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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 16 Sep 2009 01:15 am |
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A question has been troubling me this week. But before I tell you what it is I have to tell you about the context.
Seth Tera, a 15-year-old boy, was deliberately run down by a car in the North Island town of Tokoroa at 3.15am last Saturday, 12 September. Seth is still in a critical condition in hospital, having suffered a fractured skull and chest and back injuries.
Police believe the attack was in some way connected to gang activity in the town. On Monday Dion Bolt, 18, of Rotorua, appeared in the Tokoroa District Court charged with with the attempted murder of Seth Tera. Since then two more men have been charged with assault, and further charges will be laid shortly.
Seth Tera, with his neices aged 4 and 6:
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 16 Sep 2009 01:39 am |
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This is what will happen now.
* First, Bolt and his friends will almost certainly be convicted and sentenced to prison terms. Bolt, in particular, will be out of circulation for eight years or more.
* Seth Tera will probably recover more or less completely from his injuries, although this may take some months, and possibly years.
* Then this story will disappear from the pages of our newspapers, only to be revived during the trial of Bolt et al. After that it will disappear forever.
This is all so obvious that it's hardly worth my energy typing it, and it's certainly not worth your time reading it. So what is my question?
It is this:
Why is no-one suggesting that the parent or parents of Seth Tera - whoever is nominally responsible for his welfare - be charged with neglect of care?
What, after all, was a 15-year-old boy doing on the streets of Tokoroa at 3.15am? According to the New Zealand Herald, the Tokoroa Police have said that Seth and his two friends "just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time".
Exactly. So what would you like to say about that, Mrs Tera?
The mother of Seth Tera: "My beautiful son lies in a critical but stable condition in intensive care," she says, and weeps for the cameras. But I weep for you, Mrs Tera.
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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 8 Oct 2009 01:01 am |
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Oddly, this story has repeated itself several times in recent days.
It is an awful business about Aisling Symes, the little girl who has – one hopes – been kidnapped in Auckland. ("Hopes" because if she hasn't been kidnapped she is dead for sure.) What nobody is saying - what no-one with a heart should say, I suppose - is what on earth were her parents doing allowing a two-year-old child to run around on a vacant property near a river? I am far too over-protective a parent, I suppose, but I have never for one moment supposed that my children are indestructible/watched over by a guardian angel. There's too much evidence to the contrary all around us.
Meanwhile, in Samoa, it seems that many of the people who died had been successfully evacuated to higher ground, only to return to "have a look at the tsunami". Some people, it seems, can't be saved.
There's a story in the paper this morning along the same lines. Three men were about to ride in a bucket on the bungy jump in Courtenay Place when a wire broke. What a terrible experience! Sensation on all sides! Of course, a different story might have been in the paper this morning, had the wire broken five minutes later. The headline of that story would have read Three men killed in bungy jumping accident. What no-one (except me) would have been saying in that story is this: "Someone gets killed after throwing himself off a building: how is this supposed to be news? Information, yes. But not news."
Which takes me back to the 15-year-old boy deliberately run down by a car in Tokoroa at 3.15am. I still haven't seen anyone ask, let along get an answer to this question:
What was a 15-year-old boy doing on the streets of Tokoroa at three in the morning?
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