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A grieving father’s crusade against family violence

Tuesday, 27 May 2025

David White is pictured here holding a photo of his daughter, Helen Meads.
David White is pictured here holding a photo of his daughter, Helen Meads.

“Why did Daddy kill Mummy, Grandad?”

The question pierced the silence of Matamata Primary School’s playground, as David White clutched his 9-year-old granddaughter's bookbag.

It was September 2009 and 42-year-old Helen Meads had been shot by her husband, Gregory Meads, in the horse stables of the couple's sprawling Waikato farm. She died instantly.

White was tasked with breaking the earth-shattering news to the couple’s children, beginning with the youngest, before the relentless churn of small-town gossip reached them first.

“Police had been emphatic ‒ they told me I just had to deliver the news straight,” he recalls. “They said don’t try and make it easy, don’t create fairies, just give the kids the facts and then deal with the repercussions.”

White had hoped to make it to somewhere more private before telling young Sam.

“But as soon as she saw me, she asked: ‘Why did you come and get from school so early, Grandad? Where’s Mummy?’ So I had to tell her right there.

“Her immediate question was: ‘Why did Daddy kill Mummy, Grandad?’ How do you answer that? She was the apple of her Daddy’s eye. Spoilt rotten. She just couldn’t comprehend it. It took years to get it through to her.”

Helen took everyone as they were, her father says, with no-one immune to her dry sense of humour.
Helen took everyone as they were, her father says, with no-one immune to her dry sense of humour.

And it took years for White to understand it too, the tragedy propelling him into a relentless campaign against family violence, as he transformed personal sorrow into public advocacy.

White, now 80, is travelling around New Zealand in the hope of confronting the issue head-on. His mission is not only to share his story, but to ignite change, urging communities and lawmakers alike to address family violence.

‘I don’t want another father to have to lose a daughter’

Helen’s death came just four days after she told her husband of 10 years she was leaving him. She’d suffered violence at his hands for too long and was in the process of moving out.

What Helen and her parents didn’t know is that one of the most dangerous times for a domestic abuse victim is when they try to leave their abuser.

But, as two police officers knocked on White’s front door on the morning of September 23, 2009, Helen’s mother Pam realised what had happened almost immediately. David White was in the dark still.

“They just said, ‘Helen’s dead’ and we both reeled back. I worked with Helen on the farm practically everyday, and my immediate thought was: ‘Which one of the horses kicked her? Who crushed her?’

“But Pam turned around and said: ‘At least that bastard can’t hurt her anymore’. She got it straight away. She knew.”

Gregory Meads, a multimillion-dollar horse breeder, was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 11 years before parole. He was released from prison in February 2024 after a parole board hearing concluded he was at “low risk of re-offending”.

White’s work is his own personal penance for missing the warning signs of Meads’ behaviour.

For more than 11 years, Gregory Meads maintained the gun went off “by mistake”.
For more than 11 years, Gregory Meads maintained the gun went off “by mistake”.

“We see now that we did everything wrong. People say I’m hard on myself, but I was her father and parents are supposed to protect.

“I knew so little about family violence that I didn’t understand what we were dealing with. It's my innocence that’s landed me here and I don't want another father to have to lose a daughter or son.”

He has since written two books, and has spoken in schools, prisons and to police.

Even now, women in distress ‒ and occasionally former gang members ‒ find their way down the White family's driveway in Matamata.

A campaign for change

But White isn’t done yet. Settling in with a cup of tea and a slice of chocolate cake (it may be 9am but “it’s never too early for chocolate cake”), he explains his latest endeavour to The Post.

“I want this to stop this violence in its tracks, and to do that we need to go back to its root. We need to stop the next generation of perpetrators coming through at all.”

In a nickname that he still wears proudly, from a young age Helen called her father ‘Fred’ after a character in a storybook he used to read to her before bed.
In a nickname that he still wears proudly, from a young age Helen called her father ‘Fred’ after a character in a storybook he used to read to her before bed.

Earlier this month, he launched a petition to urge the Government to establish a new nationwide program for the prevention of family and sexual violence, and to include suicides linked to family and sexual abuse with violent deaths in official reporting.

The first step will be getting as many signatures as possible on the petition, which White hopes to do through a roadshow across the motu.

“I’m going to go to every corner of the country and speak to as many people and organisations as I can who work in the family and sexual violence fields. I’ve drawn up a map and will be going to all sorts of places ‒ Eketāhuna, Ohakune, up to Auckland.”

White will also travel with a paper version of the petition for those who are unable to access it online.

He has contacted Green Cross Health to ask that each of their pharmacies keep a physical copy of the petition and a pen beneath the counter.

“Often one of the only places victims of family violence can go alone is to a pharmacy. It’s about the only place some people can go to without being supervised. These people deserve a voice too.”

The petition will close on August 29 and be presented to MP Jo Luxton at Parliament on September 23 ‒ 16 years to the day since Helen’s death.

Luxton describes White as a “one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime people you meet” who has endured unimaginable tragedy.

“What sets him apart is his commitment to change the system that we live in ‒ and his compassion for those who have caused harm. I deeply admire David’s courage.”

The next step will be a select committee hearing.

White will ask each organisation and person he meets on his road trip to “write their submission so that they’ll put themselves out of business”.

“We want to end the flow of victims coming through the door. I want each of them to use their expertise to explain how they think family and sexual violence can be stopped before it’s happened.”

Enough of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, it’s time for the introduction of a “safety net at the top of the cliff”, White says.

He will then pull the submissions together to create a nationwide prevention programme that can be taught in schools, which will be presented to the Social Investment Agency.

“A very important part of this will be educating children and young people about healthy relationship habits and offering them alternative lifestyles before it’s too late.”

‘If I don’t, who will?’

To this day, White has trouble sleeping. He goes over and over what he could have ‒ should have ‒ done to save his daughter.

“My life changed in a second. There are no easy answers, there is no amount of counselling that helps. We’re always told ‘time will heal’, but that’s a load of crap. There are too many things wrong with our system to heal.”

But perhaps once the system has changed, White will be able to stop.

“I’m just a grandad from Matamata who somehow thinks he’s going to change New Zealand. But if I don’t, who will? What else is retirement for anyway?

“Sure, the lawn goes unmowed sometimes, but I truly think we can do this. I believe we can save future Helens.”

On Helen’s headstone, she doesn’t have a surname.

When she died, she was no longer Helen White. She was a grown woman, with a family of her own. But nor was she Helen Meads ‒ that surname eternally struck off when a Meads shot her dead at point-blank range.

Instead, she is just Helen, a mum of three with wild black curls, a contagious laugh and a “boundless personality that would hit you as soon as she entered the room”.

You can sign David White’s petition here.

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