Sadder, But Wiser--Part V

Expect More of the Same

We come to the final post in this short series on Ian Wishart's important book, Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case.  The question begged in large letters is, Who killed the twins?  The question is now largely academic, since the one charged, Chris Kahui, father of the twins has been acquitted.  He cannot be retried.  There is no-one else on the radar screen. 

The third post in this series made the definitive statement that Macsyna King was not responsible.  She was not there the fateful night the twins received the brain injuries which eventually killed them.  No amount of irrelevant ad hominem that points to her previous life, habits or disposition can obliterate this Inconvenient Fact.
 

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that the twins were vulnerable and at risk medically and physically, due to still being four weeks premature, with at least one of them (Cru) suffering a "stop-breathing" attack in hospital before release to the parents.  However, this does not reasonably explain why both twins received injuries to their brains the same night, at the same time--injuries which eventually killed them.  It is beyond reasonable doubt to suggest that co-incidentally both twins died of the same natural causes.

So, we are left with the "team" which was looking after the twins on the night of Sunday 11/Monday 12 of June 2006--one or more members of which was responsible for the brain damage.  The team consisted of Chris Kahui, his father Banjo Kahui, sister Mona Kahui and Stuart King (brother of Macsyna, then partner of Mona Kahui).  During the course of this night the twins had a non-breathing incident (apnoea) which everyone in the house testified to; subsequently, they settled down and went back to sleep, apparently breathing normally.  Chris was alone with the twins for periods of time that night, supposedly feeding them.

The standard of proof for a guilty verdict--beyond reasonable doubt--is a high bar.  On the lesser standard of the balance of probabilities it would be an open and shut case.  The question is whether the circumstantial evidence makes probability so high that it moves to "beyond reasonable doubt".  Clearly the jury did not think so: they bought the defence "line" that Macsyna King was a devil woman and that a simple, confused, gullible man ten years her junior could have been so violent and malicious to do such an evil thing.  (Incidentally, on a more general note, when you have greater and greater proportions of the general population unable to read or write and never learning the fundamental rules of thinking or rational thought, you are going to see more and more jury's decide cases on emotive, "gut feel" grounds.  This gives plenty of scope to defence teams to engage in irrelevant misdirection and succeed.  It may well be appropriate in the future to require cognitive tests for reasoning capability in order to sit on juries.)

So, Chris Kahui was acquitted--in record time.  But his apparent guilt has become even more apparent, subsequent to the trial and during the recent inquest.  He was extremely reluctant--opposed--to calling an ambulance for the twins when they stopped breathing; he had to be forced to attend the hospital when the dying twins were admitted; he has changed his story about what happened that fateful night four times--the last at the inquest, where a completely different version came out (making him appear even less culpable).  This last evidential episode, so much in conflict with earlier and fresher testimony and statements to the police, had all the hallmarks of evasion.  People who are not guilty do not evade.  They have no reason to do so.  After all, it is not as if he could be retried.

One contextual point needs to be remembered--it would not have taken much rough handling to kill the twins; they were in a very vulnerable physical state.  Kahui was drinking that night.  It would have taken only a momentary flash of anger and impatience--and which parent, attending crying, unsettled infants in the small hours of the night has not experienced that?  Moreover violence--extreme physical violence towards family members--had been Kahui's role model all his life, demonstrated habitually by his father, Banjo.  Repeatedly he had seen his father get angry; he had suffered the brutal physical consequences.

One final point.  You cannot read Breaking Silence without being convicted yet again that when the God-ordained and commanded institution of marriage demanding lifelong fidelity, sanctioned by oaths, is not adhered to, everything in society begins to fall apart.  Interventions by the State and state agencies which ignore this at best are ineffectual; most often they merely serve to make matters worse, compounding, subsidising, and encouraging further dissolution. 

The most constructive and helpful thing the State could do is return to a protection and enforcement of marriage as a life-long monogamous contract--and consistently reflect that in all family, commercial, and civil law.  We realise, however, that this will not transpire until the overwhelming majority of people in New Zealand demand it and insist upon it. Until that time the idolatry of secular humanism of the majority will defend every perversion of human behaviour in the name of the great god, Human Rights. This will not change in societal terms until hundreds of thousands of people stop worshipping Man in this country become reverent disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.  

As a nation, we will either repent or we will continue to suffer the worsening consequences.  Twins Chris and Cru Kahui, mother Macsyna King, father Chris Kahui, Banjo Kahui, and the extended families of Kings and Kahui's are our future, unless we are prepared to humble ourselves before the God Who made the heavens and the earth, and before His Son, Jesus Christ, the One appointed as Lord of the heavens and the earth. 

We must hasten to kiss His feet, lest He become more angry with us than He already is (Psalm 2: 12).