AUTHOR
JOHN BURRETT
AUTHOR JOHN BURRETT
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| ONE GAME TOO MANYPROLOGUE What
you have just started to read is not
a work of pure fiction, or another crime novel about hypothetical people acting
out impossible events in highly contrived circumstances.
Nor is it another tedious autobiography about ordinary people you may
never have heard of and probably don’t really care about. This
book is an account of what really led us two unusual people into an
extraordinary but innocent game that unfolded in Wellington, New Zealand during
the winter of 2002. It deals
with how New Zealand society and the local media closed their minds to the truth
and refused to understand or even consider what actually happened and therefore
became forced by their blind prejudice to wrongfully brand us as serious
criminals. The
story made major headlines for months in New Zealand and Australia as well as
being widely reported in the London press.
For seven long weeks in mid 2003 the High Court trial was televised on
the evening news and immediately after a dramatization of the events was
screened on national television. This
book tells our side of those events. It
is from end to end an absolutely true story. All
too often our perception of the truth depends upon our own preconditioning and
those important ingrown social prejudices and biases and if you scratch the
surface a little you will find that the liberal face of middle class New Zealand
is just a facade. To us it
appears to be an insular society riddled with deep-seated prejudices against
everyone who is not a white Kiwi. This
process of socialization has taken white middle class New Zealanders down a
separate path from their European ancestors.
New Zealand society, led by the media and in particular those who make up
the establishment in Wellington, increasingly demands that more and more people
are each day imprisoned for longer and longer terms.
New Zealand is one of the Western World’s leaders.
Not in the crime rate or in the rate those crimes are solved, but in the
percentage of people that its white Kiwi society demands go to jail.
White New Zealanders demonstrate their prejudice in a way that no other
westernized country does. Their
prisons are crammed to overflowing with people who are black, brown or yellow or
just foreign, and unfortunately for us to them we were foreign. Each
of the events that I have recounted in this book is absolutely true as far as we
are concerned. Even though
others may still claim otherwise. From
our point of view it would be pointless at this stage, a year after our release
from imprisonment, to set out to mislead you about any of the events that took
place in July 2002, nothing could be gained.
It would be equally pointless to attempt to alter or corrupt the truth in
order to suit our perception, nor have I tried to put any particular spin on the
truth. Unfortunately
for us much of our real trial took place behind closed doors in the Judge’s
private chambers and away from public scrutiny.
For it was there that we lost out right to tell the jury what really led
up to our arrest. And of course
there is no public record of what the Judge said in his private chambers, no
record for you to read. Where
we have quoted evidence given in open court, the exact words have been taken
directly from the official court transcript.
Of course that does not mean that the evidence quoted is true, or that it
is exactly what was said but merely that it is what the typist recorded a
particular witness as saying. Whether
you believe the evidence and our side of the story is ultimately a matter for
you to decide. All
we ask is that you read our account of the truth with an open and fair mind. John Burrett June 2008
John's book is available from your local bookshop or sales@brandon-associates.co.uk www.waterstones.com www.whsmith.co.uk www.samedaybooks.co.uk www.bookrabbit.com Published by BRANDON
& ASSOCIATES Hastings. England www.brandon-associates.co.uk PUBLICATION
DATE 1st JULY 2008 ISBN
978-0-9559407-0-5
PRICE £12.99p&p Readership:
General, Legal, Current Affairs |
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