Māori tikanga hui lets ‘well-known’ man walk free from violent charges

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about a man who had amassed a massive collection of child abuse material, somehow the courts handed him permanent name suppression. He can live out his life in secrecy, his identity hidden from the very public he endangered, with his reputation protected more than the children he exploited.

Now, we have another case that shows just how rotten our so-called justice system has become. A “well-known man” was facing serious charges - threatening to kill a family member and injuring a woman with intent to injure her after an alleged incident in Rotorua in 2023.

Guess what? The charges were dropped. Why? Because the man took part in a Māori tikanga-based restorative justice hui.

This is where New Zealand has lost the plot. Restorative justice may have a role in addressing low-level offending, neighbour disputes, or cases where the harm is genuinely minor and both parties agree to it. However, threatening to kill someone and injuring a woman with intent to injure? These are charges that should be decided in a courtroom, with the law applied equally to everyone, not brushed away in a backroom process dressed up as “tikanga”.

We now live in a country where serious violent charges can disappear if the offender ticks the right cultural box. If you’re “well-known” and can access a tikanga hui, you can walk away from accountability. Meanwhile, ordinary New Zealanders are thrown in jail for far less.

This undermines public trust in the entire legal system. It tells victims that their suffering can be swept under the rug in the name of culture. It tells offenders that there’s an escape hatch if they play the right cards.

Māori tikanga is no excuse to let someone off serious charges. Culture should never override accountability, especially when someone’s safety and life are threatened. New Zealanders deserve better than a two-tiered system where one person gets hammered by the law and another gets away scot-free because of “Māori tikanga”.

Our courts have become a circus, more concerned with appearances and ideology than protecting the public. First, a child exploitation case is hidden from view, now a violent offender walks away because of a hui.