Kate Hawkesby: Who says the mosque gunman deserves a 'fair' trial?

COMMENT: I find myself disagreeing with my husband – again. Surely that's part of any healthy marriage?

Anyway, Mr Hosking said yesterday that it was "madness" to think we could just upend the justice system and remove the right to a fair trial following Friday's horrific events. That the accused is entitled to a trial just like everyone else, because that is how the law works.

I disagree of course, I find it immensely frustrating that families will be put through more grief, agony and heartache - with potentially a long, drawn-out court trial.

They've already been put through so much, not only with the events of last Friday, but with having to wait so long for the bodies of their loved ones to be returned so that evidence can be gathered.

Why does anyone who rejects fairness so completely, still get to be part of a 'fair' system?

The accused is apparently being kept in an isolated part of the maximum security jail at Paremoremo, north of Auckland, which by all accounts is a dark and miserable place.

He's in isolation, he's banned from all media, visitors and any kind of contact or communication with the outside world – good.

It's upsetting we can't be trail blazers here and rewrite the way justice is served in this instance.

After all, we are facing a new normal. This is unprecedented for us as a country.
It's hard not to feel it, even though as psychologist Nigel Latta points out, "we weren't all attacked, only some of us were".

He says "it feels like we were... but this simply isn't true". At a symbolic level it might be, but "at that dreadfully real level we were not all attacked. This was an attack against the Muslim community".

Latta says the hard work lies ahead of us in terms of tackling casual racism, not being bystanders to barbs and passing comments, standing up, not standing back.

The other challenge for us right now is being able to get on with our lives. Everything sort of got put on hold after last Friday afternoon didn't it?

We are collectively shell shocked. It's hard to get past.

But I heard another expert saying yesterday that we must get back to some semblance of normality, we must go back to our exercising and our daily rituals, get proper sleep, we must ensure life goes on.

That's tough when we can't get past how it just won't feel the same again. Armed police outside mosques, heightened security at schools and campuses in Christchurch, streets becoming seas of flowers.

But as we edge closer to the end of another week, we have to get back to some kind of normal - otherwise we let him win.