Dunedin joins march for Moko (+ video)

Protesters march up High St to the Dunedin District Cout this morning. Photo: Gerard O'Brien
Protesters march up High St to the Dunedin District Cout this morning. Photo: Gerard O'Brien

Dunedinites have turned out to show their support for harsher sentences and putting a stop to child abuse in a march for Moko.

Justice for Moko rallies have been organised throughout the country for today after the killing of three-year-old Moko Sayviah Rangitoheriri in Taupo.

Moko the friendly bottlenose dolphin is shown in this Decemeber 2008 file photo. Credit:NZPA ...
Moko the friendly bottlenose dolphin is shown in this Decemeber 2008 file photo. Credit:NZPA /Gisborne Herald

The 3-year-old was left in the care of his mother's friend, Tania Shailer (26), and her partner, 43-year-old David Haerewa, for two months while his mother was in Auckland with another of her children at Starship Hospital. 

Moko was tortured and abused by his caregivers in August last year, which ended with his death in hospital. They did not call 111 for four days following the abuse.

Shailer and Haerewa had their sentence downgraded from murder to manslaughter following a plea bargain. 

Both were jailed for 17 years when they appeared before Judge Sarah Katz in the High Court at Rotorua today. Judge Katz said it was the highest sentence imposed in New Zealand for manslaughter against a child.

In Dunedin, the 150-strong crowd marched from the Octagon to the District Court this morning as part of 34 planned protests around the country before Shailer and Haerewa were sentenced.

The coordinator of the Dunedin event, Amy Telfer Chiles, said in a speech to the crowd that New Zealand had plenty to be proud of - but when it came to child abuse, we could only be "utterly ashamed''.

"We are here to stand up. To stand up and show our country we are better than this. Our children deserve better,'' she said.

The march started with a rousing haka from the Otago Boys' and Otago Girls' high schools kapa haka group, Wairua Puhou, about 9.30am.

The procession then flowed up Princes St before stopping at the court on High St where a moment's silence was held for Moko and the 200 other children killed by abuse in the past 25 years.

Call for law change 

National rally organiser Jayne Crothall said supporters would be asked to sign a petition to change the law that allowed Shailer and Haerewa's charges to be downgraded.

"An amazing number of people from all over New Zealand have stepped forward to back this rally. The tragic death of Moko has opened a lot of people's minds to the issue of plea bargaining," she said.

"People are disgusted by this practice and are sick of it. We won't stop tomorrow, we will keep going until the law gets changed."

Ms Crothall's three-year-old daughter Brittany was murdered in February 1997. Luke Fredrick Sibley was sentenced to life imprisonment after he suffocated and strangled the toddler while she slept at her home in Christchurch.

"If we do nothing, nothing changes so we stand up and start," she said.

In Rotorua, lawyer and fomer list MP David Garrett told a crowd that plea bargaining shouldn't happen. He said, given the facts of the Moko case, he believed any jury would have convicted them of murder.

Family First director Bob McCroskie also addressed the crowd saying: "This is not the first time but we are here because this has got to be the last."

Kahira-Rata Olley from Running To Stop It - a campaign she organised in November last year to raise awareness about domestic violence - said she had turned up not just for Moko, but "for all the Moko out there".

In Auckland, about 30 people braved torrential rain for the Justice for Moko event outside the Auckland High Court. Caregiver Tracey Williams (45) came to protest the manslaughter convictions.

"I can remember back to the Kahui twins, Lillybing, Nia Glassie. There's too many ... all these little children being abused and killed by people that are meant to care for them."

 - additional reporting NZME. 

 

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