In one lengthy email to CYF in September 2013, a notification from the relative compared the unsafe home environment to one of New Zealand's worst cases of child abuse.
"The ineffective parenting or caregiving, the immaturity of the caregivers, drugs, alcohol and violence, turning a blind eye and creating a culture of silence . . . I am afraid these children will become another victim of our inability to act," she wrote.
"If they are not the next Nia Glassie, then they will be."
A recipe for kindness: teaching baking behind prison bars →
We don't ask why they're here. Instead, we help them through the first recipe. For many of these guys, basic skills like properly measuring a cup of flour have to be taught – but they're happy to learn.
And we talk about what we do in the community, and that their baking is going to women's refuges.
One baker, Kahu*, nervously asks if the women know who it's coming from – they do.
Read MoreThe politics of crime - how the hunt for votes filled our prisons and threatens Minister of Justice Andrew Little's plans for reform →
Look at those people inside prisons, he says. So many mental health issues, addiction problems, family violence and inmates who are themselves victims of crime.
"If I don't follow my conscience and my political obligations to say we can do different things and better things and achieve better results, I'd be failing.”
Operation Ark: Inside NZ's $50m designer drug ring →
This is a story about science experiments and a cast of colourful characters playing a risky game of cat-and-mouse with New Zealand's drug laws.
A story of "protection" money, clandestine meetings and bugged Skype conversations.
Of boxes of cash stacked in the lounge of a pensioner's home in the North Shore, later laundered through companies in Hong Kong and Thailand.
Money made from "designer drug" pills. Millions and millions of pills.
A Dunedin Study discovery saved an American killer from the death penalty →
Waldroup’s lawyers argued that the sluggish version of the gene had combined with his history of suffering child abuse to explosive effect. The gene wasn’t the only factor the jury considered, but it clearly persuaded some of them he wasn’t equipped to weigh up a premeditated murder.
As one juror later said to National Public Radio: “Something in [Waldroup] doesn’t tick right … A bad gene is a bad gene.”
The priest with a patch →
He crosses the road and strays to the edge of the path, as he has done several times before. His heart starts thumping and he turns around before someone sees him. Walking through the door is scary, so Greg retreats to the comfort of the Mob pad. He takes an empty Waikato Draught from the crate and uses it to crack open another full one.
He takes a swig. Maybe next week, he says to himself.
Read MoreHow murder went to manslaughter in brutal death →
Much about the case looked odd.
For a start, why had it taken more than three years for the case to have reached the plea stage?
Why had the prosecution decided not to pursue the murder charge given the strong evidence against the defendant?
And why was no-one else charged given the circumstances of the homicide? Had Samson, only 163 centimetres tall, really done it all herself?
Read MoreThe colourful life and sad death of a fabulist →
Michael Fitzgerald, said to be a hospital obstetrician, and a stepdaughter, Sophie, never existed.
The nurse cousin visited Oates-Whitehead in London last year but realised something was up the day she tried to find Fitzgerald, without success. She told Richmal by phone, jokingly, that her fiance needed to introduce himself to colleagues so people would recognise him.
"She got all upset, and said 'I've got to go'.
Under fire →
Lance Burdett, a former crisis negotiator for the police who now runs a resilience coaching business, says police don't always get it right, and he questions if they look closely enough at the leadup to shootings to determine what could have been done differently.
"I investigated cops," he says. "One of the things I used to do was go back and see the other jobs they'd been in - why did they lash out?
"Most times they've been to a baby death, they've been in a car chase, they've had something emotional before they've got there and so their mindset might not be right."
Read MoreThe Misery of Marie →
“I was screaming and yelling. I don’t remember what they were saying, my mind was gone. I couldn’t sleep.”
Beneath a deep grief for the loss of her closest sibling lies guilt.
As someone who untangled herself from a violent relationship, with the help of a friend, Vicki can’t help but feel she could have done more for her sister.
But she has questions, too, over what government and social welfare agencies could and should have done.
Read MoreA guilty secret: Inside the killing of Hamilton man Frederick "Rick" Hayward, who vanished on the way to the Raglan family bach →
By 9am it was raining and Kate Hayward thought about leaving. It would be the first milestone.
Even though she believed her husband was dead, she left a note on the Toyota's dashboard.
It ended with a love heart.
"I thought if he sees that, just that, he'll be reassured."
There would be no reassurance.
Is it time to ban police pursuits? →
One of this country’s few public critics of police pursuits, road safety campaigner and Dog and Lemon Guide editor Clive Matthew-Wilson, reckons police chase because they enjoy the thrill of it.
“Part of it is because they hate seeing people get away, and that’s natural, but police work by and large is very boring and one of the few things that’s really exciting is chasing someone. And yet it’s one of the least effective ways of catching anybody.”
Read MorePicking up the pieces in Ruatoki →
When she couldn't provide her partner's cellphone number ("Since when has it been a crime to have speed dial?") she says police told her that was suspicious and they would have to search the couple's bedroom.
"I was trying to make jokes, cos, yeah, it was hard... I had the four babies. They're normally really boisterous, but they sat still.
"They started asking, `Are we baddies, mum? Is my daddy a baddie?"'
Read MoreMurky Water →
It is nearly 25 years since her daughter disappeared. Saturday, October 17, 1992 is a day she relives “year in and year out, over and over”.
“I hate airing my dirty laundry. There are so many people out there who judge me for the things that I have done … but honesty is the best policy,” she says with a gravelly voice.
The Tamihere case: In the Shadow of Murder →
Tamihere says the testimony of the prison informants – including one who gave graphic evidence of how Tamihere allegedly told him he’d raped both the Swedes – sickened all who heard it. He told North & South he knew from that moment he would be found guilty. “With secret witnesses, there’s no defence, and that’s what screwed us. Once the jury heard that, it was over. It didn’t matter a damn what you said.”
Read MoreNorthland man denies burning down house but insurer refuses to pay out →
The case of Chris Robinson, the insurer IAG, and the burnt-out Kerikeri mansion is much stranger than a standard tussle between disgruntled policyholder and suspicious insurer.
Aside from the printer-ignition theory there's blackmail and bankruptcy, and allegations of conspiracy. There's a side-plot involving poisoned land. The IRA and a fake Irish priest make cameo appearances. It's a story whose various interpretations differ so drastically that someone, somewhere, must have told some lies.
Behind the press bench: A recovering court reporter confesses all →
Whatever the story, each case touched a nerve. I can give a crime tour of Auckland, pointing out the locations of death and suffering. My doors are always locked. My favourite game to pass the time while waiting for someone's appearance is to remember the names of all the lawyers in the courtroom, and then name the clients they've represented. Occasionally I search for victims of crime online, hoping they're doing OK.
Read MoreThe madness, exile and redemption of Albert Moss →
The next morning, Moss held a razor to his wife’s face, twice, asking, "Shall I shave you?"
Mary shrugged him off. "Don’t be silly," she said.
Her nonchalance masked a colossal unease.
'Your daughter is history' →
It was a pretty road that wound downhill from their home, through farmland and bush and scrub, to State Highway 1. But people often parked up there to wash down McDonald’s burgers with pre-mixed bourbon and cola, before ditching their cardboard and cans in piles on the roadside and skidding off, back to the main road. These people’s litter made Kathleen cross, and that morning, through mist and drizzle and windscreen wipers, she was furious to see a particularly large pile, dimly illuminated in the car headlights. She flicked them to high beam. Something moved. A leg.
Read MoreFinding Kirsa: The Napier schoolgirl who never came home →
Every night for a year, Robyn left the back door unlocked and the outside light on for Kirsa. In the early days, when the house was full of people, she slept on the lounge floor because she couldn’t face being in a warm, comfortable bed when her daughter might be lying out somewhere in the darkness. And each morning, Robyn would draw back the curtains in Kirsa’s bedroom to let in the light, and decide what clothes to wear to help her through another day.
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