Editorial - November 6, 2012

Don't be ashamed

DISBELIEF was a common reaction in Kaitaia to the laying of multiple charges against one confessed paedophile, a second alleged paedophile and a man who has now admitted multiple charges of recording and possessing personal images of two women. If the charging of former teacher James Parker came as a shock, the charging of Eric Reid compounded the blow to the community's sense of well-being. The allegations against Daniel Taylor have some wondering just how deep this awful infection goes. For some, however, disbelief has been followed by shame.

One news organisation contacted this newspaper last week for an opinion regarding the theory that Parker, Reid and Taylor knew each other (quite likely) and that they had somehow worked in unison. No effort was spared to disabuse the inquirer regarding the possibility that Kaitaia was home to a coven of perverts who had formed an association, but if one person thought it was worth floating there will no doubt be others.

The fact the three men, remembering the charges against Taylor are at this stage no more than allegations, held responsible positions deepens the wound, even if Te Runanga o Te Rarawa chairman Haami Piripi doesn't see it that way. He was quoted last week as saying none of the three could claim backgrounds that extended deep into Kaitaia's past, a new way perhaps of saying that those who aren't born in Kaitaia will never be regarded as locals however long they live there.

All three had been seen as "external agents," Mr Piripi said. There had been no breaching of the inner sanctum, the integrity of the community, which left room to rebound, to re-build and to re-energise the community with confidence.

That might not come as much consolation to those who see their town as having been besmirched, but it is a valid point of view, one that will resonate with many. Small communities in the Far North have been known to protest vigorously when criminals who live in the communities are publicly identified as resident, when in fact they arrived from somewhere else many years before. Far North citizenship is not bestowed lightly. (A positive manifestation of that was displayed when Peter Dryburgh was formally presented with honorary Far Northerner status upon his retirement as surgeon superintendent at Kaitaia Hospital, an honour that was genuinely bestowed, and accepted as such).

Whatever claim the three men who have brought the spotlight on to Kaitaia have in terms of identifying themselves, or being identified by others, as belonging to Kaitaia, no one in that community has any grounds for shame and there is good reason for Kaitaia to take pride in the fact two are well on the way to being brought to justice.

Mark Dalzell, who leads the Child Protection Team in Kaitaia, put it very well last week when he said the laying of mass allegations could be seen as evidence Kaitaia would not stand for "this sort of behaviour," and that victims had the confidence to complain.

If it wasn't for information provided by the community, he said, the police would not get on to "these guys."

He is absolutely right. Enormous courage, and faith in the fairness of the community, must be needed to complain about the sort of offending that has been admitted by Parker and Reid, especially given the sure knowledge that once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, it will never go back in again.

We are told, as if we need to be, that it is very much in the interests of sexual offending victims to exorcise the evil that has been done to them, but the shame that victims suffer, irrational as it might be, and more importantly perhaps the potential for public identification, must be very powerful incentives for remaining silent.

It would be surprising if all James Parker's victims have offered information to the police, but enough have done so for the laying of 49 charges (at the time of writing), with more possibly to come. The same principle applies to Reid's victims and those who have made allegations against Taylor (unless, of course, they prove to be unfounded), and that should be a source of pride, not shame, to the town that these men were once part of.

It should also be remembered that offending of this nature is not some kind of Far North specialty.

The Far North has generally been spared the worst forms of criminal offending, with one or two notable exceptions, and perhaps that in itself goes some way toward explaining the current reaction.

Kaitaia might have grown used to its once widely-recognised reputation as the capital of Cannabis County, a source of great public angst when it was first coined (and painted on SH1 at the top of the Mangamuka Gorge), but it still cringes when it is linked nationally with crime of a lesser calibre. And TVNZ's repeated use of file footage from Kaitaia to illustrate stories relating to social deprivation grates, even if the pictures are of Kaikohe, as they have been on occasion in the past, but are labelled Kaitaia.

Kaitaia is no worse than any small New Zealand town, and significantly better than many. It is self-sufficient to an unusual degree, an inheritance from the physical remoteness that was once a genuinely debilitating fact of life in the very Far North, and, while the national media might not recognise it, can claim to be the home or springboard for achievers in all sorts of fields.

Kaitaia's contribution to this country is significant and positive, and the fact it is now attracting attention for a negative reason does not and should not negate that.

One man who would no doubt share that view is Kaitaia College principal William Tailby. He was quoted last week as saying the people of Kaitaia were generous and resilient, and to be judged on the actions of a few would be unfair. He was right. Kaitaia is a generous community, for reasons that are not easily explained, and resilient because it has had to be.

These are strange times though. And they became even stranger when Daniel Taylor was granted name suppression four days after his first court appearance, and two days after his name and photo first adorned the pages of a newspaper. Why the order was issued is a mystery; it certainly didn't survive Taylor's second appearance last week, the court accepting that "that horse" had bolted long ago.

Suppression orders should not be granted in cases such as this without very, very strong grounds. They should obviously be granted if they are in the best interests of the alleged victims, whose protection is paramount, but the identification of those charged can have a positive outcome, if positive is the right word, by way of encouraging unknown victims to come forward. Publication also avoids the situation, all too possible in a small community, where fingers are pointed in the wrong direction.

That's a side issue now, and irrelevant to boot. The important point right now is the process Kaitaia is going through is not of its making, and that there is no cause for communal shame. There but for the grace of God goes many another small town, the difference being that in Kaitaia the exorcising has begun.