NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT COVERUP RUINS FARMING COUPLE

Who can read of it and not be enraged? Each day the Government fails to act on behalf of wronged farming couple Keith and Margaret Berryman reaps further contempt from New Zealanders disgusted at the injustice of it all. The Berrymans were ruined after being made to account for the death in 1994 of beekeeper Kenneth Richards when a bridge on their King Country farm collapsed. For failing to maintain the eight-year-old bridge, built by the army, the couple have lost their farm, and their health in trying to clear their name. At an inquest in 1997 into Mr Richards' death the New Zealand Army said the bridge was properly constructed in accordance with UK and Australian Army manuals. The coroner ruled the collapse was due to disrepair resulting from the lack of maintenance by Mr Berryman.

However, 2 1/2 years earlier an Army inquiry into the collapse produced a report by former army engineer George Butcher which, the Berrymans' lawyer Bob Moodie says, fully exonerates the couple. It shows the Army knew of design and construction faults and some materials used in the bridge. No mention of the Butcher report was made at the inquest. A petition to the High Court to have the inquest reopened was declined. Costs were awarded against the Berrymans and the court agreed with the Army that it couldn't release the report because of "Army discipline code requirements". In frustration Dr Moodie defied the court and put his job on the line by posting the report on the web.

Former Defence Minister Max Bradford says the Army's top brass should explain why they concealed the Butcher Report from him. The present minister stays mum and sits on his hands. In 1998 the prime minister supported the Berrymans after she visited the couple's farm during the Taranaki-King Country byelection: "It's an issue of National having lost touch with its traditional constituency," she said at the time. Who's lost touch? Two matters need to be addressed. First, full restitution must be made to the Berrymans immediately and with an unqualified apology. Second, the defence minister must make the Army come clean. The Berrymans and the public deserve to know why the report continues to be suppressed and why its findings were contradicted in evidence given to the coroner. To do less implicates the minister in a cover up.

The Government is fond of grand gestures like the Civil Unions law. Treatment of the Berrymans reveals what it really thinks about justice.

Report here

(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today)