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Focus on
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The father of one of
three girls who wrongly spent seven months behind bars is happy the police
have apologised, but wants the officer he believes put them there removed
from the force. Vini Kavi said
Detective Constable Trevor Franklin, who was in charge of the case, should be
dismissed. "I've got nothing
against the police, it's just him. He's the one who made my girl go into
prison. If he'd done his work properly, the girls wouldn't have been arrested." His comments followed a
visit yesterday visit from Superintendent Howard Broad, the Auckland police
district commander, to the family's Mt Roskill home to apologise on behalf of
the police for the seven months the girls served for something they did not
do. He said the apology was
probably the most difficult thing he had had to do in his 26-year career. "We each join the
police with a view we are going to do good things, so to be responsible for
an investigation such as this strikes at the heart of what we're trying to do
... This is a human business we're involved in and mistakes do occur. "In this case it
seems errors compounded right across the criminal justice system, and the
normal checks and balances set in place simply didn't prevent this miscarriage
of justice." The Mt Roskill trio,
Lucy Akatere, aged 17, Tania Vini, 17, and Krishla Fuataha, 16, were jointly
convicted of an aggravated robbery near the Three Kings Mall in August 1999. They were released on
bail in April after more than seven months in Mt Eden Women's Prison when
Bryan Rowe, a private investigator, and lawyer Gary Gotlieb helped persuade
the police to reinvestigate the case. After errors were
uncovered, the girls were cleared of any involvement and an inquiry was begun
into how the mistakes happened. Mr Broad will not
comment on the internal inquiry until it is completed, which he hopes will be
before the end of next month. Detective Constable
Franklin has employed a lawyer. Mr Kavi said the past
two years had been hellish, but he had never given up his belief in his
daughter's innocence. "People kept saying my daughter was guilty so why
did I keep fighting, but she said she didn't do anything and I believed her.
I didn't want to stop. "It was hard to
leave her inside. Sometimes I'd drive up [to the prison] at night and just
look at the place, thinking my daughter is inside there." He still has the 37
letters Tania sent him, including one to apologise for starting smoking,
while she kept every phone card her dad gave her to call home - a stack
several centimetres high that cost almost $400. "I didn't know
where I was since last year," said Mr Kavi. "I didn't know which
way to go. "We're all right
now, but the damage has been done to the girls. They won't forget.
Never." The girls are receiving
counselling and are hoping to return to school as soon as possible. They were unavailable
for comment as they have signed exclusive deals with two women's magazines. |
