BREAKING SILENCE: what the Coroner was not allowed to hear

FROM AN EXTRACT OF BREAKING SILENCE
Published in the latest Investigate HIS/HERS magazine...

What you are about to read has been described as the most controversial book ever published in New Zealand.

It wasn’t supposed to be. But news sent to the book trade of the future release of Breaking Silence was leaked to the news media by an over-eager bookshop in late June. Within 48 hours, a Facebook community page had been ‘liked’ by nearly 50,000 people, demanding that bookshops ban this book from their shelves or face a consumer boycott of their entire stores, not just the book.

No one had seen it. No one knew for sure, or even had a good guess, precisely what was in it. It was the biggest, swiftest overreaction to a book that had not even been printed yet, in the history of New Zealand. Opposition leader Phil Goff and Police Minister Judith Collins both waded in on boycotting the book, even though neither of them had read it.

...

And if you think this book has nothing to offer, consider the argument that went down at the Coronial investigation into the deaths of Chris and Cru Kahui.

Chris Kahui’s lawyer Chris Wilkinson-Smith tried to argue strongly at the recent inquest that Macsyna King’s childhood, upbringing and background is fundamental to deciding whether she is, or is not, someone likely to have harmed the twins. He wanted the right to ask her questions about her past.

Coroner Evans said those issues might well be relevant and important to the bigger picture, but the narrow rules of the Coroner’s Act prevent him from taking the investigation in that direction.

“It may have some relevance...but I am not empowered to have regard to what has gone on in the past with Ms King. This is not a criminal prosecution, it is an inquiry which is required to be carried out in accordance with the strict legislative parameters that I am enjoined to have regard to.”

Readers of Breaking Silence are in the box seat to discover what lawyers, investigators, judicial officials and social workers have been desperate to do but can’t:  Macsyna King’s story in her own words...

READ MORE IN THE NEW INVESTIGATE HIS/HERS MAGAZINE...onsale Thursday

 
 

Comments

[Lemonista]

No longer do I buy your mag or have any good opinon of you, Ian.
Such loyalty to the completely wrong cause.
So sick, giving her limelight.