Category: Public Media

Source: Radio New Zealand

When Jevon McSkimming was sentenced on Wednesday, his lawyer and the judge told the court he was the first person in New Zealand to be prosecuted for simply viewing objectionable material.

The former deputy police commissioner was sentenced to nine months home detention at the Wellington District Court, after pleading guilty to the possession of child sexual exploitation and bestiality material in November.

Judge Tim Black and defence lawyer Letizea Ord both told the court during the sentencing they understood this was the first time someone had been prosecuted for simply viewing material online, rather than downloading it or distributing it.

“Perhaps one of the unique features of this case is that none of the images were downloaded or stored in any way,” Ord said.

However, she said it was accepted that viewing – particularly his clicking on some 160 images – was “akin to downloading from a sentencing perspective”.

Judge Black noted in case law there was a “limited pool of decisions which involve possession”.

“Most of the decisions involve some other more serious offending, such as importation or distribution.”

Victims advocate Claire Buckley told RNZ the law hadn’t kept up with technology and people no longer had to download material to have it at their fingertips.

“I would like to see that line between viewing, versus downloading and sharing, be eradicated, those three things all put together, because if you’re viewing it, you are absolutely contributing to the creation of it.”

Viewing it still generated demand, she said, and over time the searches tended to become more extreme.

“If you start off on AI-generated images, eventually that’s not going to cut it anymore, and you’re going to go looking for slightly more realistic, and something harder-core, by which time you are generating harm because you’re generating demand for really objectionable material which requires abuse of people in order to create it.”

The evidence showed people tended to make the shift from AI-generated content to reality, but very few made the jump from watching content to acting out those things themselves, she said.

However, the harm was still very real for victims of objectionable material.

Parents of children who had been filmed for this purpose found it incredibly triggering, Buckley said.

“It’s like ‘that happened to my kid, and now, this guy could be looking at those images.’

“Once those images go around, you can never get rid of them, not really. And so the families who have been harmed by this kind of thing are harmed over and over and over again.

“They weren’t [downloaded or shared] in this particular case, but that’s what frequently happens, and people don’t separate it in their minds when they’re a victim.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

• Family rosters themselves on for shifts looking after elderly relative in hospital.
• Despite suffering severe dementia the family worried about the standard of her care.
• Another elderly hospital patient was left alone and suffering, his wife says.

The family of an elderly woman with severe dementia were so concerned about the standard of her hospital care that they rostered themselves on shifts to look after her.

And for another severely ill elderly man, what was scheduled as a short hospital stay for a routine operation ended with him catching norovirus and losing over 10kg.

His wife said the worst part of it all was that he was left to suffer alone in soiled bedding.

These two cases have put the spotlight on the care of elderly patients.

When Judith Campbell broke her hip in January, she ended up staying over a fortnight in Nelson Hospital.

“We had to be there every day to ensure she was fed, given medication and showered,” said her daughter, Jan Fryer.

“We had to do all those things for her and couldn’t get her back into her care home as she wasn’t mobile, so she was in a very unsatisfactory situation and died three weeks later.”

And Otago woman Bev – who has asked RNZ not to use her surname – recalled her husband Ross’ visit to Dunedin Hospital in late 2023.

“When as a patient for a proposed 48 hours he contracted norovirus, [he] left the hospital 12 kilograms lighter.

“Despite vomiting and constant diarrhoea and sweating profusely his bed linen was not changed in five days.”

The pair contacted Checkpoint after hearing of concerns about aged care, which prompted Health NZ to acknowledge a system under pressure as the population aged.

Health NZ was contacted several times over recent months for this story, but hasn’t yet responded.

Family’s bedside vigil

Campbell was blind and had severe dementia.

Fryer was fed up with telling every new staff member how to handle her, so she didn’t fight or spit when she wasn’t sure what was going on, the family instead decided to always stay at her bedside, apart from when she slept overnight.

“For the two weeks she was in hospital we had to take shifts, between my daughter – who works for us, luckily, so I was able to give her time off – myself and my 90-year-old father, and my sister also came over from Australia.

“We took shifts to be there all day with her to make sure she got food, she got her medication and she got cleaned.”

Fryer said that wasn’t happening before they were there.

Staff had also tried to administer pain relief through pills, causing Campbell distress, despite instructions to give it in liquid form.

And the family ended up taking Campbell for walks and trying themselves to get her mobile enough to return to her aged-care facility.

“She just wasn’t getting fed. They would put her food on a tray and just leave it there. She couldn’t see so she couldn’t feed herself.

“She ended up with very loose bowel motions, so then we’d find her lying in poo.”

Campbell died in February, aged 88.

Fryer didn’t make a complaint, saying her sister, a doctor, told her it wasn’t worth it.

“I was saddened – just sad that New Zealand’s health system has deteriorated so much that we’re not getting good care when we need it.”

Patient left alone and in distress

For Bev, 13 December 2023, was supposed to be when her husband Ross began a two-day hospital stay in Dunedin to drain his lung.

He had the aggressive cancer mesothelioma, and in hospital caught norovirus.

Bev said after that her husband was mostly left alone in an isolation room, lying in soiled sheets.

She was also concerned about hygiene measures – such as nurses giving Ross pain relief tablets from the palms of their hands, rather than containers.

“He was clearly really suffering. He couldn’t eat or drink. They didn’t make any effort to give him fluid through an IV and the smell in the room after four days was horrendous,” Bev said.

She caught the stomach bug too and had to stay away a couple of days. On her return she couldn’t believe the condition Ross was in.

“I was so shocked at how ill he was and how weak he was. He could not stand up to get out of bed. He could not stand up unaided.

“When I realised how much weight he’d lost it was no wonder.”

Ross had lost 12kg and Bev decided it was best to bring him home and look after him there.

He never recovered from the ill-effects of norovirus and died in February 2024, aged 78.

“It’s left me feeling really angry and quite concerned about care for others, including myself.”

She wrote a complaint but said she never heard back.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The career firefighters’ union says a delay getting rescuers to Hahei where a girl was trapped on a cliff face is just the tip of the iceberg.

In January, police refused Fire and Emergency (FENZ) a helicopter to get a lines rescue team from Hamilton to Hahei on the far side of Coromandel Peninsula. They had to drive.

Police told RNZ they mistakenly concluded the girl was dead and that it was appropriate to send rescuers by road, not air.

New Zealand Professional Firefighters Union vice president Martin Campbell told Midday Report the problems ran wider than just the Hahei case.

“I don’t think it is an isolated incident… I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately.”

“I certainly know from personal experience being based at Auckland City where there is another lines rescue crew, we have faced delays in our ability to get to rescue incidents.”

A law change was needed, and police and FENZ needed to agree on a better approach in the interim, he said.

The FENZ call log from the Hahei rescue stated “police wont [sic] approve helo response because of the cost”.

“This is the first I’ve actually specifically seen cost mentioned,” Campbell said. “Other issues I have seen [are] interagency squabbles as to who is actually in charge and who has the authority.”

Comment has been requested from police and Police Minister Mark Mitchell.

Emails among senior FENZ personnel immediately after the Hahei rescue referred to it as a “further instance” of line rescue crews being delayed due to police not approving an air ambulance helicopter.

St John must get police approval to send a chopper to a non-injury emergency.

FENZ national manager of response capability Ken Cooper in response to Campbell told RNZ on Thursday their standard operating procedure after a 111 call for rescue was to pass all information immediately on to police as the lead agency, who then coordinated the rescue.

“It is also our practice to dispatch our resources immediately to the incident to assist,” Cooper said in a statement.

“There are no communication challenges between our agencies, and we work well together.”

The Hahei FENZ email trail showed Cooper was alerted on the Monday following the Saturday midnight rescue, and briefly replied that he would “prioritise a meeting with the relevant partner agencies this week with the intent on resolving the matter”.

RNZ has lodged Official Information Act requests with police and FENZ to find out more.

Hato Hone St John ran the air ambulance service under a contract with Health New Zealand. It said in cases where a person was not injured but required rescue, coordination and tasking was done by either of the country’s two recognised search and rescue coordinating authorities – police or the Rescue Coordination Centre.

“The coordination of search and rescue operations requires specialist expertise to ensure both the person in need of rescue, and their rescuers are as safe as possible,” it said.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A High Court judge has ordered the Department of Corrections boss to obey the law or face contempt of court proceedings if he fails to make sure prisoners aren’t let out of their cells for an hour every day.

Under New Zealand law, prisoners are entitled to at least one hour of physical exercise a day. The rights are further enshrined in United Nations standards.

In his judgement released this week, Wellington High Court Justice Jason McHerron found some inmates in Auckland Prison, the country’s only maximum security prison, weren’t allowed out of their cell for the minimum required period and was holding the Corrections chief executive Jeremy Lightfoot personally accountable.

Wellington human rights lawyer, Amanda Hill represented some of the prisoners and said time outside of cells was vital.

“Moving your limbs, getting your heart rate up a little bit, talking to other people, those are things that we take for granted, but they’re pretty vital to just being able to function,” she said.

“If we don’t have that, we can get into a position of what’s called prolonged solitary confinement which is unlawful, and it has lots of physical and mental health effects, paranoia, aggression, depression, anxiety, joint pain, migraines – the list is really long.”

No one knows that better than this man, who RNZ isn’t naming, but who spent five years in prison for aggravated robbery among other charges.

“The 23 hours we’re locked down for, we actually look forward to our hour every day,” he said.

“Some people get an hour, some people don’t. The ones that don’t get their hour, it turns pretty violent, it gets real frustrating in the mind, it’s bad enough we get 23 hours locked down.”

He said an hour wasn’t a lot of time.

“Majority of the time, the whole hour is spent on training,” he said.

“Maybe like 10 minutes out of that hour on a phone call, maybe 20, but you’re only allocated for so much time, and hour is not much.”

Hill wanted to see Corrections follow the court’s order.

“We’re really hoping that this is the thing that they choose to comply with because nothing else to date has been enough.”

It would be an extraordinary situation to have a chief executive of one of the countries major departments before the courts facing a fine or even imprisonment, she said.

“This has been raised for coming up 10 years in different forums, the ombudsman’s raised it, the prison inspectors raised it, there’s been litigation about it, and the department has ignored the High Court’s directions in other cases that short staffing and resources aren’t a reason to deny minimum entitlement,” Hill said.

Corrections had argued a lack of staff and facilities prevented them opening cells safely. However, that was rejected by Justice McHerron.

Commissioner of custodial services, Leigh Marsh, said they had been working to meet the court’s order.

“We’ve been doing work in that environment to ensure that we are able to dynamically increase the staff, so I’ve increased the base number of staff in there immediately, to reduce the risk of the inability to do simultaneous unlocks,” he said.

“We’ve really focused hard on being really careful with these separations to make sure that we’re getting it right.”

Marsh said safety was a priority as they balanced complex circumstances.

“We’re really focusing on our staff and prisoner safety, so I am not holding back, if a prisoner is exhibiting violence, for them to be shifted into a maximum security environment,” he said.

“We’re seeing that increased gang complexity, we’re seeing that increased complexity around impulse control, and the propensity towards using violence when tension or conflict arises among the prison population that’s in there.”

Former Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier said the court’s ruling went further than he could have done in his former role.

“The chief ombudsman can recommend,” he said.

“If there’s a failure to comply with the recommendation, there’s no real ability for the ombudsman to do much about this.

“But this [judgement] has the consequence of failure and accountability, which could result, interestingly enough and ironically, in imprisonment, therefore loss of liberty.”

Boshier said Corrections had been slow to comply in the past.

“Corrections is like a 19th century coal-fired ocean liner attempting to alter course, it’s very slow to correct, another way of putting it could’ve been it’s glacial,” he said.

“It’s just Corrections that I found utter frustration with for its inability to change and its willingness to think of every reason under the sun why it should not.”

A group of 69 prisoners have filed a wide-ranging claim against the Attorney General, on behalf of Corrections. The matter was heading to trial in 2027.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Hutt Valley Police are investigating what they are calling a disturbing instance of extreme violence, which has left someone with critical injuries.

Police received reports of an assault at an address on Trinity Avenue in Epuni, about 5am on Wednesday, 10 December.

Acting detective senior sergeant Kylee Cusin said police continue to explore multiple avenues of enquiry and are asking the public for their help.

“What has occurred is a disturbing instance of extreme violence, and we’re asking anyone who was in the Trinity Avenue and Oxford Terrace area at that time to reach out to police, or anonymously at Crime Stoppers.

“We know there will be people in the community who have information which could help us find the people responsible for this crime.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A pair of climbers missing on Aoraki/Mount Cook are believed to have died in a large ice avalanche, police said on Thursday.

If so, that would make them the fifth and sixth reported South Island mountaineering deaths in the past month.

The two men left the Tasman Valley car park on Friday last week, bound for Plateau Hut. They left the hut on Saturday evening on their way to the top of Aoraki/Mount Cook, via the Linda Glacier route, police said.

On Monday morning the Department of Conservation was told they had not returned.

Due to the weather, an aerial search was not carried out until late on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, search teams deployed a RECCO detector, suspended under a helicopter, Aoraki area commander Inspector Vicki Walker said.

According to the manufacturer’s website, RECCO reflectors “are lightweight passive transponders that require no power or activation to function”, and can be integrated into clothing, helmets, backpacks and harnesses.

“With the aid of the detector and Search and Rescue staff, we were able to identify a key area of interest and located some items of climbing equipment,” Walker said.

“A visual investigation of this area has led to the determination that the overdue climbers have been caught in a significant ice avalanche within a known icefall hazard zone on the upper Linda Glacier.

“Because of the scale and volume of material involved, we don’t believe this avalanche was survivable.”

Ground crews were yet to reach the site because of unstable ground, DoC Aoraki/Mount Cook operations manager Sally Jones said.

“This is a tragic outcome, and our thoughts are with the climbers’ family and friends.

“The Linda Glacier is an unforgiving alpine environment. Conditions can change rapidly, and even highly experienced climbers are exposed to unexpected hazards including icefall, crevasses, avalanches, and extreme weather.

“Aoraki is a place of immense beauty and significance, but it also can be extremely brutal in terms of what it can throw at those who attempt to climb it.”

The exact location of the bodies was not yet known. Police said a recovery operation would be considered when warmer weather allowed it.

“Sadly, for now, we can’t reach them and they lie in rest on the maunga, and our sympathy is with their whānau,” Walker said.

The latest loss followed the deaths 28-year-old Connor Scott McKenzie and 23-year-old Tanmay Shetankumar Bhati on Fiordland’s Sabre Peak earlier this month, and Wanaka-based mountain guide Thomas Vialletet and his client Kellam Conover, who died on Aoraki/Mount Cook in November.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

John Campbell is returning to RNZ, as the new co-host of Morning Report alongside Ingrid Hipkiss.

RNZ’s Chief Audio Officer Pip Keane said the field of applicants for role on the flagship news programme was impressive but Campbell stood out .

“John’s experience as a journalist and host is exceptional, but equally important is his passion for pursuing the stories that matter and our audience values this strong journalism. He’s also a highly skilled interviewer, and that’s crucial for Morning Report.”

Keane says he will be a key part of RNZ’s dedicated audio plan, which aims to grow RNZ National’s audience.

“We know John can build an audience; he added 50,000 listeners to Checkpoint‘s audience during his time on that programme.

Campbell says he is thrilled to be returning to daily news.

“3 News, Campbell Live, Checkpoint and Breakfast were all daily shows. In total, I hosted or co-hosted them for over twenty years. I’ve missed the racing heart and the urgency and the way broadcast journalism can respond in an instant to the political cycle, and to breaking news.”

Campbell said he’s listened to Morning Report since it began.

“My parents woke up to it. My childhood mornings echoed to the sound of it. That makes this programme really special to me. My first understanding of journalism would have been from Morning Report. It gives voice to the less powerful and holds a mirror up to New Zealand life. To be able to do that, every weekday morning, with neither fear nor favour, is a such an exciting opportunity.

His start date is to be confirmed.

He replaces Corin Dann who is stepping down from the role to become RNZ’s new Business Editor.

Dann will replace Gyles Beckford who is retiring as business editor and moving to a new part-time role as Economics Correspondent.

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