The Linwood House of Horror
A verdict was reached today in the High Court in the trial of Mrs Annie Hutchkins of Linwood. The jury took only two hours to reach its decision, finding Mrs Hutchkins guilty on all seven charges, which ranged from willful disregard for human safety to environmental vandalism.
The horrific nature of Mrs Hutckins’s offences became apparent when her property in Cashel Street was raided on 2 July. Police had a tip-off that someone was lighting unauthorised fires, and Mrs Hutchkins was discovered “obtaining warmth from an open fireplace”. She was actually burning wood, thought to be her own dismantled furniture. A store of wood prepared for the purposes of combustion was found hidden under the floorboards of her living-room.
The existence of the fireplace had been concealed from neighbours and the LASER (Light And Smoke Emission Reconnaissance) squad because the chimney had been dismantled by council workers 13 years before. Mrs Hutchkins had lit fires in the grate and allowed the smoke to pass into the room.
‘It was truly disgusting’, reported Detective-Sergeant Peter Melder, who was one of the first on the scene. “There was carbon monoxide, particulates and sulphates everywhere.” Dr Ian Parkin gave evidence at the trial that there was a 0.003% likelihood that smoke escaping from apertures in Mrs Hutchkins’s house had detrimentally affected 0.15 people with respiratory problems. In addition, this would have increased the carbon footprint of the whole city substantially, and another polar bear was likely to die and a major chunk of ice fall off the Antarctic ice sheet as a result. The room was decontaminated by the Environmental Special Emergencies Squad.
An electric heater of a kind long-banned (August 2010) was found in a cupboard, and forensic tests indicated that it had been used within the last month. To her plea that she had been cold, Justice Callen replied that if we all turned on a heater when we were cold where would the country be? This brought a round of cheers and applause. He also noted that if Mrs Hutchkins had been doing the Exercise Commission’s mandatory exercises she would have kept warm that way. Having osteo-arthritis was no excuse.
However, it was the backyard that revealed the true horrors of what has been dubbed “the Linwood House of Horror”. An unregistered dog was discovered chained to its kennel. The dog, a mixed Labrador-retriever, was well over the legal weight limit for dogs (10kg), had not had its teeth removed, and barked at a police officer who approached it. There was no record of its having been taken to the Canterbury Approved Dog Exercise Facility in Rangiora for two hours a day, as is required by law. Subsequent investigation showed that anyone with wire-cutters, and who had what Detective-Sergeant Melder described as a ‘very basic knowledge of alarm systems’, could have got into the yard and been bitten. The dog was shot on site.
Next to the dog was found a bowl of water, which at 4 cm deep and 20 cm across was over the legal limit for unfenced bodies of water. ‘Some child could have got in here, gone face down in that water and drowned before you know it,’ Detective-Sergeant Melder commented in court, visibly distressed. During this part of the trial Justice Callen twice had to warn the public to be quiet or he would be forced to clear the courtroom.
Finally, when Mrs Hutchkins was strip-searched at the police station she was found to have on her possession two roll-your-own “cigarettes”. Since smoking was banned in private in 2017 there has been a black market in tobacco, but it was unclear how Mrs Hutchkins had come by the illegal substance. Neighbours reported that she “had seemed such a nice person”. The damage to Mrs Hutchkins own health was only part of the story, according to Justice Callen. Secondary, and even tertiary, smoke could have affected a large number of people passing the house, who as a result would be likely to contract cancer within the next ten years and would be absorbing health funding for many more.
In summing up, Justice Callen said the case was one of the worst of its kind in recent years. The police officers involved are all receiving psychological counselling and are likely to be off work for at least 12 months. Mrs Hutchkins was sentenced to a total of 87 years imprisonment. After the sentence was read she appeared stunned. Justice Callen said he did not condone the painting of green triangles on the doors of members of Mrs Hutchins’s immediate family, combined with some petty vandalism, although it was an understandable reaction given the severity of the offences.
The Courts in Brief
The death of a toddler in Otahuhu has been widely condemned as “completely avoidable and utterly unforgiveable”. The toddler, Baby Jay, was drowned in the bath by his stepfather. The Ministry of Social Welfare said that there were three social workers permanently stationed in the house, but that budget cuts had meant the “One Room, One Social Worker” for at-risk families action plan had not been able to be implemented. The driving force behind the action plan, Mr Richard Hewson, said that this was not good enough. “A report from seven years ago mentioned the possibility of violence from the stepfather (whose name has been suppressed), and there should have been constant surveillance of this poor man”. The stepfather was acquitted, and is undergoing counselling.
In response to this crisis, the Ministry says that it has has come up with a revolutionary new plan for monitoring at-risk Maori families, who are particularly vulnerable. The Minister, the Right Honourable Martha Douglas explains it as follows: “We’ve known for a long time that each child needs to be assigned at least two social workers, and that it is best if these come from the child’s iwi (tribe). Lately, research has shown that there are improved results if the social workers come from the child’s hapu (sub-tribe), or even whanau (extended family). The radical idea in this new plan is that the biological parents will take the place of social workers, which should provide an even closer affiliation between the caregivers and the child.” This radical plan has been widely hailed for its insight and sensitivity.
In other court cases, an organiser of a “fun” children’s soccer match at Leithfield Park, Mr Dennis Athfield, was found guilty of criminal negligence and ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 or accept imprisonment for ten years. An 11-year-old boy playing in the soccer match had gashed his arm falling on a piece of glass. The gash required two stitches. It was found that Mr Athfield was not registered as an events organizer, and had failed to provide written advice to all players that there was the possibility of encountering hazardous objects on the field. A council representative pointed out that over the previous five years the council had erected 47 hazard signs around the park, and all users of Hagley Park should first read a 60-page manual outlining all the drowning, falling, bacterial, cycling and other hazards that could be encountered in the park. Entering the park without having first read the manual was “just asking for trouble”.
Mrs Muriel Beckett was found guilty of failing to provide suitable access to her house without encountering a dog. Mrs Beckett, who celebrated her 84th birthday while remanded in custody, sobbed in Court as she explained that the wooden planks from the barrier had twice been stolen, presumably for illicit combustion. Justice McClennan said that this was no excuse, and that Mrs Beckett should count herself lucky that the inspector had not been bitten. The fact that her dog, Bessie, was unable to walk was irrelevant. This brings to 373 the number of elderly people imprisoned for access offences. Mrs Beckett’s husband, Stan, a retired carpenter, was also charged with erecting a building without having a current registration. His excuse that it was only a doll’s house for his grand-daughter and that it was hardly worth paying the $3,500 annual registration fee was dismissed by Justice McLennan, as was Mr Beckett’s claim that he had spent 47 years in the building industry.
An office manager, Ms Marion Hodge, was convicted of failing to wear a pedestrian helmet on a Class B3 road. To her plea that she had “just nipped out to put some money in the parking meter”, Justice McLennan responded that if people wished to use footpaths next to roads on which more than five motorised vehicles passed every 10 minutes, they would just have to get used to the idea of wearing helmets, as required by the revised Health and Safety regulations. He labelled as “irresponsible” evidence in a recent report that pedestrian helmets had not altered the number or seriousness of pedestrian accidents.
Finally in this day at the Courts, Mr James Wilson appeared in Court today after proceedings were interrupted yesterday and the Court had to be cleared due to disruption. Mr Wilson, a prominent member of OAMDF (Organisation Against Media-Driven Fascism) has been charged with vandalism and disturbing the peace after incidents that occurred during a protest against recent changes to the way legislation is passed, popularly known as “the New Democracy”. Mr Wilson said in a written statement that “the constitutional move to have legislation enacted and/or amended by popular electronic vote following the six o’clock news is simply government by hysteria”. He was convicted and fined $10,000. Justice McLennan noted in his decision that “we live in an advanced liberal democracy, and any group who tries to subvert that will be ruthlessly suppressed”.
On a brighter note, in international news, the Minister of Enhancing Abilities applauded the completion of wheelchair access to the summit of Mount Everest, but described as “appalling” the delays that had been encountered. The project, which had cost $14 billion, was “long overdue” according to the Minister. “It is simply disgraceful that people with enhanced abilities, such as those using wheelchairs, had been denied access to Mount Everest by a callous and biased international community.” People with enhanced abilities (previously referred to as people with disabilities) had been victimized too long, he said, and Mt Everest was just another step on the road to making the entire Earth accessible to all.
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