Sports star's name suppression not backed by police

Sports star's name suppression not backed - New Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on Stuff.co.nz

It turns out that the police do not support name suppression for the sports star who is accused of rape.

A court official in Hamilton revealed that the intent of name suppression was to hide the sport the man played. But the Waikato Times published which team he played for, thus reducing the name suppression to no effect.

It seems like a murky case of contempt of court. Name suppression has its reasons; the presumption of innocence is more important to protect than naming anyone at all that is accused of crimes by anybody at all. The reputation of any man accused of rape is going to be tarnished.

It may also weaken the police case. Letting guilty rapists get away with it is an even worse outcome.

Swift justice for one and all - is the answer. It is not always helped by media speculation.

The media is there to report on the case after due process has occurred, not before.

Name Suppression, in name only

All Black in court on assault charge - New Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on Stuff.co.nz Just how many current internationally playing All Blacks come from Hamilton then? Like the "Celebrity drug trails" last year, name supression becomes a legal state of anonimity where the media pretend to hide identity. In this case, details of the case are just a little specific.

Rickard's right to Justice

It may not be fashionable to come to the defense of New Zealand's most senior police casuality. A forensic need to pursue historic cases that has arisen as the ability to examine ancient evidence acclerated lightyears ahead of where it was.

The Law is the Law - one of those trite sentiments that justifies the brute application of law. The law is not a "Natural Law" that is enforced by inevitability or tendancy. The Law is a set of agreements that are reached after five or ten years of sorting our leaders into government and opposition.

Historic accountability does present an interesting problem.

Political change follows cultural support for protest activity endorsed demographically. This was first made clear to Government in 1381 peasants revolt, and again in 1985 in the UK the invincible Thatcher Government lost its footing due to disobedience by 30% of the population not paying their Poll Tax. They still pay a council tax which amount to a similar thing, but the Labuour party eventually won power for an extended period. The same phenomena can be observed in the late 1960s America with the burning of draft cards. An act of deliberate criminal protest, that assumes democractic legality by the significant numbers participating.

There is a certain danger with these Police Sex trials, one after another. The weight of multiple accusations is not tried, as in New Zealand there are laws of supression that keeps the trials separable. Perhaps it would be for the public good to

It is is the encouragement and impetus it gives the population to be more bold in their protests. The last major confrontation between the puhlic and the police - the last large socially changing one - was in 1981 - when the racially selected Springbok Tour was in New Zealand. The Rickards defense lawyer and Rickards challenge our perceptions by not showing minimal latent contrition for his deeds, which in the context they were committed may have been "consensual" but when spoken about 20 years on sound brutish and horrific to the majority who do not see something wrong with these men and their potential ability to recognise that they indeed have caused harm to people.

Justice may be blind. Rickards costs mount up, apparently about $500,000 (of $600,000 earned over three years of suspension). He is paid wages by the tax payer. Ultimately this is a tax payer funded political drama.

Internet forensics

We have been warned how to be cautious with online banking and how to deal with adriot manipulative phishing attempts to surrender information. The article in Stuff makes online banking sound as safe as a leaking submarine. It makes purchasing from websites apart from "name brands" sound more risky than handing over your credit card to a waiter at a restaurant.

It is a false and destructive impression. Yes there are threats. Of course there are criminals and terrorists who use the internet.

Safe payment systems exist that can be trusted, and using them is safer than using your EFTPOS card at your local dairy. Yes, you can be ripped off, if you are wise, you are unlike to be. Instead of a fuzzy video crime-watch mug shot, we have trails of validated digital evidence, enabling authorities to catch online thieves.

We must evolve technical proficiency second to none in the world and gain confidence with technology. The fact is that internet commerce, well implemented, keeps an audit trail of transactions. These include fraud. If our police forces kept up with the play technically they would be able to follow up 100% of internet crime leads.

The internet is less like the Wild West but a highly monitored and trackable environment that makes life far more risky for the techo-crook.

The Police should be able to reassure the citizenry that it is safe to enter the temple. Instead we are fed caution and fear, we are given responsibility for that we can not control and it will continue to retard progress.

Gagging for it

Rickards would 'find it hard' to regain support - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz - if convicted police rapists claim that their victims were "gagging for it" (and it means their police batton being used as a dildo during sex) are supported by Clint Rickards, it is no wonder if the public loses faith in him. Unlike his friends, Rickards may look the part as a sex athelete but to declare personal inferiority to his carved up and dented "instrument of enforcement by deliberate injury" - while he was at it, raises the question why a 16 year old was "gagging" for a truncheon? It is what the public will remember. And it gets worse.

If a suspect is seen by this enthusiast to be "gagging for it" one can imagine he would arrest them to "show them a lesson". Now can you imagine your teenaged son, or better yet, your virginal 15 year old daughter who lies about her age, is tumbled into a police van at a party, now looks pleadingly at arresting officer as he is about to close the cell door on her? Mr Rickards appears to collude in creating an unacceptable atmosphere of threat. This seems not so much an opinion, but a feeling of reaction.

Mr Rickards, all respect, sir... The public support your right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, beyond any reasonable doubt - but it was your deeds that betray you and reduce the confidence in you as a protector of the public good. Start work on Monday? Sure thing. Now, I would just like to know, if we are we going to be subjected to more taser attacks on the sense of decency and regard for humanity required of the guardians of public safety? The public used to trust the police. Now we risk being tasered and locked up by for your animalistic orgies? Not quite what we had in mind. We simply want to see the even application of justice.

Now, you see - we are "gagging for it".

Court system needs to change - rape crisis - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Court system needs to change - rape crisis - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Graffiti

Tagging, is it a crime?

MainPage - IPRED wiki

IPRED wiki - The European Union appears to be tightening laws relating to copyright and piracy. But by failing to differentiate fair use and piracy, does this directive endanger important civil liberties? Will this create a "Prosecution Paradise" where the law becomes unbalanced - it becomes too easy to jail people by pretext because everyone is guilty of something. There is a name for that kind of authority. It is totalitarianism by blunt instrument. All kinds of law suits may whittle the law down to human proportions, but what kind of environment do civilians suffer in the process?

Smacking and parental rights

Scoop: Marc Alexander - Smacking away parental rights

There is a law before NZ parliament to outlaw parents who hit their children.

Reactionary forces have voted against this justify it by saying hitting children is a parental right. A parent should be able to choose their weapons, select how to discipline children. The crimes act of 1961 says that a parent is justified in the use of reasonable force as correction towards the child. Marc Alexander in this article asks how hard is it to understand the meaning of "reasonable"? He says this law is adequate. It is not.

Modern thinking on the subject is that parents using ANY violent force against their children will not only make the child backward in life, but it forces the child into a set of calculations that eventually result in criminal actions. Violence is wrong, because children learn by example and hitting children begets a violent society. Extreme cases must be prosecuted. Parents need to evolve their disciple so the child is intelligent enough to solve problems. Children who are hit become teenagers who run away and commit crimes. It is too damaging not to change the law.

Keeping people "in line" is the language of slavery. It is the job of a parent to bring the child up to their best of their ability. Any culture of accepting violence toward children is regressive, socially. Child abuse is an intergenerational disease. The final result is that the child, now an adult, abuses their elderly parents.

Sue Bradford, the Greens MP that has put up the Anti Smacking bill has suffered death threats from irate parents. This is in itself evidence of why the law needs to be stronger so that very severe cases of child abuse as punishment can be prosecuted.

Right wing media claim that the bill removes a fundamental right of parents - to hit their own children. I question that parents have any such "right". Children do not belong to parents. It is time we saw children as our future.