Heather du Plessis-Allan: Open letter to a blackmailer

The threat to lace baby formula with 1080 poison has the nation questioning the mindset of the blackmailer. Photo / AFP

To The 1080 Blackmailer,

I would have sent you a letter - I know how you like those - but I didn't know your address. I asked around. No one else knows, either.

Not even the cops.

Anyway, I thought it would be rude not to respond to the two letters you have sent. I'd be lying if I said it was nice to hear from you. It really wasn't.

You should know people are pretty angry with you around here. I've heard a couple of guys call you a nutter on TV. Loads of people agree with them.

To be fair, you were probably asking for it.

We should talk about what you've done. We'll leave your alleged threat to kill babies for now, but I will say that's pretty dark, mate.

Winston's really cross with you. He blames you for upsetting his flow. He had a bit of a roll on with his campaign in Northland.

He was on the 6 o'clock news every night. People started saying he might actually steal that byelection.

Then we heard about you, and that's all everyone has talked about since then.

Now, I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, so I can't agree with Winston that the Nats are using your letters to distract us from Northland, but that's what he reckons. By the way, he called you an idiot. Loads of people agree.

I heard the chaps who work for the Government are pretty keen to talk to you. They've been spending a lot of dough lately, checking all the baby formula.

They've done tens of thousands of tests. I reckon they must be frustrated doing all that extra work because of you.

And never mind all the cash they're spending trying to make sure you can't get to the baby formula in the first place, they now have security guards patrolling the factories and all kinds of carry on.

You've really caused a kerfuffle.

I went to the supermarket tonight. They've put the baby formula tins where they can see them. There's a man watching them the whole time, with crossed arms and a very important job look on his face.

It's a real hassle for all of us to try to squeeze past him in the narrow aisle. Thanks for that.

People are trying to understand why you did this. I read some speculation that maybe one of your pets ate 1080 and died. I'm sorry if that happened. That'd be really sad.

But that can't be true, because anyone who saw a pet poisoned would surely never wish that on a baby.

You probably know more than me about 1080 - at least, I bloody hope so, given your threat - so I probably don't need to tell you this, but I will anyway.

I was reading about what would happen if a baby did eat 1080. They reckon it wouldn't take much of the stuff. First, the baby would probably vomit. Then it'd have seizures. It would struggle to breathe and maybe even become paralysed.

You wouldn't want to hear that baby screaming, because you know it would. It could take nearly two days for the baby to die. And it would die, you know that. There's no antidote.

That's what no one understands: why it's innocent babies you'd want to hurt. I don't really know what to say about that, except it was pretty low, mate. It's a good thing the chance of you getting to hurt those babies is also pretty low. Looks like they have all the bases covered to keep you away.

Anyway, the cops have asked me to tell you they'd love to hear from you. Why don't you send them a letter? This time, be sure to include a return address.