Genteel city famous for bizarre crimes

Melanie Lynskey (left) as Pauline Parker and Kate Winslet as Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's <i>Heavenly Creatures</i>. Photo / Supplied

When criminologist Greg Newbold moved to Christchurch from Auckland in 1988, his mother warned him the city was "full of nuts".

More than 20 years on, a seemingly endless series of horrific high-profile crimes has done nothing to dispel the widespread image of a genteel English city with a nasty, seedy underbelly.

The latest episode is the discovery of two slain women buried under a Christchurch house. Jason Paul Somerville, 33, has been charged with their murders.

"The perception of Christchurch by a lot of other people in New Zealand is that there is a lot of nutty people here and a lot of flaky things happen," Associate Professor Newbold told the Weekend Herald.

"And that's possibly because of the high profile that some of these kinds of crimes get.

Just as Auckland has a certain perception that there's a lot of violent and gang crime, Christchurch is perceived by a lot of people, particularly in the North Island, as being a place where some weird things happen."

The bizarre history of violent crime in Christchurch can be traced back as far as June 22, 1954, when teenagers Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme lured Parker's mother to Victoria Park, and bludgeoned her to death with a half a brick in a sock.

The crime was later immortalised in the Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures.

Professor Newbold said it was difficult to explain why such terrible crimes seemed to happen in Christchurch.

"To some extent Christchurch is ... a big town with a small town mentality, and a lot of the things that happen here are the kind of things that happen in small towns - the strange things that happen in small towns, with different kinds of intrigues and tensions and pressures.

"Christchurch is still the little brother of Auckland really. And the criminals down here ... aren't anywhere near as sophisticated as the criminals of Auckland."

As both Professor Newbold and police point out, some of the worst Christchurch crimes have involved people originally from the North Island.

Police and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker argue that the series of high-profile crimes is not a fair reflection on the city, which they say is no more violent than any other urban centre. And a statistical snapshot seems to back their claim.

Last year, the Canterbury district had a recorded violent crime rate of 94.5 incidents per 10,000 population, compared with 125.1 in the Auckland district, 131.2 in the Wellington district, and 140.4 nationwide.

Mayor Parker said: "I do know that the perception of violent crime in our city is not reflected in the official police statistics."

HORRIFIC CANTERBURY TALES

August 1995 - Pregnant mother Angela Blackmoore is stabbed more than 39 times while her 2-year-old son, Dillon, sleeps nearby. The case remains unsolved.

December 2005 - A Christchurch prostitute is partially strangled, bound and raped before being repeatedly run over by a car driven by Peter Steven Waihape. A judge sentencing Waihape to an open-ended jail term said it "couldn't get much worse".

September 2006 - Christchurch woman Ariana Burgess, 24, is stabbed to death by her former partner in her car while her 2-year-old daughter is in the back seat. Tony Brian Norman must serve at least 15 years in prison.

November 2006 - Bonny McIntyre, 16, murders her mother by repeatedly hitting her on the head, neck and shoulders with a log-splitter axe. She must serve at least 10 years in prison.

December 2008 - Prostitute Mellory Manning is strangled, stabbed numerous times and beaten with a weapon similar to a piece of reinforcing steel before being thrown in Christchurch's Avon River - a level of violence which shocks even police.

April 2008 - Schoolgirl Marie Davis, 15, is raped and murdered by Dean Stewart Cameron, before being dumped in the Waimakariri River, north of Christchurch.