Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Linda Hall: Dishonesty makes it hard

By Linda Hall
Hawkes Bay Today·
17 Nov, 2014 01:00 AM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Christopher King

Christopher King

Law-abiding citizens are probably going to find themselves tangled up in even more red tape thanks to people like Phillip Smith, Kris Willoughby and Christopher King.

Because these people have lied, hurt and manipulated people, and beaten the systems put in place to prevent the likes of them doing exactly what they have done, there will be inquiries, finger pointing and ultimately changes that will no doubt make life for us just that little bit more frustrating. That's fine if it would stop people like this but it won't.

There will always be people in this world who beat the system no matter what we do to prevent it. In just one week, murderer Phillip Smith and drug criminal Kris Willoughby managed to flee the country.

Every week television viewers can watch Customs officers interrogating people and going through their luggage on Border Control.

They stop all sorts of things and people coming into our country. They even stopped a nasty orange sitting in the bottom of my bag last year. Well, actually it wasn't the Customs officers - it was a cute little dog that starting sniffing my bag. I was asked if I had any food in my bag. No, I said. A Customs officer asked me to open my bag and lo and behold, at the bottom of my large handbag was an orange I had simply forgotten was there. That orange cost me $400, an expensive lesson. Every time I think about border control I remember that bloody orange. Anyway, I digress. The point I'm making is that Customs is tough already. However, no matter how many questions Customs officers ask and how many bags they search, people and banned goods are going to slip through the net because there are some really good liars out there.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Take former St John ambulance officer Christopher King, who was last week found guilty of eight sex charges. By all accounts this predator (I'm not going to do all the other good men in the world the disservice of calling him a man) has lied a hell of a lot.

Some people are so good at lying. I'm sure there are not many people out there who have never told a lie, whether it be to save someone's feelings or keep themselves out of a bit of trouble, but people like King are what I would call habitual liars.

I've met one or two habitual liars. Most of them are harmless - they lie to make themselves feel better or to make out they live very exciting lives when in fact they don't. They are most probably lonely. But King seems to be an expert. He duped lots of people and because of him all the other hard-working, honest St John ambulance officers in our communities will no doubt get his actions thrown in their faces by some of the people they are trying to help.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

I wrote last week about how lucky Hawke's Bay is to have such great volunteers in the fire service, St John and other rescue operations - and we are. Let's not forget that King is an anomaly. I hope the powers that be heading any inquiries into these events don't make decisions that make life harder for the good people.

-Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today.

Discover more

Linda Hall: Hard to set a model example

19 Oct 04:00 PM

Linda Hall: Bone to pick about robot dog

27 Oct 12:39 AM

Linda Hall: Message reaches young ones

10 Nov 01:00 AM

Linda Hall: Real mission to use voucher

01 Dec 01:00 AM
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Premium
Opinion

Matariki is the ‘door to the new year’: Te Hira Henderson

20 Jun 07:00 PM
Premium
Hawkes Bay Today

Watch: Forestry skidder tipped over cliff after logging company goes bust

20 Jun 06:00 PM
Premium
Opinion

Hastings stable claims another Waikato Hurdle win in mixed day: John Jenkins

20 Jun 06:00 PM

Jono and Ben brew up a tea-fuelled adventure in Sri Lanka

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Premium
Matariki is the ‘door to the new year’: Te Hira Henderson

Matariki is the ‘door to the new year’: Te Hira Henderson

20 Jun 07:00 PM

OPINION: Matariki not the only star in the sky.

Premium
Watch: Forestry skidder tipped over cliff after logging company goes bust

Watch: Forestry skidder tipped over cliff after logging company goes bust

20 Jun 06:00 PM
Premium
Hastings stable claims another Waikato Hurdle win in mixed day: John Jenkins

Hastings stable claims another Waikato Hurdle win in mixed day: John Jenkins

20 Jun 06:00 PM
Premium
Nick Stewart: The dangerous allure of investment folklore

Nick Stewart: The dangerous allure of investment folklore

20 Jun 06:00 PM
Help for those helping hardest-hit
sponsored

Help for those helping hardest-hit

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP