BREAKING SILENCE: THE KAHUI CASE
By Ian Wishart
$39.99, Howling At The Moon Publishing Ltd
RELEASE DATE: Imminent
Final opportunity to pre-order for delivery on Day One:
www.howlingatthemoon.com
The new book that shatters myths surrounding the Kahui murder case is about to be released, promising new information on the case itself as well as biographical insights on how these families went so far off the rails. Breaking Silence is a unique case study on intergenerational child abuse, and how much of what you think you know about the Kahui case, is wrong…
MYTH #1: “I don’t want to read this because the families should have spoken up at the time, instead of being part of this “wall of silence”
EXTRACT FROM BOOK:
Being able to talk about them is still hard, but it’s not as hard. When I did try to do this while the whole investigation was going down, I would be, I think it took me five days to give my first statement. I just could not stop welling up with tears. I know that the police were frustrated. Marie Dhyrberg didn’t really care, she was quite supportive. She never pushed me or urged me or anything. She just said “The truth needs to be how you remember it, say it in your own time. I don’t care how many days it takes you. The police might, but I don’t.”
The police, however, were indeed getting frustrated. Macsyna King was formally interviewed by police shortly after the twins died, and her lawyer Marie Dhyrberg later told journalists that Macsyna was “absolutely committed to doing what she can do so that whoever has done this is brought to justice.”
Police by now had interviews with Chris Kahui and Macsyna King in the bag, but it seems the Kahui side of the family were not being so cooperative. Ani Hawke, a Bastion Point protest veteran and relative of the Kahui side, had ended up as a “family spokesman” and kaumatua, and it was Hawke who had coined the phrase “the tight 12”.
Chris Kahui and Macsyna King were not members of the “tight 12”, having already chosen to speak to police on the day of the tragedy and make formal statements within a week. Mona Kahui and Stuart King also spoke up front[1][ Stuart King gave a 6 page statement to police the night the twins went to hospital, June 13, 2006. He gave a 12 page handwritten statement to police on June 20th, exactly a week later. Then he gave a 22 page typed statement to police on June 27th. He also gave a video statement on 2 August, which ran to 100 pages once it was typed up, and followed that up with a further 16 page statement on 28 August. If King was a member of the ‘tight 12’ he was certainly its most loquacious member.]. But inquiry boss Detective Senior Sergeant John Tims was decidedly unimpressed at the rest of the whanau, telling journalists there had been a meeting only a short time after the twins were hospitalised where a pact of silence was agreed to.
“The family made a decision that they would be uncooperative with police and they would not come forward and assist us with this investigation until they were given the go-ahead by a spokesperson and by their lawyers.
“These actions by stonewalling this inquiry says to me the family and extended family are supporting the individuals that have inflicted these serious injuries,” said Tims. Somewhere along the way, a newspaper headline writer combined “silence” with “stonewall”, and the mythology grew, although police later told the inquest that eventually everyone gave “multiple statements”. By the time of the inquest in 2011, Coroner Garry Evans had had enough of hearing about “the wall of silence” in the media and on Facebook: “It perpetrates what is a canard, that is that there was a complete silence by the family whereas in fact there were statements made by family members.”
MYTH #2: “I’m not reading a book by a mother who didn’t even know her babies had suffered historical child abuse – what kind of mother doesn’t notice those signs??”
EXTRACT FROM BOOK:
Middlemore paediatrician Lindsay Mildenhall told the court how King had “roomed in” with the twins for a few days prior to them leaving hospital and that she had done “very well”. He told the court Macsyna’s interest in the babies was a surprise given the officially patchy attendance record, and he conceded that the twins had continued to do really well after their discharge to the home, and obviously somebody was looking after them.[2]
When the twins were sent home in early May, the hospital appointed home care nurse Jane Eyres to visit the family in their new Courtenay Crescent home. The last visits were May 31st – two weeks before the fatal injuries were inflicted and supposedly two weeks after some of the historical injuries such as broken ribs had been inflicted, and June 7, five days before breathing failure. In fact, the second of Eyres’ visits would have been made almost immediately after the twins had supposedly first been injured, yet the health professional detected nothing in her tests of the twins. Nurse Eyres told Kahui’s trial that the family seemed like “a good family”, that the babies did not cry when handled, and that there were no bruises or other signs of injury. She told the court the babies appeared to be making “good progress” under Macsyna King’s care, on the four occasions she saw them.[3]
“I handled the babies on each occasion, and I was not aware of any discomfort or anything that concerned me at all,” Eyres told the inquest in 2010. “On each occasion I would pick up each twin individually to look at them, to see how responsive they were. When you are holding a baby you can feel the muscle tone of the limbs, you can see a lot by holding the baby.”
Eyres told the inquest there were no bruises, no crying when the twins were handled around the chest or when their legs moved, “they were beautiful babies and they were growing appropriately”. Under Macsyna King’s primary care.[4] If the rib fractures had been inflicted after the children were discharged home, the half dozen broken ribs each child was suffering should have caused pain.
MYTH #3: “Those poor babies had suffered historic skull fractures! Obviously the abuse had been happening for a long time in that household.”
EXTRACT FROM BOOK:
Skull fractures? They couldn’t find them.
In other words, and this is important, although media reports talked extensively of these historic skull fractures based on various scans, the actual autopsy found none.[5]
MYTH #4: “Macsyna King was a drunken beneficiary slob, more interested in finding her next soakhole than looking after those poor twins – just imagine the living conditions they had to endure!”
EXTRACT FROM BOOK:
MR MORRIS (Counsel Assisting the Coroner): Now, for all her faults that we have heard about, Macsyna was a very tidy housekeeper, was she not?
MR KAHUI: Yeah, she was tidy, yes.
MR MORRIS: And she would often go around tidying up everybody else’s spaces too, would she not?
MR KAHUI: Yes, if they have left like the kitchen and stuff untidy, she would clean it up, yes.
MR MORRIS: It is fair to say that she would leave the twins room immaculate as well, would she not?
MR KAHUI: Yes
Social workers sent to the house to check for signs of abusive living conditions found nothing to cause concern:
MS RAINEY: [Our job is] to make sure that there is – that everybody is well and that there is no abuse going on in the house or any signs of abuse, physical or emotional abuse.
MR ROSS: Right, and what do you look for, for those signs of risk, if you like?
MS RAINEY: There is the obvious bruising or any obvious things that I can see visually, and in terms of the Kahui twins I did not see that. The first time I visited Macsyna at 22 Courtenay Place, I asked to see the twins and they were appropriately wrapped up in their cot, the room was tidy, it was warm. So I had no cause for alarm.
MR ROSS: Those things are significant to a social worker?
MS RAINEY: Definitely.
MR ROSS: And why is that?
MS RAINEY: That is part of our practice, part of our practice to be able to ascertain the situation and how things are for the family.
MYTH #5: “What kind of mother, after being told to go straight to the hospital, goes to McDonalds instead and feeds her face for half an hour?”
EXTRACT FROM BOOK:
Kahui gave the same answer to Macsyna when she asked about the bruising, that Shayne had gotten into the nursery and roughed up the twins a bit. Macsyna did not make a connection between the bruise on the cheek and the head injuries at this point, because she was unaware of the head injuries, and unaware how serious the breathing episode had been. Nor was she told that her babies had missed all their feeds for the previous 21 hours.
MR KAHUI: No I do not remember telling her.
CORONER: You do not remember telling her?
MR KAHUI: Yes.
CORONER: Was that not most important information both for her and Dr Nayar?
MR KAHUI: Yes.
CORONER: Did you tell any other members of your family on the Tuesday morning that the babies had not taken any milk since midday, the day before?
MR KAHUI: I am not too sure if I did…
So anyway, I told Chris we needed to get the children checked out by the doctor. They’ve asked me time and time again why we didn’t go straight away, and I’m sorry, I just didn’t understand that the babies were in such a bad way. They seemed to be just asleep and breathing normally, not distressed or anything, and Chris hadn’t told me they hadn’t fed normally. And so we grabbed some McDonalds on the way to the doctor [author’s emphasis]. It’s a decision I quickly regretted.
SUMMARY:
If you think you know about the Kahui case because you’ve read some newspaper reports, think again. Breaking Silence is an exhaustive analysis of the evidence presented in court, combined with the first public statements by the mother whose two babies were killed.
You cannot truly judge this case, or hold a valid opinion, until you’ve read the most comprehensive review of the evidence available. Breaking Silence puts you inside the courtroom, hearing the story unfold. Because most major bookshops have banned this book, you’ll need to get it direct if you want to judge the evidence for yourself, and read the explosive twists in the case. What you have read here is just a fraction of the full story. ORDER TODAY: www.howlingatthemoon.com
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
“I am curious to read Macsyna's story. In my work I have read the stories of men and women who have killed children, although admittedly not in a book published by a seasoned journalist. Usually court transcripts and other official reports and the most interesting have always been when the accused themselves ‘find their voice’.” – Merepeka Raukawa-Tait
“At the risk of becoming the second most hated woman in the country, I will say that when Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case is published, I intend to buy it and read it. I, for one, want to hear what the Kahui twins' mother Macsyna King has to say. Why would I not?
To suggest, as some in the media have, that Wishart should have turned his back on the chance to gain some insight into a case that, five years down the track, continues to generate such strong public interest and emotion, is frankly hypocritical. Telling stories in the hope of illuminating an issue is what we do. I would have done the same thing in his place.
“I'm inclined to the old-fashioned view that you need to read a book before you can decide if it's rubbish. There's a chance we might actually learn something, which I would have thought would be a good thing given our horrifying child abuse statistics” – Tapu Misa, NZ Herald
“Boycotting the Macsyna King book sets a dangerous precedent...Information, written and spoken, is vital for us to understand our society. We learn nothing about how to stop or reduce child abuse by not listening to what Macsyna King has to say. We can make our own decision as to whether we agree with her or not, Trying to ban this book is equivalent to burying our problems like a dog’s bone – saving them up for later. We should man-up and face them head on.
“We should read the book before we judge it – and then voice our own criticism.” – James Murray, TV3
“As the wilder reaches of the boycott campaign site reveal - allegedly extending even to death threats against Ms King - it can also be a rallying point for the angry mob who seem to derive self-worth and importance by seeing their own often strident and often barely coherent views validated in ‘print’. In this milieu, indignation and gossip tend to be the currency of the day. Gut reactions and rumours spread like wildfire. Facts and measured logical response matter little.” – Otago Daily Times
"I think he's got an ulterior motive in writing this book and I do believe it's to tell New Zealanders to get them to understand what actually happens in these families. I need to read it just as other New Zealanders need to read it because this is a major problem in our country." – Christine Rankin
“Banning books is an extreme step that seems more in keeping with the Middle Ages when churches and the state controlled the public mind with fire and torture.” – Nelson Mail
“They become censors. Who, I suspect, haven't read the book yet. What's next to be pulled from the shelf because 40,000 people join a social media protest?” – Ashburton Guardian
CAN YOU SET ASIDE ANY PRE-CONCEIVED IDEAS AND JUDGE THIS BOOK FOR YOURSELF? IT MIGHT TRULY SURPRISE YOU…. www.howlingatthemoon.com
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[1] Stuart King gave a 6 page statement to police the night the twins went to hospital, June 13, 2006. He gave a 12 page handwritten statement to police on June 20th, exactly a week later. Then he gave a 22 page typed statement to police on June 27th. He also gave a video statement on 2 August, which ran to 100 pages once it was typed up, and followed that up with a further 16 page statement on 28 August. If King was a member of the ‘tight 12’ he was certainly its most loquacious member.
[2] Evidence of Lindsay Mildenhall, Crown vs Kahui, 2008
[3] Evidence of Jane Eyres, Crown vs Kahui, 2008, pages 16 to 28 of transcript
[4] Evidence of Jane Eyres, Coroner’s Inquest, 2010
[5] Evidence of Jane Vuletic, forensic pathologist, Crown vs Kahui, 2008
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