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Focus on
Police Competence |
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The main witness in the
case against three Auckland girls wrongfully imprisoned for robbery says
police pressure led to her false confession. The girl, 13 when
police accused her of the 1999 robbery, said that after initially denying
being involved she eventually buckled "to make the whole thing go
away". "I was confused
and stressed out. The police kept saying if you don't say it we're going to
get you another way. We're going to get you and the others. In the end I said
it because I wanted to make the whole thing go away." The Court of Appeal in
Auckland last Tuesday quashed the joint conviction for aggravated robbery of
Teangarua (Lucy) Akatere and Tania Mayze Vini, both 17, and McCushla
(Krishla) Priscilla Fuataha, 16. The court was told that
after their trial, the Crown's principal witness, the 13-year-old, retracted
her evidence by affidavit. She had initially
confessed to the robbery and said the other three were also involved in the
1999 attack on a 16-year-old schoolgirl at Three Kings Plaza in Mt Roskill
suburb. The victim was hit and
kicked and her head banged against a tree stump before she was cut with
scissors and robbed of $10. The three girls spent
seven months in Mt Eden Women's Prison before being released. The principal witness,
now 15, said she could not remember what she was doing on the day of the robbery,
but she knew she took no part in a robbery and did not know if the other
three girls did either. She said she was
confused and bewildered when police interviewed her and could not understand
why they suspected her. She felt an enormous
amount of pressure from the police during interviews to not only confess to
the crime but also to implicate the other three girls. "I knew it wasn't
true but all they were interested in was what they wanted to hear," she
said. When she finally signed
a statement stating she and the other three girls were involved, she felt
overcome with guilt. "I thought what is
the point of being a policeman if you are just going to make it all up
anyway. I was so angry I just wanted to hit them or something." She then went to a family
friend and explained to him what had happened but he could not convince the
police an injustice had been done. It was only after Vini
Kavi, the father of Tania Vini, hired lawyer Gary Gotlieb and private
investigator Bryan Rowe to look into the case that she was able to put the
matter right. She retracted her
evidence by affidavit. "I was sad and
happy when they came out. I'm glad because they can lead a normal life but I
still feel guilty." |
