Day 170 - Upside Down- Chapter 18 - (1150 words)

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UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 18

After

The Television News Reader was speaking over a video picture outside the High Court in Auckland. The brick and tree exterior that looked so much more colonial than new Zealand admitted about it’s national character seemed self conscious and out of place. Much like the bowed head of James Hansen as he is bustled through a crowd of cheering supporters bearing placards calling for his release. The camera tracks them through the crowd and with him is a legal team, a camera crew from another news channel trying to get in his face, policemen and at the back of them all, shadowing, was Sam. The footage changed to show a very unflattering picture of Ivan with a nasty sneer on his face.
The trial enters it’s third week today and there’s no sign that the defence being mounted by the group Family Focused Sentencing has any chance of being finished soon. The judge in the case has already warned the group to maintain respect for the courtroom and while antics inside the court have reduced to a minimum, the protests, the demonstrations and the ongoing attention that the lobby group have been organising has moved the trial to be one as much in the court of public opinion as much as it is in the high court itself.
The founder and chair of Family Focused Sentencing Glenn Chambers spoke at length today on 1ZB about the record of the courts in sentecing hardened criminals, and the groups opinion on the Maxwell killing.
“Of course criminals should be punished and harshly, but this is not even a crime. This is self defense and of course as we have all seen defense of a pregnant woman. Time after time we have seen slap on the wrist sentences handed to rapists, murderers – and I mean real murderers, not like James Hansen who is in my mind, and in the mind of millions of kiwis, a Hero – and… and what was I saying… yes. Wet paper bag jail sentences for the kind of criminals the country needs to deal with and they get out an kill again. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind except in the PC Lobby’s and this liberal and weak willed courts that this man is absoultely no threat to anyone in this country, any one at all. In fact what he did do was save us all from the murderous rage of a man who is without a doubt an evil son of a bitch and what do we do? We put him in jail, he’s been in there what 18 months now? Awaiting the outcome of a trial that should never, ever have happened. How dare we? How dare we say it’s not okay to defend your family from violence?”
“Except, it wasn’t his family was it?”
“You’re spiltting hairs, if it were your sister pregnant and beaten by an animal like this, an animal that lived and died by a creed of violence and dominance, a mysognistic dinosaur that cared nothing about anyone but himself and what he could get from other people? Then what? Would you care that the man who saved her was not related to you? You know what? I’m not only happy to call him a hero, I’d be happy to call him my brother.”
“So you think that it’s ok to commit murder in this case?”
“There you go again, the liberal lefty Politically Correct media painting a picture of lies that fits your narrative of what you believe. This is not a murder trial, it’s manslaughter one, and that it itself is a joke.”
The defence will be calling more experts today in an effort to bolster the case for a justifiable homicide. Relatives of the deceased have argued that the lobby group is twisting the history of the man, though no one called to court has yet denied that he had a violent temper at times. Ivan Maxwells sister, who moved to Australia over a decade ago when their parents split up had this to say to Channel 9 earlier.
“You don’t really want to know the truth now do you? I mean Ivan – I didn’t know him that well, he was my younger brother and he stopped talking to me when Mum ad Dad split up. He left home as soon as he could and went to find Dad, and they just cut themselves off from Mum and me. Mum never got over that, losing him to that… that way. So no I don’t know if he was capable of the kind of thing you want to know about. He was my little brother yes, but I didn’t know him. I’ll tell you what though, I think you are all just vultures and you’ll hear what you want to hear and say what you want to say and what I think and what really happened? I don’t think you’ll ever know or care. Now I’ve given you a statement can you please levae me alone?”
The crown prosecutor has face repeated calls to drop the case, but so far has remained steadfast that it is a matter for the jury to decide and that the legal system needs space to fulfill it’s function in society. Mr Chambers has not confirmed how much has been spent on the defense of James Hansen, but the team of QC’s and consultants engaged by the lobby group are far from affordable for normal defendants. Family of Mr Hansen’s have publically thanked and praised the group and their spokes person for taking the case on and doing their best to save their son. Hansens mother spoke to our own Jessica Stevens a few days ago and made her own plea to the Attorney General to reconsider dropping the case. That clip was uploaded from our Sunday show to You Tube and soon spread on Social Media and was viewed over 10 million times. Attention for this case has reached international levels and reporters and documentatry makers have flown in this week to examine this, one of the biggest trials affected by Social Media in the history of NZ courts. Earlier today the judge banned all cell phones and tablets from the court in an effort to stem the tide of live blogging and tweeting from the court that he said was making a mockery of the legal system.
It’s unlikely that this will affect much of the close attention the trial is getting and seems to have only increased the twitter traffic around the trial and has raised questions of the transparency of the courts and the excessive censorship powers of the legal bench. The hashtag #freejameshansen was trending today after a link to the Sunday article with Mrs Hansen was retweeted by various famous actors, comedians and social commenters.

The trial resumes tomorrow morning.