by Steve Snoopman

Judge calls for Law Change to stymie political dissent while setting a Legal Precedent for attention touching that deflects attention from Police Brutality.

The strange trial of a seasoned independent media duo reached its narrative climax on May 21 2024, at the Manukau District Court in South Auckland, New Zealand, following their spectacular arrests in 2023.

The prize of the case was an outcast media personality, former TVNZ news anchor, Liz Gunn (64), who had been brutally assaulted by a senior constable stationed at Auckland Airport.

Yet, it was Gunn who was found guilty by Judge Janey Forrest for ‘assaulting’ an Airport security worker.

Gunn, and her co-accused camerman, Jonathan Clark, who once worked for CNN and the Wall Street Journal, had also faced resisting arrest charges, after the judge dismissed two charges of trespass. 

Previously, on ‘Court Soap’, it was revealed the media duo were arrested in 18 seconds flat by Police, who were sent to eject them from the arrivals lounge inside the International Airport, in the early evening of Saturday February 25 2023.

In this heretical dispatch, former Māori Television news, and current affairs editor, Steve Snoopman, proves with a snoop technique he calls ‘verdict vivisection’ that a red herring trial occurred.

He shows how four functions of ideology — distortion, legitimation, social integration and activation — that are essential for successful propaganda to brainwash a population, were present in the the trial proceedings, and were, in effect, ratified by ‘Forrest Law’. Thus, the ‘Red Herring Gunn Trial’ set a legal precedent.

In short, an attention-getting touch was turned into an attention-deflecting assault to distract from the Police brutality.

Drawing upon Professor T. Edward Damer’s classic book, Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments, the Snoopman reveals numerous logical fallacies that were presented by Team Police Prosecution and accepted by Judge Forrest — who got ‘lost’ in the illogical legal woods.

By design, the trial was primarily aimed to save face for the Police, with a secondary motive to protect the reputation of Auckland International Airport Limited, and a thirdly, derivative objective to protect the Crown.

It was obvious to anyone in Court that the Police took a course to prosecute Gunn for assault, since she had been injured by an Airport Station Senior Constable, Erich Postlewaight, while his accomplice, Constable Robett Luong, injured Mr Clark. After all, a red herring logical fallacy occurs in an attempt to hide the weakness of a position by drawing attention away from the real issue to a side issue.

Once Gunn’s arrest became news, the Police doubled-down to protect the institution’s patchy reputation, as well as that of the Auckland Airport Company, and also of the defunct-Ardern Government.

Forrest laid down the law that a touch to get attention is assault in a hostile exchange. However, to pull off this logically fallacious argument, the authoritarian judge exercised judicial gymnastics to cast all the blame on the defendant — despite the obvious red herring tactic in play.

This adventure in judicial gymnastics hinged on the character assassination of the key defendant, who was cast by Police for a drawn-out scape-goating to resolve a potential crisis, since a Senior Constable assaulting a 63 year-old woman looked bad — no matter how many layers of lipstick a pig’s puckered lips may take.

The independent media duo had been waiting to film the arrival of a Tokelauan family, who had come to live in New Zealand following a cruel house arrest for refusing to be ‘vaccinated’ on the watch of Tokelau’s highest official, Ross Ardern, the father of Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s prime minister at the time.

To cast all blame on Gunn, Forrest ignored or denied the counter-evidence, after letting the case proceed despite finding that neither Airport SkyGate Security Coordinator, Anna Kolodesnaya, nor the two police constables, had adequately warned the pair that they would be trespassed. And although Postlewaight requested Gunn and Clark to leave, both Police escalated the calm scene into a fracas within seconds.

Moreover, Forrest let the case proceed despite the fact that Kolodesnaya conveyed the vague view to Gunn that the Airport Arrivals Lounge was “private area”. Kolodesnaya explained to the Court her incorrect comprehension that the Airport was privately owned. However, according to Auckland International Airport Limited’s filings with the New Zealand Companies Office register, at least 22% of the Airport Company’s stocks are owned by local and central government entities. In effect, this means the legs of the public can walk the Airport’s public areas exercising their freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights.

But, by this legal precedent, the bipedal public can only remain upstanding if they obey authority —even when those vested with authority are wrong. Indeed, Forrest conveyed this authoritarian view toward the trial’s end after the defence pulled the ‘keystone’ from the ‘archway’ of the New Zealand Crown’s case against a former TVNZ news anchor and a former CNN cameraman. Judge Forrest dismissed th trespass charges after a short recess, evidently to figure out (or consult about) the implications.

Forrest essentially took the cue of the lawyer for the prosecution, Jerome Beveridge, who clutched at legal straws.

In his summing up, Beveridge argued that the Police can’t be held criminally liable for their actions, if in the course of their duty they believe are right. With this telling faux pa, Beveridge’s overt plea was the logically fallacious argument of special pleading. The two police constables were not on trial for assault.

Special pleading — which Professor Damer located within the within the category of missing evidence — fallacies, occurs by ”[a]pplying principles, rules, or criteria to another person while failing or refusing to apply them to oneself or to a situation that is of personal interest, without providing sufficient evidence to support such an exception.” The ‘trunk’ of Police Prosecution’s ‘case tree’ was special pleading wood.

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