The Dominion Post
Tenuous and fashionable
Letter to the Editor
by Martin Wilson, Paraparaumu
Does a person's past override their right to privacy? Anecdotal evidence
suggests that Michael John Carroll is still delusional at best.
How much of this evidence is based on fear and hysteria, generated in part by
your decision to publish details of his current whereabouts as well as his
previous criminal history? It is noteworthy that the perhaps apocryphal
evidence of his apparently delusional behaviour has come to light only in the
past week. He has been at liberty since February and life went on.
Our democratic, though flawed, justice system has done its job. Retrial by
media has just begun and the bandwagon is well and truly in motion. Though the
decision to publish makes good copy, it also feeds the myth that a
once-dangerous individual might still be so.
Peter Ellis' imprisonment appears to have been based upon hysteria as much as
tenuous and fashionable (at the time) child sex abuse theories. Will David Bain
be accorded the same odious scrutiny on his freeing? Very
likely.
A person's past is just that. It cannot be relived or retrieved. Persecution by
society borne of fear of the future, however, can only hinder an individual's
chance of personal rehabilitation, if that is what they desire. We have marked
this person as if we subconsciously need to bait him in anticipation of a
bigger bite. We dare him to reoffend.
Our justice system has failed him. A tougher sentence without the chance of
parole for his crimes would have guaranteed his privacy for many more years.