IN future columns, I plan to elaborate on my views on our failed mental health system, but that intention is overshadowed now by the fallout from the actions of Chester Borrows and Paula Bennett, disrupting peaceful legal protest and causing injury.
The matter, originally taken up by the police, may now involve questions to be resolved by higher authority regarding police conduct with respect to providing adequate material preparation for the prosecution of this case.
My reading of the trial of Chester Borrows led me to an understanding that I believed was fairly complete. He had been found not guilty by a judge of a charge of driving carelessly causing injury.
While I thought the process inevitably tainted by class bias, the outcome -- however I might disagree -- seemed within the usual parameters of our intrinsically flawed justice system.
Mr Borrows, himself, had called attention to those flaws with respect to race.
Reading now the comments of readers, especially those of Denise Lockett, a witness at the trial, I am forced to a more serious set of inferences and possible conclusions.
By their outrageous display of theatrics, Mr Borrows and especially Ms Bennett did themselves no credit by making a laughing stock out of a serious matter in which citizens engaged in legally sanctioned protest were injured as a result of Mr Borrows' decisions.
Ms Bennett's contention that she was afraid of being photographed with a dildo and that somehow her fears were the motivation for Mr Borrows' quaint chivalry, endangering the two women, was met with derision by the public prosecutor, whose scepticism was openly expressed.
That the protest of the Government's signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in the absence of meaningful consultation and citizen feedback was at the heart of the matter seemed, in my earlier understanding, to be a sufficient basis for the actions of the two women-victims.
One reader, in a letter citing the principle of personal responsibility, placed all of that weight on the two women, an argument that could equally be applied for a rapist who argues that his victim wore provocative clothing.
The full weight of responsibility must lie with the agent with the most power -- in this case Mr Borrows, driver of the 2000kg car.
However, Ms Lockett's letter (Chronicle, May 30) raises a much more serious issue.
If her statement is accurate, then two crimes were being committed in the process. She reports that the Crown prosecutor stated that he had not been given the file by the police until the day prior to trial and that, as a result, had not interviewed the two women victims/witnesses prior to the trial, connoting incomplete prosecutorial.
That contention speaks to a possible charge of obstruction of justice by the police.
The remainder of her letter contends that at trial Mr Borrows acknowledged his deliberate driving his car toward the protesters and failing to involve the police to move them given his and Ms Bennett's allegation that they believed themselves in danger -- from the threat of a possible thrown dildo.
These contentions require an examination of the case by the Attorney-General to determine whether the actions of the police in withholding the file until trial represents a case of obstruction of justice.
Ordinarily, one might go first to the Minister of Police. Of course, that happens to be Paula Bennett, and her presence in the vehicle may make her susceptible to a charge of accessory to a crime.
It is up to the Attorney-General to decide whether Mr Borrows, cleared of careless driving, should face a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.
Ms Lockett and Ms Treadwell, the victims in this matter, have every right to ask the Attorney-General to determine whether in this matter justice has been served.
Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
