Teina Pora’s convictions for the 1992 rape and murder of Susan Burdett have been quashed. In his first interview, he speaks to New Zealand Herald journalist Phil Taylor about coping and forgiveness.
Teina Pora says he forgives the police who charged him with the 1992 rape and murder of Susan Burdett.
Pora was convicted twice and spent 21 years in jail. In March the Privy Council quashed his convictions and recommended he not be put on trial again.
In this first interview, he tells of the emotion of hearing that he would not be tried again.
"I got a phone call from Tim [McKinnel, private investigator], just telling me no retrial. I stopped the car; just me and my dog. It would probably be the first ever time, tears just running from my eyes man."
"I went to the beach, Mission Bay, and just let everything wash out of the soles of my feet. Life began for me then."
Asked what he'd say to those officers, he doesn't hesitate, "I forgive yous, man, and just move on."
"Back then I had all the anger towards them. I understand the word forgiveness. It will put you at peace. You don't have to carry any more s**t anymore."
The charges were laid after he was interviewed for four days. Two juries judged him guilty before the Privy Council ruled that: "The combination of Pora's frequently contradictory and often implausible confessions and the recent diagnosis of his FASD [fetal alcohol spectrum disorder] leads to only one possible conclusion and that is that the reliance on his confessions gives rise to a risk of a miscarriage of justice."
At a family gathering soon after he was released on parole last year, Pora told relatives who had claimed he was involved in Ms Burdett's murder that he forgave them.
"I've never met Susan," he told the Herald. "I didn't know her from a bar of soap."
Nor had he met Malcolm Rewa, a lone-wolf serial rapist with the embarrassing affliction of erectile dysfunction, whose semen was in Ms Burdett's body. Rewa was convicted of rape but two juries could not decide whether he murdered her.
Of his confessions, Pora, who was 17, said he was young and confused. "It was like getting interrogated ... I just said whatever they were saying. I just said 'yes' and said 'no'. I thought no was yes and yes was no back then. I just went along with it."
Prison was "a living nightmare".
"I was in amongst some of the most notorious criminals in New Zealand. Some scary s**t there." Standing up to daily taunts of "rapist" and "murderer", sometimes led to fights, "and you can't win them all".
For the first two years he marked time, keeping note of each passing day. "And you just get sick of it. It was slowing down everything."
"As the years went on I just started to realise no one cared, so I might as well live the lifestyle of being in prison, the art and craft of being in there."
Everything changed 11 years ago, he says, when he was baptised by a fellow inmate using water from a prison laundry tub.
Teina Pora gets a hug from his daughter Channelle and his grandson Benson, 5, after the Privy Council verdict quashing his murder conviction was announced. Photo / Dean Purcell
He taught himself to read using a pocket bible. "I'm a different person now. Humble. In the past I'd have been, yeah, aggressive."
He'd lost his anger and his attitude. "I don't have anything towards anyone anymore."
Religion changed him and McKinnel saved him. When the former detective whose work led to Pora's convictions being quashed, turned up five years ago, Pora was initially wary.
"I was in the exercise yard when I got a phone call. A Tim from Hawkes Bay? He just asked me, said he was interested in my case. I just hanged up the phone and the next day he was there. Unbelievable."
"Without Tim ... I'd still be sitting behind those four walls."
