26

Lawyer: The kid was asking for it

by Whaleoil on December 21, 2011

Unbelievable! The lawyer for the mother who systematically tortured her children has basically said the kid was asking for it:

“That little girl was a timebomb waiting to explode and was put back into the care of her mother.”

She said that at one point her client wrote to the Prime Minister about her daughter’s problems and received a letter from Social Development Minister Paula Bennett promising six additional counselling sessions and sporting programmes.

“Sports activities are not what this child needed.”

No quite right sports activities weren’t appropriate at all, no, what was really needed clearly was:

…assaulting the girl with a machete and hammer, kicking her in the crotch while wearing workboots, tearing off her toenail and pouring salt and boiling water on wound, and writing abusive comments on the girl’s body.

The woman’s husband has pleaded guilty to three charges of assaulting the girl, two of which involve the use of a vacuum cleaner pipe and a broomstick.

The girl was 9 years old FFS and the boy was 7! Trying to blame authorities for treating their own children like animals makes me seriously question some of my beliefs about redemption and forgiveness. Seven years prison hardly seems fair tot eh children for the reprehensible crimes performed against them.

Tagged: • • •

Related posts

  • http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/ Inventory2

    I heard this on the radio earlier this afternoon. It’s sickening; quite simply sickening. How the woman’s lawyer Lorraine Smith can look at herself in the mirror beats me.

    • Figaro

      Is this the same Lorraine Smith who defended that piece of excement Chirs Kahu or that other peice of turd Bailey Kurareki ?

      • Chopper

        yep, she’s the same pond life that sucks off the taxpayers tit making excuses for filth like this trying to get them off.

        the system is well and truly fucked – lets hope they get whats comimg to them…..

  • Anonymous

    Seven years, and you can bet that she will be out in four.

    • http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/ Inventory2

      No Thor; fortunately the Judge imposed a 5-year minimum non-parole period, so she will do at least five before she can even apply for parole.

      • Gazzaw

        Unless that publicly funded brief of hers appeals the sentence on the basis of it manifestly excessive.

        TV One News didnt exactly impress me with their reporting either with more than a hint that it was all Bennett’s fault.   

      • Anonymous

        There will most probably be an appeal and if she is very lucky, she might get a 6 month reduction ie 7 years with 4.5 year minimum. However she would need to really change her attitude to get out after 4.5 years, something which on past performance she seems incapable of. Probably be in for 5.5 – 6 years.

  • Sam

    That makes me feel sick, the mother and father are nothing but pure evil.

    As for the lawyer… I guess she’ll be sharing the same warm corner of hell as her clients, departed dear leader and the others listed by Senator McCain.

  • Thorn

    In this case, society is to blame for allowing the do-gooders to create an extraordinarily large and expensive network of agencies who are jointly and separately fucking useless.  The only person who made perverse sense was the lawyer for the mother.

    • Rockfield

      Sorry, but I think you are in a different paralell universe to me.  I thought the ulimate responsibility for any child’s well being was with said child’s parents.

      R.

      • Super Guest

        Don’t worry, mate. You’re in the “grown-up universe”.

  • kevin

    and the lawyer was?  A glossy-doing-very-well-on-legal-aid-money Smith.

    • Gazzaw

      No Kevin, you’re way off beam. The Law Society tells us that lawyers do legal aid work for a pittance. Funny that you see the same faces appearing for these scumbags year in year out. Great social benefactors obviously.

      • Smegboy

        Hello…. Just putting on an asbestos suit… right ready to go.
        Being married to a lawyer who has worked in the family court and also in private practice I can say yes there are lawyers that try and make a living off the legal aid system (best of luck…. it pays shite).  And yes its the same faces because its basically work no one else will touch.  And everyone has the right to legal representation and the lawyer has to act for the client.
        And the way the new legal aid system is going to work it will be the same faces time and time again… I believe
        When my wife was working at the court she would come home in tears due to the shite she had to deal with. I’m personally horrified by how some people treat their kids… and there are some horrific cases out there that and it is happening all over the world… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2074730/Kimberley-Hainey-left-dead-toddler-Declan-cradle-8-months-guilty-murder.html

  • Chris

    Yes, of course you can’t blame authorities for a parents’ complete and utter nasty abuse and neglect of their children. And yes, a prison term was definitely required.  But how, Cameron, can you reconcile this with your logic behind blaming Sue Bradford for parents abusing their kids because ‘repealing s 59 failed to protect them’?

    • Anonymous

      Easy Chris, Sue said words to the effect that her law would stop child abuse dead in its tracks. Working well, innit?

    • Anonymous

      It is people like Sue who manage to convince people like those parents that their ‘problems’ are all society’s fault, it is not their problem that there is child ‘poverty’ etc. It seems the lawyer was obligated to pass on the mother’s’ sentiments that it was all John Key’s and Paula Bennet’s faults. The lawyer must surely have advised the mother against that.

  • aobugs

    The wee girl shouldn’t have provoked her parents! Surely by her doing so allows her mother to, amoungst other things “She also admitted hitting the little girl’s feet with a hammer then ripping off the sore toenail that resulted and pouring salt and boiling water into the wound.” Read Tui Ad about now. Sick. Thats torture.

  • Bart

    The repeal of Section 59 has three fifths of sod all to do with this case.   What they were doing to thse children would have been illegal even if Section 59 was still in force.   And as for trying to abrogate parental responsibility by deflecting the blame at John Key and Paula Bennett, that’s a rather large straw you are clutching at there Lorraine!

  • Chris

    Yes Bart, you are right.  Jail for the parents for doing things to their children that no nation’s military is even allowed to do in wartime must be imposed.  There are no excuses. And of course the repeal of s 59 has absolutely nothing to do with what happened – nothing at all – because of course the parents would have suffered the same fate regardless.

    My point, though, is that using the same logic (which is to me the correct logic, i.e. can’t blame anyone but the parents) how can anyone blame the repeal of s 59 as being responsible for child abuse ‘because the repeal has failed to protect a child in any particular case’?  Cameron has said this a few times now, but the logic is flawed, and for reasons you’ve in fact touched upon.

  • Symgardiner

    One thing that people have missed in flinging blame around is the future of these kids. While we are all rightly angry at this situation, the reality is that, short of a miracle, these kids are heading down the same path as their parents. That’s incredibly sad. 
    So what’s the solution??? Legislate for behavior? Doesn’t work. 
    Maybe if some solid family from a completely different social circle adopted these kids and raised them, they might stand a chance.

  • RAS

    I stood speechless to hear Lorraine Smith try to blame Paula Bennett and John Key for this horror and I fully support Ms Bennett’s outrage at being accused.   We can only pray that these children will now be in safe homes away from their parents forever with one social worker assigned to them permanently - maybe the inmates will deal out justice to Mum and Dad – here’s hoping. No excuses, no explanations and no forgiveness ever for this disgraceful torture..

  • Chuck Bird

    “The lawyer must surely have advised the mother against that.”

    One would hope so.  But was Lorraine Smith paid to go on TV and spout such rubbish?

  • Arranh

    Remember (or in case you didn’t know) that, unless a lawyer can show they don’t have the expertise or time to take a case, they must accept a client. This lawyer, much like the lawyer who put forward Weatherston’s provocation defence, would have been working under instruction, and CANNOT refuse the client or refuse any defence offered by the client unless in doing so she breaks her duty to the court.

    The lawyer should NOT be blamed for the mothers crimes nor the defence given, as she has no right to deny her client. Its sad that people blame the lawyer for doing the job they cannot refuse. And if they did refuse they would be at risk of being removed from the register.

    • Ploughman

      I know this, but it doesn’t give any lawyer the right to lie in court or to try to transfer blame without good cause or to impugn others who do not have the opportunity to defend themselves.  In the US Lorraine Smith would be hauled into Judge’s Chambers and told what she can do and what she cannot. In any case the legal aid system should be overhauled.  The payment should be a loan which if the defendant is found innocent is written off.  It should also be written off if the defendant pleads guilty.  Only if the defendant pleads innocent yet is found guilty should the loan stand and be paid back by means of salary or benefit deductions.   

      I think this would sort out a few bad ‘uns, which includes some lawyers!

      • Arranh

        I haven’t read about it in any real detail, just what was on the radio last night and whats been on here, but the opinion of the defendant (and remember that what the lawyer puts forward is the defendant’s position) that it was the fault of the support agencies is just that, an opinion. I, and probably the vast majority of the country, believe it to be a wrong opinion, but as it is an opinion it can’t be construed a lie just on those grounds.

        And, from what I know of the law in the USA, she could have made the exact same claim as their rules on evidence and fact v opinion as fairly similar to ours.

        Just because an opinion is clearly wrong doesn’t make it a lie, and the barrister would have been failing her client not to present the defence as instructed by the client.