Revenge from Corrections Department

Well after having a meeting and the powers that be acknowledged there was an issue with one of their staff and that they have pulled the staffer and are in the process of retraining them and after quite a bit of counselling I managed to get back on track for with my community service.

Still ringing in my ears is the comment from the staffer that as I had chosen to take the action I had, they would now have to decide what action they would take. I pretty much accepted this as a threat and thought that as she was no longer working on my case I could rest easy.

How wrong was I....

I fill in a log sheet each time I attend community service and my hours are recorded then sent to corrections to be taken off by sentence. So far we have calculated that I have 144 hours left. However a call to corrections has seen them bump this up to 148Hrs as they apparently decided after giving me 4 hours for meeting's and inductions (that they were very late for) they would revoke them and only award what time they should have taken to complete this process an not the time it actually took them.

Strangely they did not do the same for my wife...

Abuse

I love the way people take it upon themselves to jump and criticize you without knowing all the facts and information. Like the person who posts from the telecom IP address 222.153.97.129  and yes we have tracked that back to who you are...

I will not tolerate the abuse of my family and would like to point out that by making these comments you are actually breaking the law but then from the comments it appears that in your mind two wrongs make a right.

Maybe we should start posting about who you are and a little about your background. I guess that is why you are trying to post as Anonymous as you really do have something to hide.

Responsible Reporting by stuff.co,.nz

So the question is does stuff check their facts and the validity of information? or more to the point do any of the larger media representatives. Earlier I took the opportunity to correct the reporter on a couple of things and after doing so rather than correct the information they continued on without alteration.

According to them they did not name us and therefore they can not be held liable for slander.

One would have thought that if you were aware that the information you posted was not correct your would have an obligation to correct that information regardless of if you named the person or not. Well not according to Danya Levy as she stated that if i have an issue with what was posted I needed to take this up with Housing New Zealand.

Now the error was not just incorrect based on my view but was also incorrect based on what was submitted to court. Is it the case that once you have been convicted of something you have no rights and the media can say whatever they like without checking its validity.

stuff.co.nz article.

Apparently according to Stuff the minister "Phil Heatly" announced that..

"More than 300 state housing tenants were evicted in the past year for lying about their circumstances, including one couple that ran an internet business from their property which turned over almost $400,000."

I can only assume the $400K he is referring to is actually $400K total turnover over about 8 Years and this also included loans and assistance from family. Now take in to account that the raw network operating expenses for that same period were $336K you are left with $64K and divide that by the 8 years.

Its not as clear cut as the minister would lead you to believe is it. But the fact that our defense team had a budget of around $1700.00 and the crown had an unlimited budget shows just how fair the system is.

I would love to be able to say more but due to new evidence that has just come up we are in the process of lodging an appeal.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7524975/More-state-house-cheats-being-caught?comment_msg=posted#post_comment

According to the stuff reporter who i spoke to today this information was provided to the media in a press conference today.

Appropriate Behavior by Corrections

Now do not get me wrong on this We have been found guilty and I have at present accepted that and we are serving our sentence. This is not an admition of guilt by us but acceptance of our situation.

The big however here is that the case has several large issues in the way it was presented and conducted and afterwards the processes that we had to go through resulting in a huge degree of undeserved stress and anxiety for not only myself but our whole family.

 Some of these matters were documented and handed up to the various relevant authorities and in one case we have received an apology for the huge mistake made. One of the complaints were toward the department of corrections who seem to have passed the complaint over to the person who the complaint was targeted at and yesterday I received a call demanding a meeting with her and she stated she wanted to write down exactly what I said.

She arrived where I was doing my community services then proceeded to grill me, several requests to for her to curb her attitude were ignored and she wrote on the paperwork what she wanted not what I was saying and refused to correct it.

I also was left with the feeling from comments that as I had chosen to exercise my right to lay the complaint I was going to be targeted and things were going to be made difficult for me. It sounded in all honesty like the person I was dealing with has some form of revenge planned.

SO in a nut shell, I complained to the minister, they handed the complaint to the department of corrections who then asked the person who the complaint was made about to investigate and clarify. A bit of a conflict of interests if you ask me and now i have to look forward to what for of revenge will be extracted.

The who saga left me is a real state yesterday resulting in the rest of the day having to deal with uncontrollable shaking and making an emergency doctors visit as I really did think something was going to pop.

Now to compact the issues there was another guy who had been waiting where I do my community service for the same person to meet him on site so he could begin with his sentence however much like when we had a meeting there she had forgotten that the meting was taking place and did not have the paperwork handy. Surely is people like this are not able to conduct their job in a professional manner they should not be working in such a position.

Mind you we are criminal's now so I am guessing we do not deserve any civilities.

More Drama

I have been trying to get a copy of the judges ruling and sentencing since the case ended however to no avail. From memory I received 200hrs community service and have to pay reparation to HNZ based on the total rent we would have paid as if we were not eligible for the rental assistance. In my case this is $20'000.00 and this had to be be paid at $50.00 per week. My wife received 150hrs of community service and has to pay 10'000.00 in reparation. We both went the same day and organised out community service then contacted the courts about how we pay the reparation, they stated that I have to pay $50.00 per charge per week making it a total of $400.00 per week and my wife has to pay $25.00 per charge being $100.00 per week. I informed them that was not what was stated in court however they said that the only way to remedy that was to go back to court and that those are the figures that were entered in to the system. At present my wife is working and I have lost the work coming in as I can no longer pass the security checks so paying that amount of money for us is not possible as well as the fact we have to feed and bring up 3 kids. After my conversation I sent a letter to the minister of the courts as in my view they had it wrong, I had requested the courts send us a copy of the judges decision but they have not done so. I received a nice letter stating that the minister would look in to it and last week we were contacted by the courts saying they had made an error. I requested written confirmation of this and both an apology as well as a copy of the judges decision. they have to date failed to supply this. So its OK for the courts to make these mistakes but when we the public make them we end up being crucified.

DO NOT GIVE INTERVIEWS!

This is great advice. Anyone who is asked to do an interview with Housing New Zealand should heed this warning. In our case we watched more than one instance of our statement being used out of context and false statements being made by HNZ staff. Yep we have evidence of the false statements made while under oath and how the courts were mislead but unless our lawyer at the time brought this to the attention of the courts apparently there is little that can be done. http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc

Its prety much over

Well its finally over. No idea yet how things went as the judge will announce his decision on the 29th however we are not feeling good about it. maybe I have just lost all faith after being grilled so heavily by the crown.

Anyway a word of warning....
If you are HNZ tenant and operate a business even its its a limited liability company you have to declare the total income of that business as your income. that is ALL deposits. This is according to the crown and the HNZ investigators.

More evidence

Well there we go. The crown prosecutor was away sick yesterday and the case was put off until Wednesday however today we get more information and some changes in their witness list.

in court today

The case has been adjourned as firstly the crown only supplied their analysis of the records on Friday. these were prepared by HNZ and it appears they are not correct. given that we have had out heads on the chopping block for 14months and HNZ started their investigation well before then you would think this information would have already been done and would be correct.

Today we are in court

We are in court today. the hearing is supposed to take 4 days.

Both Debbie and I are not doing too well as the pressure of this case is really taking its toll both psychically and emotionally.

Although I am thankful that the combination of medication and some form of inner strength showed through the other day things came to such a head that I came close to doing something extremely stupid.

Presented with the unpalatable decision

Last week our lawyer's had a conference with the judge and the crown prosecution. We have now been provided with what the crown has interpreted as all of the evidence however due to the format and the nature of this information it is not a quick and easy process sorting it. The judge at this stage has refused our request to postpone the hearing so we can have time to look at it.

We have also received an indication from the crown that if I plead guilty to all charges from 2007 onward they will drop all charges against my wife.

Doing so will result in me loosing my job as well as accepting a conviction for something I strongly believe we did not do. on the other side of the coin if my wife and I are found guilty we will both loose our jobs.

given that we really don't have the resources and have not been afforded the same time as the crown to prepare and challenge the information with expert advice this puts us on the back foot.

This decision seems to be also causing some family issues and a rift is forming between my wife and I not for the fact that either one of us have done wrong but the fact that this would release us from a burden that has been hanging over our heads for well over a year now.

I guess we have to be thankful we are not in the shoes of Mr dotcom.

We were in court a couple of weeks ago and finally it seemed that the Judge realized just how much of a crock this case is. The summary of accounts still had not been done and the index of evidence had not been received. In addition he asked the question as to How HNZ had laid the charges without having first done the summary of accounts and if they just laid the charges in the hope that we were going to plead guilty.

He made an order for the documents to be produced and stated that if these were not provided he would be open to a request from us to have the charges dismissed.

Today we had the a hearing to see if this had happened and, 2 days ago we received the summary of accounts however I have not yet seen them so have no idea what they/it is. In addition we have been informed that they can not provide the index of evidence as there is none. Now we have the summary of accounts we can move forward and have a forensic accountant look at the figures.

We asked for time to do this however the Judge stated that a fixture of 4 days has all ready been set and that this was not going to be changed. We have 2 months to deal with this and I am quite concerned that this will not be enough time. However from their summation in court the figures are pretty dismal.. Given that we know HNZ are trying to get a conviction their figures are going to be based in favor of a conviction. The prosecutor in summary told the judge that the income derived over this time was $43K. that's a combined income.... 3 kids, 2 adults. the figures my accountant has come up with differ from this greatly however even working on these figures and recalculating the income based on their figures their total claim is not correct.

We have also received a claim against us from Baycorp for 81K as HNZ have now lodged the debit regardless of the fact this has not been to court. Oh and yes the person who lodged the claim with baycorp was our wonderful ex tenancy manager who kicked this whole vexatious thing off Katrina O'Conner.

Drunk on power

It just goes to show that all though we are comparing apples with houses the fact remains that when you give someone the power there is the chance they will abuse it as is our opinion that our old tenancy manager Katrina O'Conner has adopted a similar view and has not qualms about abusing the powers she has been entrusted with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VFygR_-wBsc

Baycorp

Well we just received a call from Baycorp today. It appears that HNZ have lodged what they are claiming the income related debit is. and yes this was lodged by our then tenancy manager Katrina O'conner.

The matter has still not been to court.

I'm pretty sure this election year neither of the larger parties are getting my vote as both have made promises to look at this matter and neither have done anything about it.

So its now a Political Issue?

You really have to wonder what politicians do to actually earn their money. Stating the obvious and making generalized statements seems to be the norm these days.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10742704

So OK, HNZ have busted some people but there are also a pile of people in those figures that are being victimized by the powers these guys are wielding. So when Phil and his cronies make erroneous accusations they should be open to prosecution.

But sadly this is not the case, they can make whatever claims they like and if they get it wrong they don't seem to even have to supply an apology or make amends.

I was shocked to see this.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/25753816/

It seems to me that these guys just dont get it, It is all well and good for the haves to pass judgement on the havenot's and to try and shove people in to their own little category but that is not the way the real world works.

I do not deny there are some instances where people are abusing the system but from what we have seen and experanced there are more HNZ and SOE workers who are milking the government not to mention contractors who seem to be charging and putting in claims for work that either has not been done correctly or charges that have been balooned and are unreasonably excessive.

How about HNZ fix its internal strcuture first and make sure your staff adhere to the correct process and proceedure then look at your tennants. A problem exists and unless you deal with that problem at the core you are wasting time and valued resources not to mention putting the New Zealand people who you are supposed to be serving under undue stress.

And before any HNZ Associate or employee tries to take a swipe about unfounded allegations as I have previously stated I have evidence that shows your processes have not been followed on more than one account not to mention the other evidence where your staff have breached their duties and made false claim (including in court and while under oath).