Category: Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The man charged with murdering a woman on an Auckland bus a year ago has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Bernice Louise Marychurch was killed on the Number 74 bus travelling through Onehunga in October 2024.

The man charged with her murder, Kael Leona, handed himself in to authorities shortly after.

In the High Court at Auckland on Wednesday morning, Leona’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea by reason of insanity on his behalf.

Leona himself was not present in court.

He was remanded in custody until his trial in March.

The killing sparked a significant response from transport officials, with Auckland Transport deploying extra transport officers for the route the bus was taking at the time.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon also commented on the crime, saying he was “incredibly saddened and shocked”.

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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 family of a woman murdered by a possessive stalker says she was a kind, hardworking woman, who was deeply devoted to her children.

Nathan Boulter, who had a long history of stalking and assaulting ex-partners, murdered Chantal McDonald in Parklands on 23 July. He will be sentenced in February.

On Wednesday, McDonald’s family released a statement.

“Our daughter Chantal McDonald was a much-loved mother, daughter, sister, and friend. She was kind, hardworking, and deeply devoted to her children, who were always at the centre of her life.

“We are devastated by her loss and are grieving a vibrant life taken from us in such a senseless manner.”

The family’s focus was on caring for McDonald’s children and supporting one another as they come to terms with this tragedy.

“We would like to sincerely thank New Zealand Police for their hard work and professionalism, Victim Support and Bell, Lamb & Trotter Funeral Directors for their care and guidance during this incredibly difficult time,” they said.

“We are also grateful to the Parklands community for the kindness, compassion, and support shown to our family.”

McDonald had been in a brief relationship with Boulter in May. After he was recalled to prison in relation to earlier offending she ended the relationship and told him she did not want any further contact.

Boulter pleaded guilty to murdering McDonald in November.

According to the summary of facts, he “developed an unhealthy fixation with the victim”.

“Once released, the defendant began a significant electronic harassment of the victim, by making 581 calls to the victim between 7 July 2025 and 20 July 2025, which she tried to ignore. In response, the victim made 0 calls,” the summary said.

Boulter used multiple cell phone numbers and social media profiles to harass, stalk and threaten McDonald.

On 14 July, he sent messages via email threatening to “chop u down to nothing” and “one two guess who’s coming to you! Your lack of human compassion and empathy will be the death of you one day soon my Lil hoe! Xxx”.

McDonald began locking her front gate with a padlock to keep herself safe. She also told her friends and family about Boulter’s threats.

On 22 July, Boulter bought a knife.

The following evening, Boulter was watching McDonald’s home that she shared with her children, flatmate and her flatmate’s children.

Boulter hid behind a tree in the street opposite her home and lay in wait.

At about 7.50pm, McDonald and her children came home from the supermarket and drove up the long driveway.

As she came to close the gates behind her, Boulter left his hiding spot, leapt out and attacked her with the knife.

“He started stabbing the victim in a frenzied attack leaving behind a total of 55 stab wounds. The victim’s children ran into the house as the defendant was stabbing their mother,” the summary of facts said.

McDonald died within minutes.

Boulter then left the property on foot, entering a home on Queenspark Drive that was occupied by a family he did not know.

He put the knife on their kitchen bench and after being told to leave, went outside onto the driveway.

Boulter called his stepfather and then police, saying that he had just killed his ex.

“I just killed her now, I stabbed her to death, I f****d up, bro, I need you guys to come get me, I just killed her bro,” he told police.

Boulter was arrested a short time later.

He had previously stalked other women, including being jailed for eight years and six months in 2012 for kidnapping and assaulting his ex-girlfriend over a 38-hour ordeal on Great Barrier Island.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

State Highway Two in Bay of Plenty is blocked after a serious crash.

Police said the crash involved a truck and a van near Tanners Point just before 9am on Wednesday.

Initial indications suggest there are serious injuries.

The road is closed between between Katikati and Waihi Beach. It is expected to be blocked for some time while emergency workers are at the scene.

Drivers are being urged to avoid the area and expect delays.

The Serious Crash Unit has been advised.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

There is nothing stopping schools promoting te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Education Minister says, but they must make closing the achievement gap for tamariki the priority.

Earlier this month the National Iwi Chairs Forum delivered a 24,000-strong petition to Erica Stanford, calling for the immediate reversal of the amendment that removed school boards’ requirement to give effect to te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Regarding the controversy, Stanford said she took the Treaty obligations affecting education seriously.

The focus had shifted to closing the achievement gap between Māori and Pākehā children and to this end she was constantly monitoring Māori data, she told Morning Report. There was also a Māori action plan which had received funding.

She wanted schools to follow three aims: raising Māori achievement, being culturally confident in the classroom and teaching te reo.

“Over and above that, if a school chooses to do what they think they need to do to honour the Treaty then that is their choice. It’s not been taken away from them …”

The Labour government had done nothing to raise Māori achievement in its six years, but now there were specific goals and early results showed this approach was working, Stanford said.

Curriculum revamp

New maths and English curriculums for years 0-6, the plans to scrap and replace NCEA and on-going industrial action have been among other causes of controversy this year.

Erica Stanford said the Education Review Office’s assessment of the year “fills me with confidence”.

Achievements included: 98 percent of schools were using the new maths and English curriculums, 80 percent of teachers had changed their teaching practice and by term 3 half of teachers were seeing improved achievement in the classroom.

Maths and phonics check results were impressive and she was grateful to the teaching profession for embracing the changes and doing so well.

Stanford said she knew there was criticism and apprehension at the scale and pace of change, however, schools had been advised to go at their own pace.

Originally, the plan had been to drop the entire curriculum in 2027 so changes had been introduced at a slower pace.

“Even though it has been a big change we are seeing results. Maths, reading and behaviour as well in the classroom – we’ve arrested the decline and we’re starting to see early results that are really encouraging.”

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A man has been jailed for what investigators say was one of their largest hauls of objectionable material ever seized at Auckland Airport.

The 35-year-old Auckland man arrived at the end of May after spending more than a month overseas. During a search, customs officers found several electronic devices and multiple electronic storage devices in his possession.

A total of 21,482 objectionable images and video files were found across six devices.

Over 15,000 of them were of child sexual exploitation, with about 40-percent falling into the most extreme categories involving children and infants.

Customs said the man was identified this individual as a person of interest back in 2024. The moment he re-entered New Zealand in May, Customs officers interviewed and arrested him on site at the border, Chief Customs Officer, Child Exploitation Operations Team, Simon Peterson said.

“This operation resulted in one of the largest intercepts of objectionable publications at the air border. The material he carried was deeply disturbing and included some of the most extreme child sexual abuse content known to law enforcement worldwide,” Peterson said.

“Offending of this nature is never victimless. These are not simply illicit images or videos – they document real children being horrifically abused. Every time this material circulates, it perpetuates harm and trauma or those victims.”

The man was sentenced in the Auckland District Court on Tuesday to three years and nine-and-a-half months jail.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

Assistant Commissioner Mike Pannett has been announced as one of the new statutory deputy commissioners of Police.

After the initial shock at Deputy Commissioner Jevon McSkimming‘s resignation in May one of the questions that emerged was who would replace him.

Then, in July Deputy Commissioner Tania Kura announced her retirement after 37 years in police, leaving both Deputy Commissioner roles vacant.

The second deputy commissioner will not be announced on Wednesday, though Jill Rogers is widely considered to be frontrunner for the role.

It’s understood acting Deputy Commissioner Mike Johnson and Bruce O’Brien – who has been in London since June 2023 as New Zealand Police’s Senior Liaison Officer – were in the final four.

Pannett is the longest serving of the final four, having joined police in 1980. His career has included a secondment to the Australian Federal Police’s International Command in 2020 as well as a stint as the New Zealand Police Liaison Officer in Washington D.C, covering the United States, Canada, Central and South America. In 2010 he was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to New Zealand Police.

Do you know more? Email Sam.Sherwood@rnz.co.nz

The announcement comes after the Independent Police Conduct Authority’s report found serious misconduct at the highest levels of police, including former Commissioner Andrew Coster, in relation to police’s response to allegations of sexual offending by former Deputy Police Commissioner Jevon McSkimming.

Police Commissioner Richard Chambers earlier announced the focus for 2026 was on the four priorities he outlined a year prior: core policing, supporting the frontline, leadership and accountability, and fiscal responsibility.

Specifically, he had set specific goals around service, safety and trust, including getting trust and confidence up from 69 percent to 80 percent.

The other benchmarks included getting satisfaction for services to 80 percent from its current 71 percent, a 15 percent rise in resolutions for retail crime, and a 15 percent reduction in violence in public places.

He also pointed to a 20 percent increase in Māori at police over the past five years.

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Source: Radio New Zealand

A law professor says a judge’s order for a new election to take place for seats on an Auckland local board – due to manipulation of voting papers – is another “nail in the coffin” for the postal voting system for local elections.

Former Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board deputy chairperson Lehopoaome Vi Hausia took a petition to the Manukau District Court, calling for a judicial inquiry, after receiving reports of voting papers stolen from residents.

Vi Hausia did not get re-elected, coming fifth after four candidates from the Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team – Paramjeet Singh, Sandeep Saini, Kushma Nair and Kunal Bhalla – secured the four seats in the Papatoetoe subdivision of the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board.

The inquiry identified 79 voting papers cast without voters’ knowledge.

Judge Richard McIlraith on Tuesday ruled that irregularities had materially affected the election results and voided the Papatoetoe subdivision’s election results.

Otago University’s Professor Andrew Geddis said the ruling was significant in that it was the first electoral petition that had led to findings of deliberate attempts to manipulate the results of an election in New Zealand.

“It’s very worrying, whenever one of our democratic processes is found to have so fundamentally failed that we just cannot trust the results, because of course it’s the process of electing people that then allows our system of government to work,” he said.

Professor Geddis said it was a “wake-up call” for New Zealand to rethink how local elections needed to be run in the future.

“What it does show, though, is that the postal voting system that we use is susceptible to this sort of manipulation or this sort of irregularity,

“Another perhaps nail in the coffin of using the postal system to run local elections,” he said.

Professor Geddis said the most secure system would be an in-person voting system, which was used in national elections.

He said while that would cost more than the current postal system, it was worth the investment.

“Given those risks and the costs that then come with having to redo elections, the cost of not changing may well in the future be as much, or even greater than moving to a system that’s secure and more trustworthy,” he said.

“I suspect that what we’re going to find, is we just are going to have to bite the bullet and say, if we want to have trustworthy elections that produce legitimate outcomes, we’re going to have to pay to allow that to happen,” he added.

Complaints handed on to police – lawyer

The lawyer for Lehopoaome Vi Hausia, Simon Mitchell, KC, told Morning Report 53 of the 79 people applied for special votes on the basis they hadn’t received a voting paper. It soon emerged votes had already been received in their names.

Of those votes, 51 were for the newly elected members, he said.

In some streets in the subdivision there was an increase of more than 100 percent compared with the 2022 election.

Across the subdivision there was a 7.5 percent increase in voting. No other local board had seen an rise and for the Auckland Council there was a decrease in voting.

“So Papatoetoe was a total outlier in terms of special votes where a vote had already been cast…”

Mitchell said it would not have been difficult for the judge to conclude that there had been irregularities and a new election would be needed.

“He found that there was enough evidence that the result could have been different.”

Sixteen complaints have been made to the returning officer and some were now being investigated by the police.

It was a serious offence to vote for somebody else, and it could be punished by a two-year jail term, he said.

The safety of the postal voting system would also need to be examined. It might lead to more disengagement with participation in local body elections, he said.

Police said their investigation was still ongoing.

Electoral officer ready for new election

Meanwhile, the independent electoral officer for Auckland Dale Ofsoske said he was ready to undertake a new election for the Papatoetoe seats in the Ōtara-Papatoetoe Local Board, which was estimated to cost between $175,000 and 200,000.

He said any voting system had its weaknesses, and it was a matter of mitigating the risks and informing voters when to check for their postal voting papers.

Ofsoske said the new election date for the Papatoetoe seats would be 9 April next year, and would also be done through postal ballot voting.

Voting packs would be delivered in early March, he said.

The minister for Local Government Simon Watts said in as statement that what occured was “disappointing”.

“This is a matter that I am watching very closely, and I will continue to assess the situation,” he said.

However, he said the processes showed that appropriate guardrails were in place and functioning as they should.

“Local councils are responsible for running their own elections, in this matter the case was referred to police by the council and its electoral officer and a petition for inquiry was brought by a candidate who noticed something unusual. This is in line with the appropriate process,” he said.

Meanwhile, Papatoetoe-Otara Action Team’s Kushma Nair was not available for an interview on Tuesday.

“I am looking into the matter and am not in a position to comment until I get full information,” he said in a text message.

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

Source: Radio New Zealand

Wellington trains will be out of action for at least two weeks over the summer break.

KiwiRail said track maintenance and major upgrades will see buses replace trains across most of the network from 26 December Boxing Day until 12 January.

Wellington Metro general manager Andy Lyon said the line-up of work included replacing rails and sleepers, bridge repairs, and level crossing upgrades.

“Physically lifting out and replacing old infrastructure isn’t something we can do while trains are trying to run at the same time – it’s too disruptive to passenger services.”

Some of the projects were laying the groundwork for 2029’s new trains and increased services between Wairarapa and Manawatū and also included preparation work for new substations and the Ava Bridge renewal in Lower Hutt, he said.

Lyon said the plan was to get the work done while commuters were out of town but warned that disruptions were possible when train services resumed.

“It’s not unusual for things to take a few days to settle.

“We will know how things are looking by end of that last weekend, and will work closely with Metlink to make sure passengers are informed in advance of any temporary changes to timetables while things bed in.”

The network was expected to be up-and-running again on Monday 12 January, with trains on the Johnsonville line, and Wellington to Porirua services on the Kāpiti line resuming a week earlier on Monday 5 January.

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