Pushed into politics by crime: Simon Bridges is the sum of his parts

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THE MIDDLE STREETS OF TAURANGA

If this can happen to Tauranga it can happen anywhere, right?

The city of nearly 140,000 has grown from a glorified retirement village with an extended Christian community to, in recent years, being the Auckland collection for the overflowing of young urban professionals who seek to get on the scale of the property.

It's really a beautiful city, the kind that attracts the label to be a good place to raise children

There is also the Mongrel Mob, Black Power, Bloods, Crips, The new Australian imports Bandidos, Headhunters, as well as Filthy Few and Greasy Dogs.

"It's the port, that's why they're all settled here," says Bridges, in a clear reference to drug trafficking.

Swaying around his SUV to face Filthy Few's headquarters, its proximity to the headhunters just around the corner.

HQs are often behind legitimate gyms – enough gyms – for recruiting and money laundering, in addition to being places where people really train them.

Corrected limbs slowly stroll out. It's intimidating and intentionally.

There are academic research scopes that show that stigma, inequality, the lack of educational opportunities and other forms of discrimination play a role in the creation of the university. environment in which gangs thrive. This means that gang companies are generally not organized criminals – the most lucrative trade being drugs.

. Bridges says that he can trace in his old diary the difficult moment when methamphetamine came on the scene.

IS NOT A TWO-BIT LAWYER SLICK

These old court papers also provide a number of important information. glimpses on the bridges. himself

His writing is atrocious. It's the scribbling of a busy, intermediate to intermediate prosecutor. But one with the delicacy of keeping a consistent journal for more than five years from 2002.

Case names, charges, types of hearings and the role Bridges played in each – c & # 39 is a pile of pages that show the trajectory of a career of a young lawyer educated in Oxford who will judge cases against some of New Zealand's most notorious criminals.

And it also illustrates a marked escalation in the types of crimes for which Bridges would go to charge the charges

fairly standard stock of female male assaults, cannabis cultivation and aggression with a weapon give way to bodily injury. evil, kidnapping, attempt to pervert the course of justice, rape, murder.

But this was a case of kidnapping that would leave an imprint on Bridges for the rest of his life.

"I believe so far that he is one of the worst criminals in New Zealand," says Tony Robertson's Bridges. "I've done a lot of cases but I remember that and I remember him, because it was scary actually, you could say it."

Robertson had abducted a six-year-old girl, triggering a hunt at the city's scale. On the intuition of Sergeant Dave Thompson, Robertson and the girl were found in a secluded waterfall. He was on her and was arrested just in time.

"I can always remember her that day in the trial, so far," says Bridges. "She told me that" this man stole "me."

Bridges argued for pre-trial detention – a sentence that could keep a prisoner in prison indefinitely, if it was necessary. The judge would not have written off a 19-year-old offender as a lost cause, and Robertson was sentenced to eight years.

When he was finally released, and while on parole, he was going to kill Blessie Gotingco.

In the case of Reihana, Bridges describes it as a "crime of passion," indicating that Reihana is not in the same category of offender as Robertson.

But the details of the case are no less scary. A man, enraged that his ex had moved with another man, drove for hours armed with three knives and murderous intent. He invaded their home with such fury that the terrified victims tried to escape by jumping through a closed window on the second floor, but died from their stab wounds.

I remember the details in which they penetrated, blood, images, faces of the victims and what they had gone through.

Bridges says that he also remembers photos. showing their torn skin on the broken window, they jumped through. Reihana was sentenced to 21 years in prison without parole

. But it may have been a particularly lousy case, which has never been tried, that Bridges uses to explain why strict bail laws are important to him.

This is the seemingly subversive murder of a man dubbed "Granite".

The methamphetarian cook, apparently a little too demanding, was executed by his boss at close range. Shortly after the murder, allegedly by businessman Tauranga Brett Ashby, he and a partner drove Grant Adams' body to a Taupo shipyard, dug a deep pit and burned the body at inside before burying it.

This is a crime that was discovered by "outstanding" police work, and by a key witness who testified, says Bridges.

"This is a case that clearly shows the need for strong rules, bail laws. Because cases of methamphetamine – if the accused is released on bail, you often find that you no longer have witnesses and that people are disappearing and that they are not ready to testify, he explains

. "

JUST PRODUCTS FROM OUR ENVIRONMENT

In this national debate on law and order, Bridges comes from a unique place. He spent years immersed in the harsh end of the crime, which can distort the meaning of a person's perspective.

His wife, Natalie – a former journalist who, by coincidence, was assigned to cover the Robertson trial – might be best placed to describe how he shaped the bridges.

"The one I remember a lot and who was a real opportunity for me to see Simon doing his job in court," she says. "He had the habit of exercising on his cases all the time, trying out his sentences and trying his logic and reasoning, not that I could always help him out. but I think that probing something can help.

He got up at night writing notes to him, or did not let himself sleep until he found a loophole. Being a prosecutor matched the personality of her husband, says Natalie.

"And in a funny way, the opposition too – you defend people, you're their voice, you're there and you have to be a bit of a street fighter and it's him."

But he was meticulous about his research. "I think that Simon always had the feeling of wanting justice, he wants to do what is right and if it is in the law or if it is in another situation, he is a real weigher, he wants to watch everything, he wants to watch everything and he wants to do the right thing by people. "

Finally, the parameters of his role began to bear.

"There is no doubt when I look back, I was frustrated by the law," Bridges says. "I am a passionate person, I am driven to do what is right and to get justice.

"But I saw in those cases that I could do justice to an individual victim or a whānau, maybe even a little more

" But I could not change the rules of the game, if you want, the rules of criminal evidence and what is admissible and not admissible, the rules on bail, and so on. I then felt very clearly that justice was not done for the victims.

Bridges was strongly encouraged to run for Parliament in 2008. Although he did not necessarily follow the path that he had planned himself. "Originally, I wanted to be the Minister of Justice, so that I could really get more justice in the criminal justice system.

"Now, it is an ambition that I have never fulfilled. John Key had other ideas and put me more in an economic and infrastructure portfolio. "

THERE IS MORE THAN A LITTLE POLITICS WELL THAN

It might be difficult to claim bridges not coming from An authentic place when he talks hard about crime.

But he's also a politician, and a clever at that – surprising for those who might be guided by that "slow! "I want people to be really clear, it's not politics, it's something in which I feel like I have real experience and it's There are good answers that protect people, "he says.

But the desire of successive governments to crack down on crime is the most punishments, longer sentences and more defendants have all contributed to the crime.

One of the most significant changes occurred under the last government, of which Bridges was a part, when bail laws were tightened. the current government is studying the possibilities for major reforms, Labor and National are engaged in a battle to reduce the number of prisoners and the potential outcome of building a new prison. "What my experience in cases like Robertson, Reihana and others me Watch is that if you have more flexible release laws, sentencing laws and the parole law Like some of the ones that are on offer, what you will do effectively is that the system will work less well and you will see more crimes, more victims.

But the easy option was not an option. "It does not work for me, and I do not think it works for most New Zealanders, because it can mean fewer people in jail, but ultimately more crime on the street."