1 My name is Tania Vini. When I was just 15, me and my two best friends were sent to prison for a violent crime. My name is Lucy Akatere. I'd just turned 16 when we went to jail. This is our story. (SCREAMS) (SCREAMS) (SCREAMS) (LAUGHS) (SCREAMS) (LAUGHS) (SCREAMS) SCREAMS ECHO TRANQUIL MUSIC Before it all happened, I was still at school. OK, so, in the mornings, um, Mum and Dad would go to work, and I'd be left at home with my brother. He used to call me, like, maybe five, six times every morning ` every five minutes ` to see, like, you know, if everything was done, if we had our lunch packed and what time we were leaving for school. I always want her to go to school, to study hard, because the example I give to her is about me working in the factory. If she don't want to work in the factory, she got to study. All I knew was I had to get through school, cos I would have been the only one in my family to, you know, get School C and go to, um, uni and just make my mum and dad proud. (SCREAMS) Please! RELAXED MUSIC On Thursday the 12th of August 1999, at about 8.30am,... (SCREAMS) ...a young 16-year-old Samoan girl... (SCREAMS) ...was viciously assaulted near Three Kings. She'd been dropped off on her way to school. (SCREAMS) She'd only been in the country for about a year. (SCREAMS) She asked her relative to drop her off there, cos she wanted to buy a drink for school. (LAUGHS) After buying the drink, she walked through the car park, sat down on the bench, five girls came towards her and sat down on another bench. The girl tells 'em she doesn't have any money. The girls find $10 in her trouser pocket. (SCREAMS) So at this stage, one of the girls is holding the scissors right by her eye. She's overpowered. All these girls are around her. That's when her eye is cut, and there's a lot of blood. It would be completely terrifying. It's five against one. And the fact that she was` first of all, had her head slammed into a tree,... THUD! ...that was bad enough, but then the scissors were used ` one) to cut her eye, and to stab her in the leg. (SCREAMS) Clearly whoever did it, they were going to go to prison. There was no escaping that. The first thing that went wrong for Tania, Lucy and McCushla was the two schoolgirls who had read about the assault in the newspaper told police they'd seen Tania, McCushla and Lucy all wearing the same type of sweatshirt near the scene of the crime. We loved them. They were quite trendy. Everybody at school wore them. I didn't have one, but I used to wear my brother's, and, um, I wore Tania's jersey. I didn't just get one. I got three. I just lent them out to Cushla and Lucy, you know, cos they were my friends, man. I wanted them to look cool with me as well. LOUD KNOCKING AT DOOR The police knocked on my door. It was in the morning. I was just getting ready for church. Hello, Mr Kavi. There was, like, at least, I think, five, six, maybe seven police officers in my house, like, um, going through the stuff, and we had to stay in the lounge. The basket of clothes over there ` that USA jumper was inside. They pull it out and they say to me, 'This one.' And I said, 'Yeah, this one.' But I washed that yesterday. She never wear it. The police lady was taking my clothes out of the basket one by one, and I said to her, 'Why did you do that for?' 'She's looking for the bandanna.' I said, 'What bandanna?' I pulled the basket over. I said, 'Look, if you can find any bandanna from there.' And I tell her to put back my clothes, like what I used to do, make it tidy in the basket, because it's already fold. And she didn't. Mum was real furious with the police officers. She was yelling and... (SIGHS) Man. Policeman went back in the room, and he come back, and he said, 'Oh, I found the scissors by her bag.' And I said, 'What?' 'I found the scissors by her bag.' I just remember that they walked out with my bag. Yeah, my bag. My parents` after the police officers left, they were grilling me, man. They were like, 'What have I been doing?' And 'What have I done to have the police over our house?' And, you know, there were so many cars outside, and, 'Look at all the neighbours, they came out.' They were just real embarrassed. When they took us to the police station, um, that's when things got really bad. They put us in a room ` me and my dad ` and they pretty much said that we're being investigated because we're the main suspects in this crime that took place up in Three Kings. The police view turned on a confession of a 13-year-old girl. She was there at the time, and she named Tania, McCushla and Lucy being there, and she said in a statement to the police that McCushla had cut the victim with a knife. About a week after we got arrested, the police told us that they found another witness that put us at the scene. The police relied on identification from another witness. He was at Three Kings on the morning of the crime, and he bought cigarettes for them with a $10 bill they gave him, as they were too young to be served. The police officer, he pretty much, you know, thought we were` I was the one that did the crime, and, you know, he just had to get it down in writing, pretty much. I think when they look at them, they are little black Islanders. If it's from, uh, Remuera, those rich people, I don't think they're gonna judge them. They gave me crap, and they just basically said that I was one of the girls that had bashed the victim and stabbed her with the scissors, and, you know, saying, 'Lying is not gonna get you anywhere.' And, um, just nasty. 'Three Kings Shopping Centre. A 16-year-old schoolgirl says she was attacked...' 'Police arrested three girls for aggravated robbery.' I didn't tell anyone. When we were released on bail, everyone, pretty much, knew. Man, that was embarrassing. Some students that would come up to me, you know, I would just shrug it off, and they knew when I was out of school, I was at a court case. My first court appearance was in Youth. (LAUGHS) I mean, it's not funny, but I just remember what I was wearing. Cos I really` I wanted to look like a adult. I remember that much. I wanted to look like a adult, but, yeah, I had pigtails. (LAUGHS) I had pigtails going to court! (LAUGHS) She's only a kid. That's how I dress her up when she go to school. I plait her hair. Since the day I got arrested, I did go downhill, you know. I was, um, off school more. Yeah, I felt ashamed. I felt sorry for my parents. My mother didn't believe it was. She said to me, 'Oh, she did it.' Having aunties, having my nana say that, you know, she did do it, you know, 'put her away, lock her up' kind of thing, that` I think that's what hurt the most. They went to the Youth Court, and it could've been sorted with a non-custodial sentence most likely. I think they thought they would plead guilty, but the girls said, 'No, we can't plead to this, cos we never did it.' Because they pleaded not guilty, the case went to the High Court, and the adult court was clearly going to result in imprisonment. So the more times we would say we weren't guilty,... (LAUGHS) the more, like, everything just turned so bad. When our case went into High Court, it took more of a serious turn. I didn't know much about the, um, justice system, but I knew that jumping from Youth to High Court, that that's not good; like, you know, it's not looking good for us. Well, Lucy was the only one who gave evidence of the three of them, and she got a bit confused. She said they were in Three Kings on the Thursday, uh, the day of the crime, when actually it was the Friday, and that didn't help. I was under a lot of pressure. I was really nervous and scared. Um... It was just scary, cos, you know, I was only 16. The victim came out of court and said to the officer in charge, 'I know it's not one of those girls, cos I go to church with her.' And he said to her, 'Don't you worry about it. We're the good guys. They're the bad guys. Just, you forget about it.' When I saw the victim, straight away, I knew who she was. I didn't know her, but I knew of her, because we both went to the same church. (SCREAMS) Stop! I just remember, you know, sitting there and listening to everything that was being said about us, and... it's not true, you know? To me, I really want to stand up and tell them that my daughter didn't do anything. The judge described us as sadistic, and being 14, I didn't even know what the hell that was. (LAUGHS) I knew that the answer was going to be guilty. It was the worst possible outcome. And when they said that the girls are guilty, I don't know what to do. DOOR SLAMS, LOCK RATTLES People will think that we are criminals, my daughter is a criminal. We just dropped our jaws. I think, like, that time we just needed a really big hug, and we couldn't even say bye to our family. So, straight away they took us. Just like that. We were standing in the dock. I remember staring at Cushla and Lucy. (SIGHS) Man, we were, like, so young. Cushla was` she was younger than us. She was 14. I remember looking at my mum and dad. I think they were more shocked than I was. DAD: It's really breaking my heart to say it, because they're gonna go inside the Mount Eden Prison. (SIGHS) My sentence was 18 months. Uh, Lucy was 18 months. And Cushla was two years because she was the one supposedly holding the weapon. It's jail. Like, we're only little kids going into an adult prison. DOOR SLAMS We left the dock and, pretty much, went downstairs to the holding cells for a couple of minutes, and that's when reality hit, cos we all huddled up, um, me, Cushla, Lucy, just to comfort each other. And... we were scared. Like, I was so... so scared. 1 I didn't get to say goodbye to my mum and dad. Straight out of the courtroom, just into the paddy wagon, off to prison. We held each other's hands, and we told each other that it was gonna be OK. And... Yeah, it was just really hard. We just cried the whole way there. Couldn't believe it. Just... They use this term, 'bus stop'. Like, we just sat there for, I don't know, maybe a good half an hour. There was this lady there. Freak, she was scary. (LAUGHS) We had` She was being released, and, um, the very first thing she said was, 'How old are we?' We told her, 'We're not supposed to be here. We're innocent.' And... yeah. She's like... She's like... That's what they all say! For the first week, I just wanted to die. (SIGHS) (SOBS) I think my parents, man, you know` I have never been away from my parents, let alone in someone else's house, but yet, I'm in prison. MUM: Cos I heard there's a lot of bad things in that place. That's the worst part. DOOR SLAMS CACKLING I was called fresh meat. Cushla and Lucy had each other. I had no one. You know? They were in the same wing. I was by myself. I had to go through this whole ordeal by myself. (SIGHS) And I always said to them, you know ` when we got out ` 'Far, you guys are lucky! You had each other.' (SOBS) So I became the girls' prison mum by being a prison inmate myself, and that's how we got to bond so well. She's beautiful. She was a few years older than me. She was my prison mum in there. Um, she was great. She was a lovely, lovely lady and she looked after us. I mean, all three of us. The first person I saw was Lucy. All I could think was, 'Wow, look at her! 'She looks, like, 12! Only a baby!' And I was just` And because she had such an innocent` you know, the real innocent look of innocence, I was just thinking, 'What the hell are they doing in here?' Once we all were given, like, prison aunties and prison mums, no one was allowed to touch us. They would have experienced girl-on-girl hook-ups in prison, what happens when we get drug-searched. Even the whole moving from laundry back to our wings they would have to experience the whole strip down naked, you know, like, the whole exposing their bodies, and, I mean, Tania looked` it wasn't any disrespect for her, but she was pure. She totally was a virgin, and for her to expose her body and stuff, I feel sorry for her every single time, cos, you know, you're exposing everything. You're not allowed to hide anything, and you've gotta shake things. You gotta pull things down in front of not just one person. We could all be standing in line at this time too, so it wasn't a private thing. Second week, I had my birthday. I was` I turned 16. Second week of prison, and my dad brought a TV for me. One of the inmates tried to stand me over for my TV. I did ask Tania once there if her parents were, you know, did she come from a wealthy family? Cos I was like, 'Wow!' These new shoes you keep getting and all these, kind of, stuff. And she's like, 'Oh, we're not rich.' She's like, you know, 'My dad works. My mum works when she can.' You know? Just a normal family in NZ, and they were just doing everything they could to support their kid. Yeah, we are not eating. We saved the money for her phone card, for her stuff that she want from inside and also the money to go in her bank account to buy things for her in there ` like soap, shampoo, biscuits. Those kind of things. She went and bought me these socks and PJs ` silky Minnie Mouse PJs in frickin' prison! (LAUGHS) Hey, Minnie Mouse! < (WOLF-WHISTLES) Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, she had all the pyjamas! Sometimes you'd see her come out of the shower ` you could swear you were at home. You'd feel like you were at home, cos, you know, your kid coming out of the shower, and dressed up in her pinky pyjamas and fluffy slippers and pigtails. INMATES LAUGH The weekdays, they would lock us up at 7. I think that was the worst time, eh? Cos you're by yourself. DOOR SLAMS THUNDER RUMBLES MUM: Christmas. We got no Christmas. It's only black in this house. No Christmas tree. I don't want to cook any food. Nothing at all. Out of the` all my friends, two of them came and visit me and wrote letters. Like, took time. Julia's letter is there, and she handmade her envelope, because, you know, she wasn't` her parents weren't well off or anything, but I think, you know, that's a true friend. Who does that? Hand-makes your own envelope. (LAUGHS) The first time I went to prison to visit her, we just... hugged and cried ` as soon as we walked through the door, just hugged and cried for a good solid five minutes or so. My mum was there for me. She tried her best. If she didn't have a` She didn't have a car at the time, so she would walk to Mount Eden Prison just to see me. I hardly write the letter to her. I can't. Every time I start, I start crying, so I stop. But Vini is` He's the one who's strong to write the letter to her. Tania's dad did everything for them ` for all of them too, not just for Tania. Like, when he'd come in, he'd come in on time every time. He'd make sure he'd put money in all of their accounts. SENTIMENTAL MUSIC My dad. He was always the last one out of that bloody door. (LAUGHS) He would wait there, and wait for everyone to leave, and he would just stand there, you know, and wave, you know, 'I love you!' You know, 'I love you!' 'I love you!' 'I love you!' You know, 'My baby, da da da.' And then, he will` I thought he'd be gone, but then he'll just pop back and be like, 'I love you!' I'm like, 'Oh my gosh!' (LAUGHS) 'Go already!' You know? SENTIMENTAL MUSIC TRANQUIL MUSIC TANIA: We knew we were innocent. My mum and dad knew we were innocent. My mum and dad did believe us and always did from the start. It was really hard on her dad, trying to get money together, um, to get a lawyer. My dad was doing all he could to get us out, and all I could hear was him telling me, through the phone, he's going to get me out. Dad would drive around for hours and hours and talk to everyone, and just do whatever he could to find any witnesses. My dad kept, like, pretty much everything to do with our case. Eventually, Dad hired a private investigator. KNOCK AT DOOR And we believe in him. And most of the time when man come around, always money first. He promise he will bring our daughter out ` three girls. When we get over there, he say, 'Oh, I'm still doing this.' So-and-so. And then one day my son come out to me and say to me, 'Don't you two give any more money to him.' And that's the time I say to Vini, 'You go and tell him we're going to look for a lawyer.' SENTIMENTAL MUSIC The one good thing that the fake private investigator did was pretty much lead us to Gary Gotlieb. When I met Vini, I was too busy, and I really didn't want to get involved. And he came in ` my secretary sent him in ` and he stood just by the corner of the bookshelf, and the look on his face, and he started talking to me, and my heart went out to him, and the more I talked to him, I thought, 'I've got to try and help here.' And I'm like, 'Finally, man!' You know? After waiting for so long. (LAUGHS) Just something good was gonna happen. Well, certainly, when I started looking at the file, it seemed to me that there were some real inconsistencies. I didn't have it all, but I had quite a bit of it, and it just didn't make sense. Now, Bryan Rowe is someone that I was using as a private investigator. He was a former detective superintendent ` the highest rank detective we'd had in the country. When I first met him, he came in prison... I really didn't think anyone was going to believe me, but he knew straight away in the first 60 seconds that I was telling the truth. Bryan saw something that he thought was wrong, and he did his investigation. Then he just went for it. He had that vision, and he wasn't stepping back. The police never checked out the girls' alibis, and if they had, there was no way they could have been at the crime scene. The first flaw was the girls were in the wrong place at the wrong time on the wrong day. Bryan had checked the phone records, cos Vini had said he'd phoned his daughter to see how she was at home, and he'd phoned her three times, and the last call was at 7.57. Lucy had phoned. I made that call at 7.39 to tell her what time we were gonna meet up, cos we would walk halfway then meet up with each other, then we'd walk the rest of the way to school. We were just lucky we remember the people we seen while we were walking. We remember the kids at the Wesley Intermediate taking out the rubbish bins,... (SCREAMS) ...the lady at the shop,... Stop! ...the schoolteacher where we have to sign in for our late slip. The police were saying the attack occurred about 8.30am. From the phone calls, it was quite clear that the girls could never have walked there to be there at that time. Bryan Rowe had checked it out ` the distances ` and walked it, and there was just no way it could be done. He would come and see me and say, 'I've just paced it out. This couldn't have happened. 'It's just nonsense!' And he got more and more angry with the way the investigation had been done. Well, the next flaw that Bryan found ` and it was pretty major, it really shocked him, I remember him saying he couldn't believe it ` was the number of girls was wrong, the ages of the girls were wrong, cos these offenders were quite a bit older than these girls, the wrong heights ` these other girls were a lot bigger ` the wrong weapons, the wrong descriptions about the clothing, the bags and particularly the jewellery ` these girls had facial jewellery and stuff, and the three girls didn't have that at all. And you don't just put these things in your face and pull them out as well. These are things that are fastened to your face. And I remember we were just like, 'How could they get it so wrong?' Then there were the witnesses. DISTORTED: We were at the police station, and the first statement I gave, I pointed out different girls on the photo board, and the detective was pointing out other girls that were next to the girls I was pointing at. I knew a Tongan girl named Tania who was at Three Kings at the time, and I pointed to her, but the detective pointed to the photo next to the girl who I pointed to, and he said, 'No, this is Tania.' And he pointed to her and said, 'This is Tania.' I was young, so I agreed. I felt like, 'Jeez, I better go and tell the truth,' so I went back to the police station, told them that I lied about the first statement, because I didn't like that cop at all, and when I corrected the photos and everything, that's when they threatened me about serving seven years for obstruction. I know that the girls I pointed out weren't the girls were in that courtroom, and I do apologise. And with that, you know, I just hope for forgiveness. RELAXED MUSIC The whole prosecution case turned on the confession of a 13-year-old girl, which turned out to be false, and she was too young to be prosecuted, and that's what they'd relied upon. I was 13 at the time. I was threatened by the cops. If I didn't give a statement, or if I was to withhold any information and not confess, I would go to jail for a long time, and I'd be put in an adult prison. They told me that the girls already confessed, and that I'm` that I was` they kept saying that I was lying and lying and that they already had confessions and statements from the girls. I don't know why she never tell the truth. It's just common sense. If you know it's not true, then why would you go along with it? It's stupid. This young girl who made this confession, she said in a statement to police that McCushla had cut the victim with a knife, and of course, the defence situation is, as the victim said, it was a pair of scissors and not a knife, and it was clear to anyone there it would have been scissors. The girl had got that wrong, and many other things wrong. About the scissors ` I was sewing a pillowcase in Tania's room, and then when I finished with it, I put it on the dressing table. And that's the scissors they take. My mum's neat, she's tidy ` she knows where she puts her stuff, and there was no way that the scissors were in my bag. Bryan spoke to the 13-year-old girl. She retracted her statement, and she was very upset with what she'd done. He took her to the women's prison, and she saw the three girls, and she apologised to them for what had happened. Like, I've never felt so so guilty in my whole life. Going to a place like that was like a place` negative, really negative. And then, seeing the girls sad and upset, you know, that was hurtful, really hurtful and made me think of, you know, why would I`? you know, how could`? how could I do that? She was crying. Like, why are you crying? Why are you crying? We gave her the evils, all right. We made sure she knew that we didn't like her for what she did to us. I was sitting right across from her. I just wanted to attack her, you know? I was so angry. I was` Man, I just wanted to attack her. I know that was bad, but I just wanted to show her, you know, you're all right. You're out there with your family, and you're OK, you can just be free, and` but yet, here we are in prison because of what you said. That was hard. That was really hard. All I was doing was I just wanted to tell them that I was really sorry. That was recorded, and that was used as part of the appeal, uh, to get the three girls discharged. The girls spent a total of seven months in prison. And on the 16th of October, 2001, the girls' convictions for aggravated robbery were overturned, and no retrial was ordered. And the Court of Appeal took a very unusual course and apologised for what had happened to the girls. We were innocent, you know? Finally, after the fighting and everything that we went through, we were` it was just official that we are innocent, you know? 'The appeal court has quashed their convictions.' That would have been one of the most happiest moments of my life. We were over the moon. We celebrated. We were jumping for joy, like, told all the officers and, you know, everybody in our wing, and they were so happy for us. (EXHALES) Happy to have her at home. First thing I did when I got out of prison was Dad and Mum took me out to KFC. (LAUGHS) Yeah. That would probably be the first happy moment after being in prison. It was exciting, just being back into reality and back into the world. Being in a car! (LAUGHS) The sky, the smell. 'There will need to be, clearly, an investigation into how the wrongful conviction occurred.' Superintendent Howard Broad. READS: He said the apology was probably the most difficult thing he had to do in his 26-year career. 'In this case, it seems errors compounded right across the criminal justice system, 'and the normal checks and balances set in place simply didn't prevent this miscarriage of justice.' See? This is our apology from the police and also to the girls. Are you happy now? Yes. (LAUGHS) I thought after the ordeal that... life was gonna be OK. (SIGHS) But it wasn't. 1 MUM: (SIGHS) Before we go to sleep, she did ask us not to close the door. (SIGHS) Every night, they always locked the door. She don't want to be reminded about the prison, and she's scared if we lock the door. Sounds of the key. Sometimes Vini walk around with the key, and I told him not to do that. After prison, she changed. In front of me, she's good girl. Behind my back, she's changed a lot. I was really really angry. She bring friends around without me knowing that they come around and took her out to drink. I started just playing up, like, real bad, and treated my parents like` I just treated my parents` like, I never treated` I never spoke back to my parents, never swore at them, and I would never go home drunk. I know that. But I did all of that... (LAUGHS) after. When we walk on the road, the people know what happened. You can hear them whispering. I just tell my daughter, 'Ignore them. Forget about them. They can talk. They don't know the real story.' I just felt like everyone was judging me. Even though we won our case, I was still being judged. So people would still be saying, 'That's the girl that went in jail for stabbing another girl.' Well, I just thought they would go back to school, and the headmaster didn't want them back. I tried to get him to accept them. I had some very strong words with him. I just got slapped in the face and couldn't believe it. Apparently I was an embarrassment to the school. He just put me right down, and I just felt unwanted again. My first week in school, I was pretty much bullied from Monday. Um, it was, like, continuous, because they heard I was, like, you know, from prison, and` well, the term they used, 'jailbird'. Um, and that was like every day. Yeah, I didn't last long at school. I think on Friday I snapped. Yeah, I just snapped. Bryan was so thorough he was able to find out who the assailants were` who the girls who'd carried out the crime. He had the names. He gave them to the police, expecting them to take it further, but for some reason, they didn't. They never went after the girls who actually committed the crime. Um, I think for us three, maybe that would have been more of a closure. The whole story, the system is... I don't know. I'm going to say, 'sucks'. Compensation in no way could cover what they'd been through ` their loss of innocence, their reputation, their loss of schooling, loss of friends and, of course, their loss of liberty, being imprisoned at that age. It wasn't about the money. It never was. We lost, like, seven months. We could've, like, finished School C, we could have graduated, who knows, probably could've had good jobs by then. You can't get that back. I went downhill. Roaming around, drinking my life away, and then` when I was 18, and then I fell pregnant with my daughter, and that was` you know, that was me. The issue of compensation. And that took some extra years in regard to, uh, sorting that out. Very very traumatising time for them. In the end, uh, we finally got the compensation. An independent Queen's Counsel recommended that Tania and Lucy get $135,000 each. McCushla got slightly more ` a few thousand more ` because she was supposedly the scissor-wielder and got a slightly longer sentence. To me, no. It's not enough, because they only kids when they take them inside. They only kids. They've wrecked their life. I felt the girls should've got at least $250,000 each, based on their age and the time in prison, and to this day I still think they were underpaid compared with what you see in some payments made in other sort of compensation situations. When I had money, everybody wanted to know me. If I could turn back time, I would've definitely done something different. I mean, I was way too young to have that kind of money, and... Yeah. I don't know what happened to that money. I don't know. It's only her who knows where she spent it. (LAUGHS) Bryan and Gary were really really good. Um, if it wasn't for them, we would've been in there for the 18 months that we got. So I named my first son after Bryan and Gary ` (LAUGHS) just cos they mean so much to me, um, and it was almost, like, you know` almost, like, a reminder every day that my son's named after the two men who, pretty much, saved us. Without Tania's parents, it wouldn't have happened. They were just amazing, uh, and their efforts helped all three girls. Without Mum and Dad, I don't think we would've been found innocent. Um... I think we still would have had our conviction. I wish it never happened, cos then I could've been doing the stuff I already had planned to do. We don't talk about it. We don't ever bring it up. It's` It's too painful. It crushes you, and it still does today. No one should ever have to go through that ever. SOMBRE MUSIC Captions by Philip McKibbin. Edited by Jessica Boell. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015