The long road to Teina Pora's compensation win

Wednesday, 8 November 2017

Teina Pora had to fight every single step of the way.

Stuff Circuit journalists Eugene Bingham and Paula Penfold have investigated Teina Pora's case since 2012. His innocence is proven, but the fight isn't over.

OPINION: The first time we met Teina Pora we asked him how he had managed to survive being in jail for 20 years knowing he was an innocent man.

Lawyer Jonathan Krebs at the bail hearing for Teina Pora, in the Court of Appeal, Wellington.

How had it not driven him insane, or worse?

At the time, he was still in prison, though as we sat with him during that drizzly Auckland lunchtime, he was out on work release, painting an old building in Auckland City.

Private investigator Tim McKinnel had taken up Teina's case several years earlier, and it seemed momentum was building.

Credit must go to the new Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, who, in Opposition promised to put things right and, to the extent he can, has done just that - and swiftly.

* Teina Pora has been ripped off - again

* Compensation should consider inflation, court rules

* Police tried to get Pora 'at all costs'

* Life since prison overwhelming for Pora**

That evening, his day's work complete, he would be returning to his Paremoremo jail cell and hearing the heavy clunk of the lock once more.

He looked at us as if the question was an odd one, thought for a second, and then, remarkably, put himself in our shoes.

'Yeah, I can see how you would think that 20 years is a long time,' Teina said. 'But to me, I just take one day at a time.'

We were being schooled in the art of zen, taught a lesson in patience and control, from a guy who, the Crown was still insisting, was a brutal killer.

That was five years ago. Of course, there were times, especially early on, when Pora wasn't so calm, when the calamitous events that had led to him being wrongly imprisoned ate away at him and caused him to rage or sink into despair.

But by the time we met him, beginning our campaign for his innocence, he was a study in calmness.

Private investigator Tim McKinnel had taken up Teina's case several years earlier, and it seemed momentum was building, with fellow journalist Phil Taylor and film-maker Michael Bennett now on the case too.

Surely he'd soon be out of jail, have his name cleared, be compensated for the injustice, and we'd bear witness to the state conceding it had done Teina a terrible wrong when he was twice prosecuted for the 1992 rape and murder of Susan Burdett.

How naive we were.

They say the wheels of justice turn slowly. Over the past five years, there were times it seemed they weren't turning at all; others when they were going backwards.

Teina had to fight every single step of the way, facing opposition from the Crown before the Parole Board, in bail applications, before the Privy Council, and as a retired judge considered his innocence.

And then, in one last move to deny him, Cabinet refused to top up his compensation to take account of inflation.

Wednesday's announcement that he will receive the inflation adjustment rightly reverses that petty decision, the end of what will hopefully be his last battle.

He would never have got through it all without McKinnel, his legal team led by Jonathan Krebs and Ingrid Squire, and some amazing supporters, people like Fete Taito and Viv Wigby.

The fact Teina had to scrap for every last cent epitomises the struggle he has been through.

It's like the system was never, ever willing to budge; never willing to right the wrong it did to a 17-year-old from south Auckland, who, remember, has Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

At the time of his arrest, Teina was operating at the intellectual level of an 8 or 9-year-old. He was vulnerable, and he was crushed.

Credit must go to the new Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, who, in Opposition promised to put things right and, to the extent he can, has done just that - and swiftly.

Teina's patience has finally been rewarded, though the road remains incredibly hard for him. How can it not? As much as his outward appearance conveys otherwise, he still lives with the pain and consequences of what happened.

Every step will be hard for him. The system that wrongly threw him in jail in the first place has abandoned him. The system that institutionalised him now leaves him to fend for himself.

But he is free. And he is grateful to the people who believed in him, and fought his corner so hard.

As for us? There are days when the lesson he taught us that drizzly day we first met him hasn't sunk in, when it's incredibly hard to remain zen; days when we still rage at the injustice.

After all, there is someone at the heart of this case who has still to receive justice, who we can't forget: Susan Burdett.