000 was dropped beside the Northwestern Motorway nearly two days later.

Two men were charged with the abduction.

Mr Morley said there was no evidence to suggest that the kidnapping of Kahu Durie, where a $3 million ransom was demanded, was prompted by the boy's kidnapping.

"There's no suggestion whatever that it was a copycat at all," he said.

Official records show that there were 161 kidnappings and abductions last year, but a police spokesman has said those figures included domestic and sexual crimes.

Detective Sergeant George Koria of the Auckland Asian Crime Squad earlier said there were one or two ransom kidnappings each year. Last year there were three to five.

Mr Morley said that he had never worked on a kidnapping case.

"Simply because the incidence of kidnapping is extremely rare, and certainly kidnapping for ransom.

"In most instances the ransom is never paid or if it is paid it is recovered because the offender is caught. It's not a profitable business to get into at all."

A 54-year-old Taumarunui man was arrested and charged on Monday with taking baby Kahu without consent for the intent of obtaining a ransom. Police say he is likely to face further charges.

The man, who has interim name suppression, will appear in court in Lower Hutt on Friday.

Full coverage: Baby Kahu kidnapping


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