BREAKING NEWS: Investigate magazine news release

NEWS RELEASE FROM INVESTIGATE MAGAZINE

Government’s smacking review misunderstood its Terms of Reference, got crucial facts wrong

 

Investigate magazine has blown open the smacking debate by publishing documents that show the review headed by Nigel Latta was effectively a farce, and that parents have indeed been prosecuted just for a light smack.

That review, whose findings were announced just before Christmas by Prime Minister John Key and Nigel Latta, claimed to have fully examined cases referred to it by lobby group Family First, and discovered the families had not been “honest” about the events leading up to arrest or CYF intervention.

“In all cases”, stated Latta to journalists, there were serious “aggravating features” that the public were unaware of.

Latta highlighted those “aggravating features” in his report, but a joint investigation by Family First and Investigate magazine has found Latta’s review got its facts wrong, and based its misleading and defamatory findings simply on police or CYF complaint sheets, not the outcome of court cases after the evidence had actually been tested.

The end result: Investigate now has documented proof that ordinary parents have been arrested and prosecuted, ultimately, for simply giving a child a light smack – something both Latta and John Key promised had not happened.

For the Prime Minister, the evidence provides a new dilemma – he has previously stated on record that if a parent is prosecuted for a light smack, he will change the law, “it’s as simple as that”.

Among the discoveries by Investigate, the Latta review:

· Misdirected itself as to the scope of its review, and as a consequence failed to meet its Terms of Reference.

· Falsely accused one parent of being convicted of punching a child three times in the head when the charge was, in fact, dropped

· When challenged, CYF claimed to Investigate he had “pleaded guilty” to punching the child three times in the head, when court records showed he had not

· Falsely accused a Waimate couple of beating their daughter causing a “tennis ball size bruise”, even though police documents available to the Latta Review (but ignored by them) showed the allegation was utterly unfounded

· Falsely accused a father of punching his 13 year old daughter in the side of the head and beating her repeatedly with a telephone book, despite a court finding no evidence of such attacks.

 

Full details of the bombshell developments are contained in a 20 page special report in the new issue of Investigate magazine.

Investigate editor Ian Wishart says he’s shocked at what he believes is the incompetence of the three-man review team:

“In my opinion, the Latta Review of the anti-smacking law is nothing short of a disgrace. To fail to fully investigate cases because you have misunderstood your own Terms of Reference, and then to accuse parents of not being ‘honest’, is breathtaking arrogance and perhaps the most spectacular own goal ever scored by a government inquiry in New Zealand.”

EDITORIAL FROM THIS ISSUE FOLLOWS:

The smackdown of the Latta Review

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that when a Prime Minister as popular and people-savvy as John Key announced an independent review of the controversial anti-smacking law, that National would not be stupid enough to follow in the footsteps of Helengrad.

The previous regime was well known for stacking the deck, sweeping things under the carpet and using a corrupt police force to hide its misdemeanours behind.

Key promised, in an interview with Investigate magazine on October 28, 2007, that “If good parents end up becoming criminals because of this legislation then we’ll change the law, it’s as simple as that.”

But is it that simple? As you will read in this month’s Investigate, Police and CYF have found a way around the Prime Minister’s promise: collect or invent as much mud as you possibly can about the target parents, and ensure it is placed on the case files, so that the parents can no longer be defined as “good” for the purposes of the promise definition.

Nigel Latta, a former critic of the anti-smacking law, was hired by the National Government as an ‘independent’ consultant to join Police Commissioner Howard Broad and CYF/MSD boss Peter Hughes in a special review of the smacking law.

Their report was published amid much media fanfare just before Christmas, with the details announced in a joint John Key/Nigel Latta news conference at the Beehive.

The terms of reference seemed wide enough:

“To review New Zealand Police and Child, Youth and Family policies and procedures...in order to identify any changes that are necessary or desirable in the interest of ensuring that: 1) good parents are treated as Parliament intended under the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007...”

Any measure of how “good parents” were treated under the Crimes Act would, of necessity, require a whole of case approach from initial report to subsequent conviction or acquittal. How else could you know whether “good parents” were ultimately treated fairly by the system?

However, somewhere between being given those terms of reference and delivering his report, Nigel Latta appears to have done a stunningly good impersonation of Pinocchio being led down the garden path by “Honest John” and “Gideon”, in the form of Broad and Hughes.

Why do I say that? Because the review team appear to have stitched up their own, entirely different definition of what they were going to investigate. As you’ll see from their excuses responses to our special investigation in this issue, both Latta and CYF now say it was never the intention to measure the severity of the initial police or CYF response against what finally happened in court. Heck no! That would be “outrageous” or “unfair” to CYF and police staff, argue Latta and CYF.

No, instead, as far as Broad, Hughes and Latta were concerned, their investigation would look solely at the initial response of the agencies based on the nature of the allegations made to them. The outcome of the cases was deliberately disregarded. If it turned out the evidence didn’t stack up, well, too bad, the public would not find out because the report would say the police and CYF acted “appropriately and proportionately” in the face of serious criminal allegations.

Latta went further at his Beehive news conference, and actually boasted to journalists that Family First’s sources were liars, and that he had reached a considered decision after reviewing all the facts on police and CYF files that none of the parents’ complaints stacked up.

Ah, the arrogance. Read the story and judge for yourself. Metaphorically, the noses of Broad, Hughes and Latta have now grown long enough to provide nesting space for the complete seagull population of the Wellington City Dump, with space for a few hangers on included.

Latta has now told Investigate that minor inconvenient facts, such as parents actually being cleared of committing the serious crimes they were accused of, are “irrelevant” to the integrity of the review.

Go back and look at your terms of reference Nigel, then enjoy a Homer Simpson smack to the forehead moment. In our view, the smooth talking bureaucrats who sat beside you took you for a ride.

In doing so, the review has scored a massive own goal against its own credibility, and also a massive blow to the credibility of John Key who is now faced with incontrovertible evidence that the smacking law isn’t working, and the growing suspicion that Police and CYF skewered the review in order to cover this up.

INVESTIGATE MAGAZINE...onsale Monday. Also in this issue: the dairy farm buy-up; emissions trading madness; and the final episode of "Lost", plus much more...

Comments

[Fletch]

No surprises there then, ey? Key won't change the law back though.

[Anon]

Waiting for apologies to all concerned from Nigel Latta. How long do you think it will take?

[Falafulu Fisi]

Nigel Latta huh? The guy who appeared on Sensing Murder TV show to check if the psychics have indeed got genuine capabilities to talk to the dead. Latta ended up endorsing the psychics. I mean, Nigel Latta believed that psychics can talk to the dead.

Latta is more like a modern day Rasputin to John Key, in giving advise that seemed to be bogus (ie, not supported by facts).

[Shane Ponting]

Hoping a copy will be in my mailbox...for some reason I'm wondering if my sub has expired or not - but I'd be told wouldn't I Ian?

[Falafulu Fisi]

John Key seems to surround himself with good policy advisors such as Latta, David Wratt and so forth.

I reckon, that it won't be too long before Mr Key hires Aussie celebrity charlatan psychic Deb Webber to advice him on climate science issues by trying to find out the collective opinions of dead Nobel Laureate physicists such Einstein, Feynman, Bohr, Dirac, Yukawa, Heisenberg et al, if AGW is fact or fiction.

I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Latta teams up with Ms Webber (since they have worked together in the Sensing Murder TV show) to give Mr Key advices on a range of issues.

[Tanya]

Nothing surprises me anymore, nothing. This govt is in some ways worse than the last, because they promised less Nanny-stage and more transparency. Where is the honesty and integrity that our leaders used to have? (like in twenty odd years ago?). Key is one of them, what a travesty. Humanism, humanism, Godless, little Humanism.

[Dan]

I wouldn't trust an 'independent' review by investigate and family first whatsoever. What a joke.

[Ian Wishart]

Well, you'd be a goon, Dan. It's based on documents. Black and white, very simple. Latta Review was a sham.

[Tanya]

A typical Leftie statement, Dan. Shoot down the messenger, rather than listen to the message, especially when you don't like its very obvious contents!

[AcidComments]

"Where is the honesty and integrity that our leaders used to have? (like in twenty odd years ago?). Key is one of them, what a travesty. Humanism, humanism, Godless, little Humanism."

It not what Politicians 'do for the will of the people'. It's what Politicians 'do for the will for themselves' and their pathetic attempts at 'appeasing' those in authority outside NZ. I.E the UN and CO. Aspirations of 'Grandeur' and a cushy job after Politics.

[Afa Hanawhiti]

Ian we cannot access the weekly? tjif file as we used to???
"Access Denied"
Is this "BigBrotherDonkey" at work??
Afa Hanawhiti