Warning: This story details sexual violence and child abuse.
The Bay of Plenty Times has covered over 100 court hearings this year - as well as the countless written decisions and out-of-court justice stories that go alongside them.
The region has had some of the country’s most notable cases this year. Ethan Griffiths takes a look at four high-profile cases.
The Jayden Meyer case
The prosecution of 18-year-old Tauranga man Jayden Meyer sparked one of the most furious public responses to any case in New Zealand’s courts this year, with hundreds of people marching in the street and thousands signing a petition criticising how the case was handled.
It began on September 6 when Open Justice published a story revealing the prosecution against Meyer for the rape of four 15-year-old girls and the sexual violation of another. One of the rapes occurred in a bush, while another was filmed by Meyer in its entirety. Three occurred over clearly voiced refusals, while the fourth occurred while the victim was asleep.
From a starting point of six years’ imprisonment, he was sentenced to nine months’ home detention, unusually supported by the Crown. In the days after the story was published, social media erupted with anger, while a petition calling for the sentence to be appealed garnered nearly 40,000 signatures. A protest in Tauranga saw 600 local students “march for justice”.
The victims of Meyer’s offending later penned an article for Open Justice, speaking about their hurt at what they felt was an unjust sentence.
The reason for Meyer’s sentence wasn’t detailed by the sentencing judge, Christopher Harding, in his written decision.
Another local judge accused journalists of “creating an entirely unnecessary public furore” in the way they reported on the case, and denied media the right to access documents that would reveal how the sentence was reached.
Crown Law went about launching an appeal against the sentence which was heard six weeks later.
Ultimately, it wasn’t successful, with the High Court finding that while the sentence was “manifestly inadequate”, the fact Meyer had partially completed his sentence meant it would be unjust to turn around and change it.
The High Court also slated the lack of transparency of the sentencing process at the District Court level.
The killing of Malachi Subecz
“I constantly see Malachi wired up and gasping for breath. The images have never gone away, and probably never will.”
Those were the words of five-year-old Malachi Subecz’s uncle Peter Menzies, who sat with the little boy as he took his last breath at Starship Children’s Hospital in November last year.
One of the most high-profile murder prosecutions of the year, the brutal abuse and eventual killing of the Te Puna boy will forever be etched in the minds of those who work with children.
The horrifying case saw Malachi placed in the care of Michaela Barriball, a friend of Malachi’s mother, who at that point was in prison and unable to care for her son.
While in Barriball’s care, Malachi suffered repeated beatings, was held under bath water, locked in a car and thrown against walls by his hair. Food was withheld from him, and he was forced to stand for prolonged periods while his carer sat and watched movies.
The abuse eventually culminated in a wretched attack on the child on the morning of November 1, as Barriball received news she had been denied a rental. She inflicted blunt force trauma on the child and he suffered a seizure. He was later rushed to Starship, succumbing to his injuries 12 days later.
At one point, a member of Malachi’s whānau contacted Oranga Tamariki with their concerns, but the Government agency failed to act.
On June 30, Barriball was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non–parole period of 17 years – one of the longest ever passed down to a female offender.
Tauranga Boys’ College apologises
Following apologies from Dilworth School and St Peter’s School in Cambridge, Tauranga man Glenn Marshall felt he deserved one, too.
Marshall attended Tauranga Boys’ College in 1988, where he was asked by now-deceased English teacher Pinky Green if he would allow himself to be tied to a chair naked and engage in bondage.
Marshall approached Tauranga Boys’ late last year asking for a public apology because he believed reputational damage to the school was prioritised over the wellbeing of students at the time.
The school reinvestigated the case and initially told Marshall there was no evidence it was “swept under the carpet” at the time, and the Board of Trustees did not support a public apology. Marshall later complained to police, the Ombudsman and the Minister of Education.
After questions from Open Justice, the school changed its position and offered a public apology from Board of Trustees chairwoman Nikki Iuli, who said sorry for the historic incidents and acknowledged the review of Marshall’s complaint was “insufficient”.
“While nothing we do as a school can erase history, we want to do what we can to help those still living and suffering from any long-term effects of past abuses.”
Aussie politico to Kiwi prison
A former high-flying political operator who sat on boards with former Australian prime ministers, Tio Faulkner came back to New Zealand and undertook one of the most bizarre environmental crimes the Bay of Plenty Regional Council had ever seen.
Living on ancestral land on Matapihi Peninsula, Faulkner dumped hundreds of kilograms of concrete and reinforced steel into Tauranga Harbour in order to build his own ‘seaside park’. He then established a piggery on the makeshift platform, allowing effluent to flow freely into the harbour.
When this mysterious landmass was discovered by a council enforcement officer conducting aerial surveys, Faulkner consistently refused to abide by abatement orders and was later prosecuted by the regional council.
He represented himself in court, putting forward a case of Māori sovereignty and suggesting the law didn’t apply to him or his people. At one point he was remanded in custody for failing to provide the court with his financial information, waving to his family as he was handled away by court security.
He ended up in Spring Hill Prison after a judge sentenced him to three months in prison for his crimes - an incredibly rare sentence for prosecutions under the Resource Management Act.
It was later revealed that Faulkner was previously the head of the Canberra Liberal Party and worked in Australia’s senate, once being described by Australian newspaper the Age as a “campaign mastermind”. Those who worked with Faulkner described his role as senior and respected.
His former boss, then-Australian Cabinet Minister Zed Seselja, did not wish to comment when Open Justice rang him.
Faulkner later went on to found one of the country’s largest anti-gay marriage lobby groups during the country’s plebiscite.
He continues to deny the courts have jurisdiction over him, and has appealed his conviction. The appeal was heard in November, with the outcome expected to be known in the new year.