And the police were saying sorry last week after a report labelled elements of their alleged anti-terrorist operation six years ago as "contrary to law, unjustified and unreasonable".
However, the Police Conduct Authority findings on the Urewera raids that saw the township ofRuatoki sealed off by armed officers seem like too little, too late.
One accepts that on October 15, 2007, police believed there was a credible terrorist threat and that some form of armed insurrection was just a haka away, but just how long did it take the top brass to realise they were probably dealing with a motley collection of blow-hard pig-hunters talking tough around a campfire in the bush?
The attempt to lay charges under terrorism legislation fell apart almost immediately; the trial date was put back and put back as prosecutors scrambled to stitch some kind of case together (as the editor of a newspaper covering Ruatoki, I was rung up in 2008 and asked if I would be a prosecution witness, with the trial scheduled for 2009); proceedings were dropped against 14 of the "Urewera 18" arrested around various parts of the country and charged with weapons' offences (one artist's paint solution was, apparently, a Molotov cocktail ingredient); and eventually - five years later - four people appeared in court on minor charges, two of them "peace freaks" and the other two scarcely deserving a custodial sentence for a victimless "crime".
The committal proceedings took place in an Auckland court, which meant the families and many supporters of the 18 faced the struggle of relocating and finding somewhere to live for the duration.
Not many of the Tuhoe people of Ruatoki can afford Auckland hotel prices.
