Hearing in Courtroom 8

On the first days of the hearing we were all there, all the defendants who were being tried together, 18 of us in total. I sat in front row of the public gallery staring in wonder at the lines of lawyers in front of me, five in total. The front row was for the crown, of course. Perched above us all was the judge. He was an unremarkable creature meeting the standard criteria for a judge in this land: old, white, and male.

Dressed in his black robe, with his lackey seated just beneath him to service his needs, the judge completed the picture of a colonial courtroom. In that first day I couldn’t escape the feeling that the scene being played out could easily have been 100 years ago: white lawyers, white judges in a white man’s court passing judgment on a roomful of poor, Māori people. Mind you, the judge didn’t have a wig on, and some of the lawyers were Māori women; nevertheless, nothing of substance in the proceedings had changed in a century.

As the first week wore on that initial impression faded and the ‘normalcy’ of court set in. It took nearly a week for the approximately 290 charges against us to be read out. One of my co-accused fell asleep standing up his charges took so long to read; another sent and received some text messages. But for this bit part in the play, we had no role in these proceedings. We were, in fact, an irrelevancy to both our own lawyers and to the crown.

When crown began presenting its case against us, their chosen poster boy took the stand. Young, white, well-groomed and well-spoken, Detective Sergeant Aaron Lee Pascoe makes good copy for the police. And he knows how to make a Māori into a terrorist and when to keep his mouth shut. On and off for 10 days, this officer-in-charge drew a picture of crime and danger, while skillfully maintaining the stunning silence on the modern invasion of terror that he orchestrated.

These days in court were tedious. The lines of questioning from our lawyers seemed strangely abstracted from reality. Often it seemed that they were laboring a point to no useful end, trying to get a response that would crack the finely packaged case the crown had wrapped up for the judge. Occasionally, we could see some light shining through the wafer-thin evidence. For the most part, the grinding wheels of justice did a great deal of grinding on our collective will. Whenever the crown tripped even just a little, the judge was there to offer a supportive word. Alternatively, he was quick to roll his eyes, scold the defence for a minor misstep through the justice hoops and threaten to exclude all our supporters from the courtroom.

Our own battlefront was the court itself as there was an endless stream of undercover cops around us. It is hard to believe that there are actually so many undercover cops in Auckland, but there are. One day, one of our crew was outside of the court next to the flashy silver car belonging to the Detective Sergeant. Armed with only a sausage roll, he was set upon by at least a half-dozen officers accused of scratching the car. In the process, his wife and another woman were punched by ‘assisting officers’.

I pause momentarily to reflect on the number of police available almost instantaneously in the case of this alleged police car ‘keying’. Only a week later, there was a complete absence of police as August Hemmings was stabbed to death one block away from the court and about five blocks from Auckland central police station at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

The day a cop was killed would not be a good day in court for us. We read that Sergeant Don Wilkinson worked in the same building with our own Detective Sergeant. This cop was shot trying to plant listening devices in a car at about 2am somewhere in south Auckland. It seems reasonable to assume that the person in the house looked out the window and thought someone was trying to steal his car.

This cop bugged some of our cars, too. And houses. One of our crew told me that he remembered seeing him outside his house. He knew then he was a cop, dressed in a blue blazer, white checked shirt, jeans and trainers; his ‘cop mufti’ was a dead giveaway in a neighbourhood full of Māori, Islanders, Chinese and Indians.

There were cops outside the marae too. We stayed there for collective solidarity; they came to watch and listen, to keep tabs and collect intelligence. Sometimes they were in cars, sometimes in helicopters. I think that they had a few in particular they liked to follow.

For us, we tried to make the marae home and dealt with the day-to-day problems of 25 people living together. The snoring, showering, eating, crying, drinking, smoking, shouting, laughing and cleaning were all part of our collective experience. Some learned about the joys of dumpster diving – urban hunting, so to speak, for the meat eaters found plenty of kill to fill the freezer. Some had a nightly karakia or an early morning stroll around the lagoon. Some hid in the garage or their cars to escape the punishing crescendos of the snoring orchestra. Some made a beautiful mural to bring a forest to the city. All came to support the kaupapa of Te Mana Motuhake o Tuhoe.

Those who didn’t stay at the marae became part of our collective experiences at court, getting to know one another, to watch one another, to exchange frustrations, stories and understandings.

We didn’t have to be there. We had been ‘excused’ from the hearing by the judge. But many of us could not excuse ourselves from knowing what was happening.

On the last day, the crown was offered the last word. Their well-paid mercenary shot down our best laid arguments in a voice devoid of emotion, of life, of understanding. It was the same voice I heard at our first bail hearing on 19 October 2007. That was and remains the most painful day of my life. That day, after my friends and family were excluded from the courtroom, we were forced to listen as that crown mercenary spun a tale of our intended evil. It is the voice of power. It is the voice of oppression. It is a voice which silences with authority.

We must return on 17 October to hear our fate. On that day, the judge will decide whether or not to commit us to trial. He may or may not commit all of us. I feel frightened at this judgment although a committal seems inevitable. I feel less afraid of the consequences of the trial per se, as our ability to stay together, to support each other and beyond that to maintain not only our sanity, but also our sense of humour, our humanity, and the fire that burns in each of us for freedom and justice. I need all the help I can get to keep laughing and keep fighting. I really want thank everyone for all the work, support and love this year; I wouldn’t have survived with out it.

Ka whawhai tonu matou ake! ake! ake! Never surrender. Never give up.