Phone Scams: It CAN happen to you!!

I was lying in bed reading the other night when my Facebook messenger app dinged at me.  It turned out to be a message from a friend, who had a story to tell me, a story of how a perfectly normal, intelligent person can be taken in by a sophisticated phone scam.

My friend's partner had received a phone call from someone claiming to be from the Inland Revenue Department (for you non-Kiwis, that's New Zealand's tax department).  This person used a combination of pop-psychology and an escalating series of threats to scam three thousand dollars in gifted iTune vouchers.

As my friend put it "It sounds like a silly thing to do," but if you think you couldn't be fooled by these people, think again. My friend's partner is intelligent, educated, not gullible or a "sucker." The tactics these scammers use are clever and sophisticated, they break people down and manipulate their responses. You CAN be fooled, you CAN be sucked in by these scams! The best way to avoid this happening to you is to be fully informed about the way these scams are run, and the ways in which you can protect yourself and identify possible scammers before they put you out of pocket.

Phone scammers will often have a number of personal details, which makes their calls seem more legitimate. Don't be fooled! This is the internet age and sadly, personal details aren't that difficult to come by if you know how to find that kind of information.

You may be given a phone number to call with either a Wellington prefix (04) or an Auckland prefix (09). Don't be fooled! If the caller is claiming to be from a government department, remember that most government departments have free 0800 numbers which you can call. Hang up the phone, look up the correct number for the department the caller is claiming to represent and call it to verify what they are telling you.

These scammers are very aggressive, and may make threats in an attempt to keep you on the line, or call back with various threats if you hang up on them. DON'T fall for these tactics!! The kinds of threats these scammers commonly use include threats of deportation for foreign nationals, and threats of police involvement and possible prison time. While they have you on the phone, feeling stressed and anxious about your situation, it's easy to force you to take the next step and pay out in an effort to avoid further legal action. But if you remain calm and think logically, the threats really don't hold up to close scrutiny.

Lets look at two of the most common threats being used in this latest phone scam; deportation and tax evasion charges.

Deportation is a threat that's used by scammers against foreign nationals living and working here in New Zealand, and this latest scam has targeted a number of Indian nationals. But deportation isn't something that just happens out of the blue for people who are here on legitimate visas and are not overstayers. NZ Immigration assess each individual situation, which takes time, and potential deportees have rights, including the right to appeal any decision made by NZ Immigration.

If someone calls you claiming to be from NZ Immigration and threatening you with deportation unless you pay a sum of money immediately, THIS IS A SCAM! Hang up immediately and call the police.

What about the threat of criminal charges for unpaid tax? I copied this directly from Inland Revenue's website...

"We will only take legal action when all other efforts to secure payment of the overdue tax have failed."

There are three stages which Inland Revenue goes through to collect overdue taxes.  The first is to contact you by letter, notifying you that you have unpaid taxes, and giving details of the amount, any penalties and interest that has accrued, and with a payment slip included.  This letter will also give you the phone number to call to discuss your debts and explore payment options.

Stage two is making repayment applications to your employer, bank or a third party debt collection agency, such as Baycorp.  These applications may result in payments being deducted directly from your wages, and again, you will be notified of any deductions by your bank or your employer as well as by IRD.  If the debt is sent to a third party, such as a collection agency, they will contact you to discuss payment options and will be able to provide you with proper paperwork from Inland Revenue, proving that they are an authorised collection agency, acting on IRD's behalf.  

If you are contacted by a debt collector who cannot or will not provide this proof, DO NOT pay them any money!  Contact IRD immediately and verify that the debt collector is a legitimate debt recovery agent acting on IRD's behalf.  

Only after both of these stages have fully being utilised will IRD engage in legal action, and even then, this is extremely unlikely to result in any kind of prison sentence.  The most common outcome of legal action from Inland Revenue is bankruptcy and liquidation of any assets to recover debt, not a criminal conviction or sentence.  Unless you're engaging in thousands, or even millions, of dollars worth of white collar fraud, then you're screwed and phone scams are probably the least of your problems.  LOL.

As I've mentioned previously, this particular scam is just the latest incarnation of something that's been happening since not long after Alexander Graham Bell first invented the phone. I don't have the time or bandwidth to go through every single scam you may be targeted by, but you can continue to educate yourself by using the Scamwatch website to learn about the latest scams and how you may be targeted. And follow this simple rule...

DO NOT make any kind of payment based on threatening or coercive phonecalls, texts or emails, and DO NOT give out your passwords or banking details!

If you have been victimised by a phone scam (or any other kind of scam), call the police immediately and report it. Call your bank as well and see what they can do to reverse any payments. Finally, report the scam to Scamwatch and use the "Been Scammed" section to explore your options..

Scamwatch

Reported Scam Alerts - Department of Internal Affairs

NZ Police Scam and Fraud advice

The Lone Juror: How Awareness of Wrongful Convictions is (finally) Making a Difference

Etan Patz 1979 Missing Poster

In 1979, bus stops, telephone poles and shop windows of Soho, New York were plastered with posters about a blond, blue-eyed little boy with a cheeky grin and a love of matchbox cars.  Etan Patz, was the first missing child to be featured on milk cartons.  His parents helped to spearhead a movement that changed the way that law enforcement and the public approached missing child cases.  The day of Etan's disappearance, May 25, 1979, was designated National Missing Children's Day in the United States in 1983, and in 2001, that tribute spread worldwide.   Sadly, despite all the monumental changes that came about because of him, 6-year-old Etan was never found.

But in 2012, NYPD announced an arrest in the cold case, a 51 year old resident of New Jersey named Pedro Hernandez, who was picked up after his estranged brother called in a tip, saying that Hernandez had "done something bad."  

Pedro Hernandez had been just 18-years-old in 1979.  He was working at a bodega in the neighbourhood where Etan and his parents lived (for the Kiwi readers, a bodega is basically a corner dairy).  May 25th was a Friday, and a very special day for Etan because, for the very first time, he was going to walk to the bus stop to catch the school bus all by himself.  Etan's parents had given him a dollar note and he'd told his mother that he planned to stop and buy a soda to have with his school lunch at the bodega, which was on the way to the bus stop.

Pedro Hernandez told detectives that Etan had entered the bodega that morning and that he, Hernandez, had strangled Etan and dumped his body in the garbage at the back of the store.

For the NYPD it was case closed, they had a confession and they were headed for trial.  But for one of the jurors, what came out during the course of that trial made him very alarmed about the strength of the State's case.

There was no physical evidence tying Hernandez to the case, which is not surprising since Etan's remains have never been found, and no crime scene has ever been identified.  That bodega where Hernandez worked in 1979 is long gone, bulldozed to make way for upmarket Soho apartments.  But a lack of physical evidence doesn't necessarily mean that a case can't be made. Circumstantial cases are common, we've just seen a perfect example of this in the New Zealand courts, in the case of Ashburton WINZ shooter, Russell John Tully.  The Crown's case against him was solid, but also largely comprised of circumstantial evidence.

But in the case against Hernandez, the circumstantial evidence was very problematic, and seemed to consist largely of rumour and hearsay.  There were claims that Hernandez had confessed to his church congregation in the 1980s, yet not one member of that congregation ever came forward until after Hernandez was arrested in 2012.  His siblings claimed that it was an "open secret" in the family, that Hernandez had murdered someone, yet they never came forward with this information until 33 years after Etan's disappearance.  

As for that confession....Hernandez confessed after seven hours of interrogation, most of which was not video taped despite the fact that it is mandatory practice for NYPD to tape all interviews.  Oh, and one more thing, Pedro Hernandez has a long history of mental illness, has been diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder, and has an I.Q of 70, which is borderline intellectually disabled.

Sound familiar? *cough*BrendanDassey*cough*

But, thankfully, there is a hero in this version of the #MakingAMurderer story, and that hero is Adam C. Sirois, the lone juror who refused to find Hernandez guilty, despite the fact that 11 fellow jurors all voted to convict, forcing a mistrial .  In subsequent interviews, Sirois has stated that he could not, in good consistence, find Hernandez guilty based on the State's evidence, and that the confession, to him, had all the earmarks of a false confession similar to that of Brendan Dassey.  Sirois make's no secret of the fact that watching Making a Murderer influenced his decision to deadlock the jury and I believe he did the right thing.

I don't know if Pedro Hernandez killed Etan Patz, I'm inclined to think he probably didn't but I don't know that for certain.  What I do know is interrogating a severely mentally challenged, mentally ill man for seven hours is unethical and reprehensible on the part of the officers involved!

After Making a Murderer, Serial, Undisclosed and the Adnan Syed case, and the flood of wrongful conviction horror stories, especially those based on false confessions, there is NO excuse for any law enforcement officer to engage in this kind of conduct.  This isn't just about a fair trial for defendants either, this is about the victims and their families, who are owed a thorough, above-board investigation and prosecution of the person or persons who victimised them.  

If Pedro Hernandez really did kill Etan Patz, NYPD owed it to Etan and to his parents to do the right thing, instead of engaging in blatant misconduct, the result of which was a mistrial.  If Pedro Hernandez really did kill Etan Patz and he gets away with it, that's on you NYPD, that is on you.

I called hold-out Juror, Adam Sirois, a hero.  The reason I call him that isn't because he freed Pedro Hernandez, a possible child murderer, because as I said, I don't know if Hernandez is guilty or innocent.  I called him a hero because he saw flaws in the State's case, and questionable conduct from police and he stood his ground, after enduring four months of trial testimony and 18 days of intense pressure from 11 people who all wanted to vote guilty and get the hell out of there.  Pressure from fellow jurors has led to convictions before, and to aquittals - including in the high-profile and highly controversial aquittal of four LAPD officers in the Rodney King beating.  

This man stood his ground, and in doing so, gave the State a do-over.  The mistrial means that they can re-investigate, find more evidence and retry the case, if they choose to.  The mistrial means that if Hernandez really is guilty, justice can still be done for Etan Patz.  

Judge Declares Mistrial in Etan Patz case - NYTimes

Juror Split Continues Outside Court - NYTimes

Lone Juror Speaks Out - CNN

Jury Coercion and Peer Pressure - NYTimes

I'm raising money so I can go and visit my daughter, and my beloved fur-babies can stay in a super-nice cattery while I'm away, and be pampered like the small gods they are! Please donate, I really appreciate every dollar and it really helps cos I'm a poor student!!

Holiday Fund!!

Please Help Me Fundraise!!

When I'm not spending my time researching, posting and blogging about crimes from New zealand and around the world, I'm busy with my studies. I am currently completely a Diploma in Mental Health Support Work. Because of this, I haven't seen my daughter, who lives with her grandparents in another city, in months. She'd really like for me to come and stay for a bit, and I would love that too. But it's not easy to make ends meet on a student allowance, and I have two cats as well, and nobody to look after them while I'm gone. As a result, I'm crowdfunding to try and raise the money and I would really appreciate everyone's kindess and generosity so I can go and spend some quality time with my girl!!

The History of Crime: Animal Trials

In the modern age, most judicial systems recognise that animals cannot be held responsible for "crimes" because they lack the cognitive ability, and the moral agency, to tell right from wrong. But this wasn't always the case.

In the Middle Ages, animals were routinely subjected to the same criminal charges, and proceedings, as humans. In fact, criminal trials against animals were considered perfectly normal, and were conducted right up into the 18th century. The podcast Criminal covered one such case from the 1400s, in their very first episode. This rather famous animal trial featured a pig, who was tried for the murder and mutilation of an infant. The pig was found guilty, and sentenced to death by hanging.

Pigs were common defendants in medieval animal trials, mainly due to different way in which livestock were kept at the time. When we think of farm animals, we think of large herds contained by acres of a fencing, but in the Middle Ages, the number of animals being farmed were much smaller. Most peasant families owned one or two animals - a pig, a couple of chickens and maybe a goat or a cow for milking - and these animals were largely free roaming.  

More often than not, the victims of animal "homicide" were children, because the living conditions of the time bought them into close, regular contact with livestock. Medieval children, unless they were members of the aristocracy, were not educated, so they were not in school during the day. They were put to work from the moment they were of an age and size to do so, usually in the same fields as their parents. When not working, they were playing in the muddy streets, right alongside all the roaming farm animals. Deaths due to frightened or enraged animals encountering small children were fairly common, especially as what would be considered a minor injury today, would be life-threatening in medieval times. In a society where hygiene is non-existant and antibiotics haven't been discovered yet, an open wound, however small, can be a death sentence.

But trying animals for the death or injury of humans wasn't the only type of animal trial, there were also the religious trials. The Middle Ages were an era of Biblical literalism, and of witch trials, where the Roman Catholic Church was systematically stamping out "the competition" - paganism, midwifery, herbalists and other traditional forms of folk medicine. Part of that campaign included demonising certain animals, as the demonic familiars of witches. Black cats are the most obvious candidate, but they were by no means the only targets of the astute witch hunter. Cats of any colour were fair game, as were dogs, certain types of birds, rats, and insects.

One particular case, recorded by the infamous Witch-finder General, Matthew Hopkins, is that of Jane Wallis of Huntingdonshire, East Anglia. According to Hopkins, Jane Wallis had two familiars who went by the names Grizzel and Greediguts. In her confession (obtained by torture, of course), Wallis claimed that the familiars could take almost any form, but appeared most often as greyhounds with a bristle of hog hair running down their backs. She also confessed to suckling these creatures from her "Witch's marks." These marks, also called Witch's teats, were believed to be a permanent mark that the Devil placed upon the body of an initiate witch, as a visible sign of her compact with the malignant forces. These marks were most often described as being wart-like in appearance, the origin of the modern caricature of the witch with the wart on her nose that we see in popular culture.

In reality, these witch's teats were actually real warts, scars or birthmarks, marks that the person who possessed them had no control over, but were enough to condemn them.

Another common type of animal trial, while less likely to end in the cruel and unnecessary death of an innocent creature, is every bit as disturbing as the other examples I've discussed in this post. In fact, it's a little bit more disturbing on some levels. These are trials for beastiality, which was apparently a lot more common than I am remotely comfortable even thinking about. The reason I say that these trials where less likely to end with the execution of the animal is because, in many of these cases, the animals were recognised as the "victims" of men with unnatural urges.

In case you weren't disturbed enough already, I'd just like to point out that it appears that animals had more rights over their bodies than most women at this stage in history. God, that's depressing.

But, back to the unnatural urges. Defendants in these trials usually tried to claim that the animal had "seduced them" in some way, but, according to historical records, it seems judges generally rejected these claims on the basis that animals weren't capable of consent, nor of seducing anybody. The accused beast-lovers were usually put to death, and the animals given a reprieve, probably on the grounds that killing them was a waste, because nobody wanted to eat sausages made from the pig that Billy Bob had his dick in last week.

By the 1800s, animal trials were nowhere near as common as they had been in the Middle Ages, but they still occurred from time to time, and there are even a few well-known examples of animal trials from the early 20th century. The most notable being a circus elephant which was put on trial, and hanged, for killing it's trainer. In fact, while researching this subject, I even found a case from 2008. That's right, a 21st Century animal trial...sort of. The trial occurred in Macedonia, where a wild bear was accused of stealing honey from a local beekeeper's hives. The bear was found guilty, but since no-one wanted to even attempt to extract damages from a wild bear, the park's service was given a hefty fine instead.

I think this is where I'm supposed to make some kind of bad joke about pic-a-nic baskets or something.

URGENT MISSING PERSONS ALERT!

Wellington Police are appealing for help to find 20-year-old Caitlyn Bird, who has been reported missing by her family.

She was last seen in Glover Park, Wellington, on Monday 9 May, 2016. She has not been missing before and her family have concerns for her safety.

Caitlyn is 178cm tall, with mid-length brown hair, hazel eyes, and a distinctive American accent. When she was last seen, she was wearing dark jeans, a black raincoat and a heavy, men’s brown and white checked outdoor shirt.  

Anyone who may have seen Caitlyn or have information on her whereabouts is asked to contact Wellington Police on (04) 381 2000 or, after hours, Emergency 111 and ask for Police.

The following is an open letter to all New Zealanders, from Antonio Gotingco, husband of murdered Auckland woman, Blessie Gotingco.  For those not already familiar with the story, Blessie's death was horrific; she was run down with a car, brutally raped, murdered, and her body dumped in a South Auckland cemetary.  Her murderer, Tony Robertson, was a convicted child molester, who had only recently been paroled.  The Corrections Department were so concerned about Robertson's risk of reoffending, that prior to his release, they had applied to the High Court, and been granted, extended supervision orders, including electronic monitoring.   Robertson was to wear a GPS ankle bracelet, had a 8pm - 6am curfew, and only live at an approved address.  He was also to stay away from any parks or other areas children are likely to frequent.  In the months leading up to Blessie's murder, Robertson was arrested and appeared in court three times for breaching his release conditions.  Despite these breaches, he was not sent back to prison.  Robertson also attended two more court hearings, brought by the Corrections Department, asking for further extensions of the supervision orders.  These further extensions were granted, so the question is, why did none of these provisions save the life of Blessie Gotingco?  Just this week, a governmental inquiry found that neither NZ Corrections, nor the NZ Police was responsible in any way, for Blessie's death.  Her husband disagrees, and would like to see these authorities be held to account for a crime that should not have happened, and could have been prevented.  

"To My Fellow New Zealanders: We stand for Blessie -- a beloved wife, mother and grandmother to us her family. She is also a daughter, sister, aunt, friend, co-worker, colleague and a fellow New Zealander to the rest of us.

Blessie and I and our three children left our family home in the Philippines and moved to New Zealand in 2004, confident that our adopted country was a safe and beautiful place to live in. We settled on the North Shore of Auckland, believing it was an ideal place to raise a family and lead a happy comfortable life. We were so wrong.

 We lost our beautiful Blessie at the hands of an evil person who was supposed to be under strict monitoring in the community by authorities to whom we have entrusted our lives for protection. The Government, particularly the Department of Corrections has given a new meaning to ineptitude and stupidity. The Government sounded the death knell for Blessie by failing miserably to deliver the primary role of governance which is to ensure its citizens are safe and secure from the scum of society. Its decision to put a sadistic, unreformed criminal in our neighbourhood sealed the fate of our much-loved Blessie. It was like putting a snake in a hen house.

The Corrections Department knew all along based on their records that this monster would reoffend and yet it did not lift a finger even when public safety was sure to be compromised. Highlighting their ineptness, this pure and unadulterated evil was never properly monitored to stop him from committing this very heinous crime. The department knew all along that it would just be a matter of time before he committed another crime. And yet they continue to add insult to our injury by claiming that they have exceeded standards in their management of this hardened criminal. For us, hearing these pronouncements is like rubbing salt to our raw wounds. What has happened is very unchristian. How can this dastardly act happen in a country supposedly founded and built on Christian values?

It is of public record how our beloved Blessie was brutally taken from us. What has happened to us is the worst that can happen to any family. While it is our fervent hope that no other family will experience the horror and tragedy that we have gone through, there is no guarantee unless we get our acts together and push for relevant changes in the Corrections Department and the so called justice system as a whole.

We are now facing the biggest challenge of our life by considering filing a civil case against the Department of Corrections for the wrongful death of my wife, our beloved Blessie. It's tough enough, and the Government is not providing us with legal assistance -- a sad irony considering that they are all too happy paying for the legal expenses of Blessie's murderer. In fact, the Government has been overly generous in accommodating this criminal, with sky’s the limit to all his extravagant legal spending.

We are hoping that the good people of New Zealand will once again stand with us by donating towards our costs. We are going to undertake our own review of the mismanagement/non-monitoring of "evil" which enabled him to take our Blessie. We our counting on your help, even if it is only $1, it will help us expose the sham that is the management of sex offenders in New Zealand. We need to put a stop to this vicious cycle of ineptness and stupidity in the justice system. We firmly believe that a civil case against the Department of Corrections is our only option and a worthy course of action. Together let us show them the power to the people. Never again! We all deserve better.

Respectfully yours,

Antonio Gotingco"

Mr Gotingco has started a Givealittle page to raise funds for private litigation against NZ Corrections, please consider donating to his cause, because the system failed Blessie, and they need to recognise it and learn from it instead of denying all responsibility with a whitewash inquiry.

Blessie Gotingco's Family Consider Civil Suit - NZ Herald
Results of Tony Robertson Management Inquiry

A family affair: One family, two murders that shocked the nation.

 Moko Sayviah Rangitoheriri will forever be three years old, his cheeky grin in photographs a remnant of happier days, the days before he went to stay with his mother's friend Tania Shailer, and her boyfriend David Haewera.  Moko's mother had no idea, could never have imagined, the brutality that her "friend" Tania, and her partner, would inflict on the defenseless three-year-old boy with the cheeky grin.

Moko Rangitoheriri  

 Moko and his 8-year-old sister had been entrusted to Tania Shailer, a former early childhood teacher, by their mother, so she could remain with their older brother, who was in Starship hospital.  The family live in Taupo, and Starship is in Auckland, a 5-hour drive away, so it made sense to leave the other two children in good hands and stay in Auckland.  Shailer and the mother were friends, and Shailer's experience with young children made her the natural choice of caregiver for a worried mother who wanted to stay at the bedside of her sick child.


Warning: The following contains graphic descriptions of acts of violence perpetrated against an innocent child.  Please use discretion in choosing whether to read this segment of the post, as some readers may find it very upsetting.

Over the course of the two months which Moko and his sister, Aroha* spent with Shailer and Haewera, Moko was kicked, punched, thrown into walls,  dropped on the floor face first, slapped with a sandal, bitten and stomped on by two full-grown adults.  He had feces rubbed in his face, was denied food and water, and was not given any medical treatment, even though if likely would have saved his life, severe as his injuries were, if he'd been taken to hospital just a few days earlier.


When Moko was finally taken to Taupo Hospital and admitted to the intensive care unit, he was suffering from internal hemorrhaging, swelling of the brain and septic shock from a ruptured bowel.  His face was badly swollen, and every inch of his tiny body was covered in bruises, abrasions and human bite marks.  

As if that wasn't heartbreaking enough, Moko had been in that condition for four days before the people responsible bothered to take him to hospital.  When Moko died, his tiny body was so damaged by the vicious attacks he'd endured, that he was barely recognisable to his own mother and aunt, when they went to identify him in the morgue.

At this point, you might be thinking that this awful tragedy couldn't get any worse, but you'd be wrong about that.  It can, and it did.  Because Moko's sister, only 7-years-old at the time, was forced to witness the malicious acts of violence that Shailer and Haewera perpetrated on her little brother.  Aroha tried to protect him as much as she was able to, but what hope does a 7-year-old have of defending against two adults?  

Moko's brave sister hid him in a closet so he wouldn't be beaten, she tried to sneak food and water to him, and was punished herself for doing so.  Aroha wanted desperately to tell someone what was happening, but Shailer and Haewera told her that they would kill her mother if she said anything.  She was afraid to go to school each day because she was worried about what the couple might do to Moko while she wasn't there.

And the final, most aggregious act perpetrated by this pair of oxygen bandits...during Moko's last beating, before he died, Shailer and Haewera forced Aroha to join in.  They made her kick her terribly injured little brother, and after he died, told her that it was her actions that had killed him.

There are no words that can express the horror and anger that I feel just writing about this, as well as the incredible sympathy and heartbreak for Aroha and what she must be going through.  I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in the devil or anything like that, but I do believe that what these two people did to Moko and his sister was pure, unadulterated evil.  

Moko died a slow, agonising death, murdered in cold blood over an eight week period at the hands of Tania Shailer and David Haewera.  But if you're reading Moko's story for the first time, and hoping that Shailer and Haewera were punished with the full force of the law, I'm sorry to have to disappoint you.

Last week, these baby-killers were given a downgraded charge of manslaughter in exchange for a guilty plea.  They will reappear for sentencing in the Rotorua High Court on June 27th, and we can only hope, will be given the harshest possible sentence by the judge.  If I am able to arrange it, I fully intend to be there outside that court for the sentencing, sign in hand, to highlight the grave injustice of letting these vicious scumbags away with manslaughter.

Tania Shailer and David Haewera systematically tortured and beat that little boy over the course of 60 days, until his body was so damaged that it could no longer sustain life.  That's not manslaughter, that's murder!  These people are murderers.  They are vicious killers and they should never be allowed to walk the streets again or come within 5 feet of a child for the rest of their lives!

Now we come to the latest tragic twist in this case.  Since the court case has finished, the media have been allowed to reveal that David Haewera is a close relative of Ben Haewera, another convicted child killer.  Ben Haewera was sentenced to 12 years in prison for beating his 5-year-old stepson, James Whakaruru, to death in 1999, and there are a number of frightening similarities in how James and Moko died.  

James Whakaruru

Ben Haewera had been abusing little James for years, yet nothing had been done, despite the fact that Ben had already served nine months in prison for abusing James when he was just 2-years-old.  After James died and Ben Haewera was convicted, the country was shocked and outraged to learn the full extent of the abuse James suffered, and just how badly authorities had dropped the ball and failed to save his life.

James' mother and step-father, as well as relatives on both sides of his family had come to the attention of child welfare and youth justice organisations on numerous occasions.  James had been admitted to Accident & Emergency many times, with serious injuries, but doctors who treated him failed to recognise the ongoing abuse.  Neighbours and friends of the family knew what was going on but all assumed that "somebody else" would do something about it.  Everyone in James' life failed him on some level, right up to his death.

Like Moko, James endured sustained, regular physical abuse over a long period of time, until his ravaged body could not take any more abuse.  The details of what James suffered at the hands of his step-father are just as sickening as the abuse suffered by Moko Rangitoheriri, so I will not go over those details.  I will include links to some of the many news articles covering the case, so that those who wish to can learn more about James' life and tragic death.

James Whakaruru could have been saved, had people paid attention and stepped up and done something instead of turning a blind eye, or assuming that someone else would take care of it.  Moko's death can't be blamed on the system failing him, because the system had no involvement, and no one knew or even suspected what was happening to Moko until it was too late.  However, both Tania Shailer and David Haewera have attempted to mitigate their guilt by claiming that they weren't coping with having Moko and Aroha to care for, as well as their own four children.  I don't know if that's true, but if there's any grain of truth in that claim,  all they needed to do was speak up and ask for help.

New Zealand's death toll of abused children just keeps on rising, and we, as a country, are not doing nearly enough to stem that tide.  By allowing Moko's murderers to plead to manslaughter, we send a message to every child abuser that they won't be punished to the full extent of the law, that we don't care enough about this nation's children to put their abusers away for a long, long time.

But this isn't about punitive sentencing, because sentencing only comes after a child has died.  We have to do more to stop violence in the home before it's too late.  We have to do more to combat the things that fuel family violence, like poverty and addictions.  Only when we work to mitigate all of the contributing factors in family violence will we start saving more children from a violent death.

There is a forum on Facebook for people who want to express their anger and frustration over Moko's tragic death and the heinous plea deal given to his killers.  There is a rally planned for the 27th of June, outside the Rotorua High Court, to coincide with the sentencing of Tania Shailer and David Haewera, please consider coming along and showing your support.  You can find all the relevant information at Justice For Moko.

LINKS

Killed by his carers: Moko's last days - NZ Herald
Inquest to be held in toddler's death - NZ Herald
Now who will march for Moko? - Stuff.co.nz
Carer forced sister to deliver final blow to Moko - Stuff.co.nz
Child's road to a lonely, brutal death - NZ Herald
James Whakaruru killer in trouble again - Newshub
James Whakaruru Report - For Our Children