Hapuku Local Damaged Road To Deter Freedom Campers – updated

Today we have some background to the issue of freedom camping in Hapuku. Read our most recent blog about the Swiss tourists whose tyres were slashed as they camped at a remote spot in Hapuku on March 1st, just north of the township of Kaikoura.

It seems that freedom campers have been a thorn in the side for some angry residents, who say the problems became worse after Hapuku got a mention in the Lonely Planet Guide.

A report headed Freedom camping under gun appeared in the Kaikoura star on 12/1//2012

“The Kaikoura district council needs to wake up and address the issue of freedom camping before the environment is ruined beyond repair, say angry residents

Stephen Young, who lives in the Hapuku settlement north of town said the situation was out of control in the area, with neighbours regularly confronted by the sight
of tourists openly defecating outside their properties.

Mr Young said since the paper road at the end of Hapuku was graded recently, an influx of freedom campers had taken it as an invitation to drive down to the
beach and park up for the night.

“The next thing we had buses down there, they had a big party and left broken bottles sticking up out of the sand…it’s just unbelievable…

…Concerned for the safety of other beach users, particularly children, Mr Young took it upon himself to make some “minor” alterations to the track using his digger to formjudder bars and make it harder for campervans to access...”

But when the other residents complained about it he was forced to level it out again….

The report by Emma Dangerfield  goes on to tell how the Lonely Planet mentioned Hapuku, since then the spot has become even more popular with tourists looking for an ideal out of the way location. Mr Young thought the council needed to act now legislate to “do something about it.”

And so the  wheels of bureaucracy are supposed to be turning, the council is canvassing public opinion over the issue. But the mayor of Kaikoura, Winston Gray said that freedom camping was only a big issue for the “crunch month” between 20 Dec and 20 Jan when there was more pressure on the town’s services.

Update: The survey has started, but was met with criticism from local businesses holders and councillors who think it is “flawed”. They say some of the questions are irrelevant: they ask how long the respondent has been in the area and what business they’re in.

“Gerald Nolan, owner of Top 10 Holiday Park, said the council had missed the point when it came to freedom camping. Allowing freedom camping in town would result in the ratepayer picking up the tab for sewer, water, refuse and monitoring costs, and local campgrounds would employ fewer people and spend less on local services.

He too agreed the survey was loaded and questioned the need for the council to know how many guests he had staying at his campground.

“[The] survey asks no questions regarding the financial impact on the community if freedom camping is allowed,” he said. “This community relies on the tourist dollar to create employment and retain services for our economic and social betterment … there is only one winner in this debate and that is the free camper who wants our community to pay for their holiday.”

Mr Nolan said true freedom camping did not mean parking in car parks and urban streets and he did not believe such campers spent much money in town at all…” read a full news report about it here

The survey is to be completed by 16 March.

As the Swiss tourist incident shows tourists are still staying in Hapuku outside of that peak period.  Even though the middle aged women had a fully equipped  campervan with its own bathroom facilities and were causing no problems, people may have still felt strongly enough about the issue to take the law into their own hands and slash tyres.

As far as we are aware police have yet to make an arrest in this case.

The town is concerned that news of this crime will reach an international audience and deter tourists from coming to the area. However, that may have been the intention of the perpetrator. Maybe to get Hapuku removed from the Lonely Planet? who knows what his or her motives were.

Until this issue is resolved we urge tourists to take care when choosing where to lodge their campervans in and around Kaikoura. Gauge local opinion, or ask landowners if it’s ok to park up for a while. Otherwise your holiday could be easily ruined by one thoughtless act of vandalism.

For more about the problems of freedom camping in New Zealand read our other blogs

Swiss Campers’ Tyres Slashed In Kaikoura

Open Season On Freedom Campers Well Underway In New Zealand

Freedom Campers “Should Be Shot”

One Answer To Wellington’s Street Violence

Do you recall at the time of Phillip Cottrell’s murder in Wellington that police were at great pains to emphasise what a safe place the city was? They said that street violence was rare in the city.

The day after Mr Cottrell died local newspaper, The Dominion Post,  whose offices are feet away from where Mr Cottrell was found, decided to take the bull by the horns and published data that proved that violence and serious assaults had increased by over 40% in the last year:

“Monthly police statistics show an increase of serious assaults resulting in injury, in either public or private places,  rose from 23 in October 2010 to 33 in October this year (2011)

The monthly reports also show an increase of public place assaults from 62 to 65 in the same time period…”

The report then went on to details other street attacks that had taken place over that weekend and quoted Acting Commander Detective Inspector Steve Vaughan saying the weekend attacks were “terrible and nasty“.

We suggested that showed that the city was anything but safe. Three days after Mr Cottrell was assaulted a woman was attacked in Newtown Avenue just 4 kms away, but news about the attack was withheld until almost two weeks later when police appealed for witnesses.

Now a local man has decided to do something to counter the threat on Wellington’s streets after his 50 year old wife was attacked by a “group” of youths in the city (the word group is often used as a euphemism for gang in New Zealand) Fortunately his wife has a second degree black belt in Karate and able to defend herself, but not everyone is so well prepared so Mr Jennings is offering to train people in self defence.

Reported on by the Dom Post:

“A Johnsonville karate master is offering a self-defence course for ”potential victims” after his wife was attacked by a group of youths in Wellington.

Kyokushin karate instructor, Peter Jennings – a fifth dan Shihan master – said he had become increasingly concerned with the level of serious assaults and other unprovoked attacks in central Wellington and the city’s suburbs.

Highly commendable, Mr Jennings may be doing more for safety on the streets than the law enforcement agencies who seem to prefer to create an illusion of safety. What better way to discourage muggings than to create a self aware populace who are prepared and able to defend themselves against street thugs?

“The risks for innocent people walking the Wellington streets at night “hit home” when a group of youths tried to mug his wife – a 50-year-old bank manager and second degree black-belt – in the CBD last year.

Mr Jennings said his wife was given a black eye in the attack, but was otherwise unharmed, while her assailants – one with a suspected broken jaw – fled empty-handed.

“I hate to consider what may have been the result if she had not known how to effectively respond to the situation.”

The course is open to those of high school age and older but applicants will be vetted.” more here

Two youths aged 17 and 19 were eventually arrested and charged in connection with the death of Mr Cottrell. Read Phillip Cottrell teens arrested at gunpoint .

Other recent Wellington Assault News Reports

19 January:  “The man charged with an assault in Wellington that left a Kapiti man on life support has been remanded until March for forensic tests to be completed.”

Turangi Child Rape: Open Letter to the Prime Minister of New Zealand

Following last months brutal campsite rape of a 5 year old Belgian girl in Turangi Dr Kim McGregor, Executive Director of Rape Prevention Education has written an open letter to John Key.

Dr McGregor calls for a Task-force on Action on Sexual Violence to be set-up in New Zealand and cites some horrendous child abuse figures.

Far from being a great place to raise kids, the high level of sexual violence in New Zealand impacts 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 8 boys under the age of 16 years. For more about the significant problems of raising children in New Zealand please see our Education and Childrens Issues facts page.

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“Dear Prime Minister,

To most New Zealanders the brutal sexual assault of the sleeping 5 year old girl in Turangi just before Christmas was a shocking and shameful incident.

Prime Minister, I really hope that this incident will provide the catalyst needed for your government to begin to implement the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence (TASV) report recommendations given to your government in July 2009.

When referring to the taskforce report, the previous Minister of Justice, Simon Power, stated that, our sector represented by Te Ohaakii a Hine National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together (TOAH NNEST), “as a part of the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence, is responsible for the most comprehensive roadmap on sexual violence prevention and services that any Government has ever received”. He also said “and now what you need is an assurance that the Government not only backs your work, but is prepared to pay for it”. (Speech April 2010)

As you will be aware, few of the taskforce recommendations have been implemented and rather than your government resourcing our specialist services, our sector’s capacity to prevent and deal with the high levels of sexual violence in our country has been diminished in the last two years – especially since the withdrawal of $6 million per annum of counselling support (from $10.6 million in 2007/2008 to $4.5 million in 2010/2011 see OIA attached).

Prime Minister, as you will be aware, every community in New Zealand has people who perpetrate sexually harmful behaviours as well as people who have experienced sexual violence. You will also know that such sexual violence is preventable.

Lessons need to be learned from the appalling incident in Turangi, so that we as a nation can join together to protect other children from the sexual violence that currently impacts approximately 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 8 boys under the age of 16 years in this country.

Although rarely by a stranger, every year a few of these thousands of children throughout the country will experience one-off brutal incidents similar to the one reported in Turangi. Others will experience regular sexual violations that may be repeated over months or even years. What vary are the victims’ ages and the relationship of the offender to the child.

While most on-going experiences of sexual violence are less outwardly brutal, they are still likely to be traumatic and have long-term negative health and social impacts.

Without intervention and specialist support, child sexual violence is potentially life-threatening. Common on-going effects of child sexual violence can include a lifetime of anxiety, and serious depressions that can develop into harmful behaviours towards the self and/or others.

Mostly there are no witnesses to child sexual violence that happens every day in our country – usually behind closed doors within the child’s home or community.

Commonly the child is prevented from speaking of the crime for a variety of reasons including that the child is groomed to feel they are to blame, is threatened, or, the sex offender is someone close to the child or is a valued member of the child’s community.

If child-victims do ever speak about sexual violence, often it is not until they are adults. This is sometimes when they first look for counselling help.

Many of those who commit sexually harmful behaviours begin with concerning sexualised behaviours in childhood. While some of these behaviours will stop in childhood, without early detection and intervention, by teenage years or early twenties, some of these behaviours may have escalated and become entrenched, impacting many child and/or adult victims – sometimes over many years. A few offenders will also commit brutal attacks similar to the assault committed in Turangi.

Prime Minister, what is required to prevent sexual violence is the increased resourcing that Minister Power referred to and also leadership that extends beyond elections and the term of a single Minister. To keep our children safe, our communities need a government and a specialist sector joined together in a determined effort and sustained over many years.

Please help us by providing the leadership necessary to establish an on-going forum or process so that government Ministers and relevant Ministries can continue to work with our specialist TOAH NNEST sector to make children in this country safe from sexual violence.

There are some simple and achievable actions your government can take immediately. These recommendations were given to your government in the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence report in July 2009 (see the Ministry of Justice website). Key actions include, please:

reinstate the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence that for the first time ever in our country provided leadership through a joint government partnership with specialist Maori and Tauiwi sector representatives.

Two years of the Taskforce (2007-2009) was not enough. We had only just begun the huge amount of work required to make our communities safe from sexual violence;

approve and resource the first ever National Sexual Violence Prevention Plan that was developed over the two years of the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence.

It is unclear why the National Sexual Violence Prevention Plan was scrapped before it was to be approved by Cabinet in 2010. This Plan would have been the first of its kind in New Zealand and would have helped us catch-up to many other countries whose governments have taken an active leadership role in sexual violence prevention; and

provide realistic and sustained funding to our poorly resourced TOAH NNEST specialist sexual violence prevention and intervention frontline services that include early intervention programmes for children with concerning sexualised behaviour.

Our early intervention programmes offer the best hope of identifying early, children who are at risk of later sexual offending, and intervening to prevent this occurring. There are hundreds of children and youths and their families throughout the country who want and need our early interventions that will help to stop further sexual violations. While we have excellent specialist community treatment services throughout the country, these services are currently insufficiently resourced to help increase the safety in all of our communities.

Our TOAH NNEST support services aim to provide every area in New Zealand with specialist child, youth and adult, forensic, medical and psychological early intervention support services, on-going phone and face-to-face individual, and family counselling, criminal justice support services and, where possible, specialist family reintegration and restorative justice services.

Summary

Sexual violence against children in New Zealand happens on a daily basis and affects approximately 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 8 boys under the age of 16 years.

Sexual violence is preventable.

To avoid further sexual attacks on our children I implore you to:

implement the recommendations in the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence report

reinstate the Taskforce for Action on Sexual Violence

approve and resource the drafted National Sexual Violence Prevention Plan.”

replace the $6 million saved from cuts to our services, and

provide our services with realistic and sustainable funding so that we can provide New Zealanders with the specialist services they need to work to prevent and deal with the huge levels of sexual violence that every community in the country deals with every day.

Sexual violence is a complex social issue. It is hugely costly to survivors of sexual violence, their families, and communities, and the taxpayer. It is by far the most costly crime per incident. Treasury estimated that sexual violence directly cost the economy $1.2 billion in 2003-2004, and the cost now could be as high as $7.5 billion per year.

Our frontline services aim to provide those affected by sexual violence with vital, and often life-saving, early and on-going support, for the years that it often takes to deal with the trauma that follows.

Every community should have access to our wrap-around specialist sexual violence support services including our prevention, early intervention, on-going counselling and court support services, specifically tailored to meet the needs of children, youth, adults and their families.

17 Year Old Arrested For Mount Roskill Savage Rape

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Mount Roskill Intermediate school

We’re relieved to hear that a suspect has been arrested in relation to the savage beating and rape of woman in Mount Roskill.

The 27 year woman old was attacked as she walked home from work through the grounds of Mount Roskill Intermediate school on the afternoon of  17 January 2012 . Her husband went to look for her and found her semi-conscious and badly injured She was left traumatised by the attack and unable to speak, taking over a week to recover in hospital.

In the same area another woman had been approached earlier in the day by an aggressive male behaving in a threatening manner. She told her mother who lives overseas, who read about the rape on-line and then contacted New Zealand police.

Police say they have a 17 year old youth in custody, given his age we assume that he will not be afforded the privilege of name suppression. Initially he will appear in youth court because he was 16 when the woman was attacked, but we suspect the case will be moved to a higher court to deal with. According to the Herald

He will appear in Auckland Youth Court charged with assault with Intent to commit rape, aggravated wounding, unlawful sexual connection and rape.

At the time, Inspector Gary Allcock said her injuries were “serious” and counted it among the worst he had seen in 28 years of policing.

NZ’s out of control teens

The number of rapes and violent attacks perpetrated by teens in New Zealand is reaching worrying proportions, it was only a matter of weeks ago that a 16 year old raped and mutilated a 5 year old Belgian girl at a Turangi campsite. The two males charged with the death of reporter Phillip Cottrell were aged 17 and 19,  and the youth who battered Karen Aim to death was only 14.

Today two youths  aged 14 and 15 appeared in  Rotorua Youth Court charged with the assault of  elderly Polish man,  Roman Skorek,  whose body was found in Kuirau Park early on Tuesday morning. A 20 year old has been charged with murder.

Youth crime is becoming increasingly savage in New Zealand. As  the officers working on the Turangi rape case said: its time for NZ society to take a good look at itself.

Its also time for an in-depth review of the criminal justice system for youth offenders. Something patently isn’t working.

Mount Roskill Intermediate

The school is situated in south Auckland, use the street view above to locate the area within Auckland.

Another Street Attack In Wellington

Its been revealed that three days before Phillip Cottrell was attacked and killed in central Wellington a 23 year old woman was attacked in Newtown Avenue (below) just 4 kms away .

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She was walking along Newton Road at 9.30 pm on 7 December when she was attacked from behind and put in a headlock. She fought with her assailant and eventually managed to escape, seeking help from a passing motorist.

The story has come to light today, almost two weeks after the incident because police are seeking witnesses to the assault and want to talk to the driver who helped her. Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Thornton wants people to contact him with information.

That’s odd.

Its odd because hours after Mr Cottrell’s beating Wellington police were at great pains to point out that the capital’s streets were safe, saying that street violence was rare in the city. Which makes the two week delay in releasing details about the assault in Newtown Avenue very peculiar, if the streets were that safe shouldn’t an unprovoked attack on a woman have elicited a more rapid response.  Hasn’t the trail gone cold now and how many other women have been attacked in the meantime, how common is this in Wellington?

The day after Mr Cottrell died local newspaper, The Dominion Post,  took the bull by the horns and published data that showed that violence and serious assaults have almost doubled in the city

Violence increases in Wellington

“Serious assaults in Wellington have increased by 43 per cent in the past year.

Police are investigating the homicide of Radio New Zealand bulletins editor Phillip Alexander Cottrell, 43, who died in Wellington Hospital yesterday after he was attacked in Boulcott St about 5.30am.

Three other men were also attacked in the weekend in what police say are separate incidents.

Monthly police statistics show an increase of serious assaults resulting in injury, in either public or private places,  rose from 23 in October 2010 to 33 in October this year.

The monthly reports also show an increase of public place assaults from 62 to 65 in the same time period…”

But there was no mention about the attack on Newtown Avenue, which means the press probably still hadn’t been told about it four days after it had happened.

Perhaps the public would be served better if crime was reported in a more timely manner and with less spin. At they least they  should be  given the opportunity to make informed choices based on facts and not aspirations.

You may also be interested in another one of our blogs from July 2010:

No Crime In Gisborne, It’s Offical.

Excerpts:

“Don’t the public have a right to know what is going on in their own town and the actions their public servants are taking to control that crime?

Surely it is preferable to create a safer, low crime community rather than mislead people into thinking that it is?…”

“police have decided to restrict the information on crime they provide to media in a move to “make the community feel safer”.