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Ruth Money: Chief Victims Advisor on National's promise to remove the right to remain silent · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: So National wants to scrap the right to silence in
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: child murder cases if re-elected. We've had instances where a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: child has died, has been killed, no question, and three
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: or four people have been on the property at the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: time and have collectively refused to comment. And that is
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith. Adults present when a child aged
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: 12 or under is killed would face up to 10
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: years in prison for withholding information from police. So child
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: advocate Ruth Money is with me this morning. Good morning
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to you, Ruth.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: This would be news to you, good news to you.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: You'd welcome this, wouldn't you?
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I absolutely welcome this. These four children, people are getting
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: away with killing children. It's hardly good enough.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: So here we go. We're going to have a fundamental change.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I'll talk about this more later, but can you actually
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: force people to comment? How do you think this is
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: going to work?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Well, no. So at the moment we have, you know,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: obviously the right to silence is kind of enshrined in
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: the Bill of Rights. So New Zealand, and this is
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the problem, New Zealand authorities can't compel people to talk.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: And so there's not a lot of detail in terms
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: of how this proposal would be written. But if you
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: look at the UK, for example, they have a slightly
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: different what's called the police caution when you are arrested here.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And basically it says that you would be harming or
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: you may harm your defence if you choose to rely
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: on something in court that you don't say now.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about that more? Because here the police
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: arrest you and they say to you, you have the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: right to silence and they have a little stick. But
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you're saying in the UK they have a different stick
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: which says you may actually, you know, you may incriminate yourself.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: But that's not saying you have a right to silence.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: That's right. It says you don't have to say anything,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: but it may harm your defence if you do not
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: mention when questioned something which you may rely on later
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: in court. So the difference there is basically that it's
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: an evidential threshold. And so if New Zealand was to
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: introduce something similar to that, it means that it could
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: be relied on. We're basically swapping... How do I word this?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: We're kind of reversing the evidential burden of proof. So
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: we're saying that each person present will be required to
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: explain what they were doing when the child was murdered.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Been a lot of talk back about this already, and
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: already people are saying, well, why limit this to children
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: who are age 12 and under who have been murdered?
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, a 13-year-old needs advocacy as well.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Look, I agree. My advice would be that this should
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: be actually significant child abuse, certainly child homicide. But we
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: also have a number of adult murder cases where the
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: same thing. There are two people in a house at
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the same time. The person is killed, but because they
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: remain schnum, they play off against each other and there
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: is no justice for that family or that community either.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting as this progresses.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: But then the legal people come out and say, well,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: this is the problem. There's a slippery slope. And eventually
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the entire right to silence is gone. And then those
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: people who have been accused of a crime who are
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: actually innocent and should actually get a right to silence
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: might not have it. So how do we prevent that
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: sort of slippery slope?
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course. And, you know, Bill of Rights and
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the right to silence is important. However, the death of
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: a child is more important. The abuse of a child.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: You know, if you think about some of these children,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: for example, three months old Sol in 2014, three months old,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: head injuries, dies the next day. No one, still no
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: one has been held to account. Fourteen months old, 20
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: injuries to her head and neck. catastrophic and fatal head injury.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Same thing, three days later, the police are all in
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: there trying to sort things out. Still no justice for soul.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Baby Roo, we know. So we need to privilege the
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: rights of these people and certainly these children who are
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: being assaulted and killed and literally people are getting away
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: with murder. There are ways to change it.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Risa, thank you for your advocacy and thank you for
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: your time this morning. That's Ruth Marnie. For more from
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talk
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: ZB from 5 a.m. weekdays or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.