23 Attempted Murder, Inspector Gary Smith, Sergeant Tony Fink, Constable Stewart Nightingale.
THE REAL WANGANUI/NZ POLICE
“But from each crime are born bullets that will one day seek out in you where the heart lies.” Pablo Neruda
The wife and I went on a bit of a pub-crawl and ended up at Barristers Nightclub. I got a bit pissed in the process. After a time I went to the toilet and had a tinkle in a cubicle and when I came out Britton was waiting for me. I went to walk past him and he grabbed me from behind spun me round and tried to force me back into the cubicle but I managed to prevent that from happening by placing a hand on each side of the doorway. Next, there was a flurry of movement and I found myself on the floor of the toilets with the ugly ape sitting on my chest with one hand on my throat. He then proceeded to squeeze my throat and cut my air off. He continued choking me until a bouncer, who had been summoned by another toilet user, dragged him off me.
Now, what would you call that attack? The new term is “strangulation”.
And there you have it, Britton and his NZ Police employers finally crossed the line. And you wonder why I HATE all cops.
S Nightingale G Smith T Fink
Man jailed for Dunedin bar manslaughter
By Hamish McNeilly
10:56 AM Monday Sep 22, 2014
A man who choked his victim in the toilet of a Dunedin bar has been sentenced to five years in prison, for the manslaughter of Ryan Court.
Stephen Anthony Fernyhough (26), demolition worker, of Dunedin, appeared for sentencing today in front of a packed public gallery at the Dunedin High Court.
In a white shirt and flanked by two prison officers, Fernyhough, looked around the court as details of his offending was read before visibly upset family and friends of Mr Court.
”Shut up you weren’t there,” he said at one point from the dock, before being cautioned.
The court was told how after a disagreement in the toilet of the Craft Bar, Fernyhough applied a “choker-style hold” for between 20-40 seconds to Mr Court who fell unconscious and later died.
Fernyhough fled the scene with associates, and was later arrested by police following a second incident outside another Dunedin bar.
Fernyhough was arrested the next day initially on a charge of assaulting Mr Court but was later charged with murder.
At a July appearance, Fernyhough pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter.
23/10/10 Superintendent Gary Smith gets promoted to a plum job despite a secret police report which states he acted unlawfully and totally mismanaged a complaint about the unlawful arrest of a justice of the peace. No charges have been laid.
25/10/11 – Deputy Police Commissioner Rob Pope admits that he knew about the history of Superintendent Gary Smith who had previously been found to have acted illegally before he was later promoted to a plum police job in London.
Shamed cop given plum London job
A senior policeman was rewarded with a prestigious posting to London, despite a secret report saying he acted unlawfully and totally mismanaged a complaint about the unlawful arrest of a justice of the peace.
Superintendent Gary Smith was one of several officers criticised by the Independent Police Conduct Authority. But 11 months after the findings, he was appointed as the police liaison officer to Britain.
The wrongly arrested Tokoroa JP, Mii Teokotai, lost her job as a result of the botched police investigation. She was charged with conspiracy to commit arson but the charge was later dismissed for lack of evidence.
The IPCA report also criticised current Southern district commander Bob Burns and former Bay of Plenty police professional standards head Garth Bryan, since appointed to a senior job at police national headquarters.
The Dominion Post has a copy of the secret September 2009 IPCA report into a string of complaints laid by former policeman Dave White about the 2005 arrest of Mrs Teokotai, his mother-in-law.
The IPCA did not make public its findings because the authority deemed them not of sufficient public interest. It found:
Mr Smith and Mr Bryan acted unlawfully by not telling Commissioner Howard Broad and the IPCA about Mr White’s complaint.
Mr Burns and Mr Bryan showed “poor judgment” and failed best practice and police instructions by appointing a Tokoroa senior sergeant with “a clear conflict of interest” to look into the complaint.
Detectives involved in the investigation into Mrs Teokotai acted unprofessionally and two officers appear to have refused to be interviewed about the complaint.
Tokoroa police acted unlawfully by arresting her and lacked justification to incarcerate her and seize her passport and property.
Police breached their legal responsibility to disclose their evidence against her until six months after the case was dismissed.
The initial internal inquiry into complaints against the officers involved “lacked any semblance of independence and professionalism”.
The response to Mr White’s complaint was “totally mismanaged by senior officers”.
Eleven months after the IPCA’s findings, Mr Smith was appointed to a role liaising with British and European police.
Mrs Teokotai, a respected member of the Pacific Island community, was charged with conspiring to commit arson after the St Luke’s Tamariki and Mokopuna Apii Punanga buildings in Tokoroa were damaged by fire. Police told her employers she was being investigated and Mrs Teokotai, then 66, lost her job managing the kohanga reo.
A local woman, Odile Johnson-Ackerman, was later jailed for two years for the arson.
Police alleged the arson was committed to stop a new committee finding out about alleged financial irregularities. But later investigation by a Taupo detective found no evidence of fraud.
Police seized a computer and 20,000 documents from Mrs Teokotai and she spent several hours in a police cell. The case collapsed four months later when police failed to disclose any evidence against her. But they refused to return her property for nearly two years and did so only after she took them to court.
After the case was dismissed, Mr White complained to Mr Smith, who was then the Bay of Plenty district commander.
A lack of response from Mr Smith and Mr Bryan – who was assigned to investigate the complaint – led Mr White to complain to the IPCA. The authority said it took eight months before police began investigating, after the IPCA had received its complaint.
Police headquarters said the IPCA did not recommend any disciplinary action against the officers. The issues raised in its report were addressed with them.
Mr Smith was one of six candidates for the London role and the appointment was made by a panel of senior police who had “knowledge of Mr Smith’s career background”.
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Woman jailed for second time for attempted murder
06 November 2004
A Wanganui woman has been jailed for the second time for attempted murder.
Louise Anne Bell, 42, was sentenced in the High Court at Wellington yesterday to three years in prison for trying to strangle a medical professional at Good Health Wanganui’s Te Awhina mental health unit.
Bell, who suffers from borderline personality disorder and major depressive disorder, was a patient at the unit.
A jury found her guilty after a trial at the High Court in Wanganui in September.
It was the second time she had been convicted of attempted murder. In 2002 she was jailed for 12 months after trying to suffocate a semi-comatose friend who had earlier attempted to commit suicide.
Bell’s lawyer, Lance Rowe, said she was reacting to stress following a “substantial” period of hospitalisation. She had just been released into the community. Her usual reaction to stress was to harm herself but on this occasion she had hit out at the medical professional, whose name was suppressed.
Bell was being treated for her illnesses, but because of her extreme reaction to stress and likelihood of harming herself would have to be kept under virtual solitary confinement if sent to prison, Mr Rowe said.
NOTE Lance Rowe, Bell’s lawyer.
See Chapter 26 Extortion
However, Crown prosecutor Andrew Cameron said the community had to be protected from Bell until treatment had lowered the risk of her re-offending.
Justice Wild said Bell choked the medical professional for 10 to 15 seconds until she was pulled away by a passing staff member.
Bell apologised for her actions a few minutes later, but staff at Te Awhina had now been issued with panic pendants and panic buttons were being installed, Justice Wild said.
Though Bell had a continuing problem of dealing with unexpected episodes of anger, a psychiatric assessment found that she did not need to be hospitalised, but could be treated in prison or in the community.
It was expected she would need up to two years of therapy before the risk of further offending was significantly reduced.
In deciding the length of her sentence, Justice Wild took into account that the offence was not premeditated, her victim was not injured and no weapon was used.
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Bent Cops 