Two a penny

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LATEST:
An 87-year-old Rangiora woman badly burnt in a house fire died in Christchurch Hospital last night. .

Passers-by rescued her 89-year-old husband, who had been fighting the fire.20pm.

Rangiora Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Ross Ditmer said a couple who were driving past saw flames leaping four metres high about 9. They helped him out of the house but were not able to rescue his wife from a bedroom.

They broke down the door of the house and found the man unconscious in the hallway.

Detective Sergeant Rex Barnett, of Rangiora police, said the fire appeared to have started from an electric blanket.

“They are pretty traumatised because they knew there was someone else in the house and weren’t able to get to her,” he said.

Ditmer said the rescuers were “heroes, but they wouldn’t want to be called that”.

Her husband, who suffered minor injuries, had run to the laundry for a bucket of water, Ditmer said.

Fire crews arrived soon after the passers-by and were able to reach the woman, he said.

“It close toly cost him his life. By the time he got to the hallway he was overwhelmed by smoke. This is a clear example of how people should not try to fight fires but should leave the house and let fire officers deal with it,” Ditmer said. This is a clear example of how people should not try to fight fires but should leave the house and let fire officers deal with it,” Ditmer said.

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A jealous lover was today jailed for a claw hammer attack on a man who he believed to be his ex-girlfriend’s new partner.

Trevor William Grindrod, 34, was sentenced at the High Court in Wellington to seven years and nine months imprisonment.

The man barricaded himself in the bedroom and told Grindrod he had called the police, “but you were not to be denied,” attacking him with the claw hammer, Justice Gendall said.

Justice Warwick Gendall said that six weeks after Grindrod split with his girlfriend, he visited her house uninvited and saw her with a workmate, “you thought, in a mildly amorous situation”.

“You were fortunate you did not kill the complainant.

“This was an unprovoked, prolonged, gratuitous attack with a lethal weapon,” Justice Gendall said.

He smashed his way into the property through a window, broke through the bedroom door and began hitting the man in the head and body with the hammer, adding punches and kicks.”

Crown prosecutor Kate Feltham said Grindrod walked from Wainuiomata to the workmate’s Lower Hutt house, “picking up” the hammer on the way.

Grindrod told police he was trying to kill the man and was initially charged with attempted murder.

The attack spilled into the bathroom where Grindrod ripped a vanity from the wall and attempted to beat his victim with it.

His victim suffered numerous injuries including a broken nose, but after months of physiotherapy escaped long term physical damage.

This was later reduced to injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

“You are a violent man with a low anger threshold and when slighted by others, or you think you are, you attack.

Justice Gendall noted Grindrod had 20 previous convictions, four of which were for assault and included two attacks on children between late 2007 and early 2008.”

A starting point of 10 1/2 years jail was given, but Grindrod was given a “generous discount” of one-third for his early guilty pleas.”

He said Grindrod had attended an anger management course, “but it appears to have had little effect.

Grindrod was also sentenced to five years for aggravated burglary and two years for grievous damage, to be served concurrently, and ordered to pay $3269 in reparation for property damage on his release. A further nine months was added in light of his previous convictions.

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Justice Gendall said Grindrod was fortunate the crown had not sought a minimum jail period

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Child Youth and Family staff at a regional office have been told they are Social Development Minister Paula Bennett’s servants who should not trouble their master with concerns about their work.

In an email dated August 13, supplied to by Labour Party deputy leader Annette King, Kaitaia CYF staff were told to show respect to the minister when she visited the next day.

“It is not appropriate for staff to pour their hearts and souls out to the minister,” a manager wrote. It’s a bit like the relationship between a servant and a master, i.

“This is a formal visit and she is not your `friend’. the servant knows their place.e. She should not be presented with the woes of the office, or lack of resources, or anything like that.

A anonymous person copied the email to the government, Labour and other political parties as well as the Children’s Commissioner.”

However the email said it was okay to state there were challenges that could be managed.

“This amounts to workplace bullying, and corruption within a public service department,” they wrote.

The person was “gobsmacked” by the email.

Ms King questioned the point of the minister’s visit in Parliament.

The author said it was shameful that in an area where there were many Maori communities the department was “trying to cover up the realities of our communities”.

“If staff are not allowed to talk to her (Ms Bennett) how can she really know what pressures staff are facing if reports to her have to be sanitised?”

Ms King later said she expected Ms Bennett to ensure staff felt they could speak out about work problems.

“If staff are not allowed to talk to her (Ms Bennett) how can she really know what pressures staff are facing if reports to her have to be sanitised?”

Ms King later said she expected Ms Bennett to ensure staff felt they could speak out about work problems.

“I would hope she would in fact encourage staff to talk to her.”

As a former minister Ms King said she learnt more from talking to staff than through department reports.

“I have visited a large number of offices and I have purposefully targeted visits to Work and Income and Child Youth and Family because I want to talk to staff and hear what is happening there,” she said.”

Ms Bennett said that she wanted staff to speak to her about concerns.”

Ms King said there were wider problems of the Government blocking information and communication and said she was frustrated by poor responses to written questions and Official Information Act requests.

“I very much value them and their opinions and I am disappointed in the manager’s email.

National’s Judith Collins in Parliament today said she had struggled to get access while in opposition and Labour had created a political environment. .

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OPINION:
The official website of the mayor of Wanganui is a fascinating monument to a man who simply cannot get enough of himself. It is a site absolutely awash in self-love.

Visitors to the cosily titled mayormichael. .co. Oh, and there’s some stuff about Wanganui, too. The site’s latest thrilling additions are magazine photos of Michael Laws’ family dating back to 2003 - just in case any of us neglected to cut them out at the time of publication - but there are also shots of his kids’ birthday parties, updates on the state of his relationship with his partner, and photos of Laws that stretch back to boyhood.

If there is any glimmer of a redeeming feature in this exercise in narcissism, it is that Mr Laws appears to have almost as soft a spot for children as he has for himself.

All of which makes it a surprise to see the level of contempt with which he treated a group of Otaki children who had the temerity to write to him last month. Mr Laws clearly adores his own kids, and has written in the past about the evils of child abuse.

In response, he wrote the girls a letter suggesting their teacher be sacked, urging them to control their anger, and saying he wouldn’t take their views seriously unless they first looked at the rate of child abuse and murder within Maori society.

The seven students of Otaki School’s kura kaupapa unit, aged from 11 to 13, wrote to Mr Laws in Maori to say what they thought about the controversy over whether Wanganui should have an “h” in its name. But here’s the thing: whatever.

There has since been much debate about whether the Maori word used by all seven students in their letters and translated by Mr Laws’ team as “anger” should instead have been “frustration”. It shouldn’t be news to Mr Laws, father of many, that pre-teen girls are stroppy, and that 12-year-olds have yet to learn the social bullshit that enables us to express our opinions in a detached manner. It shouldn’t be news to Mr Laws, father of many, that pre-teen girls are stroppy, and that 12-year-olds have yet to learn the social bullshit that enables us to express our opinions in a detached manner. Children of their age should, he said, care only about Harry Potter.

Firstly, this champion of direct democracy argued that “it’s wrong for kids to be angry about something inanimate”.

AN ARGUMENT this ludicrous doesn’t fly for long, so Mr Laws then argued that their teacher had put them up to it. In others words, it’s not just that their views are wrong; they shouldn’t be allowed to have views. As any parent knows, it’s impossible to convince a 12-year-old girl to turn her music down if she doesn’t want to. Who is this classroom Svengali? Again, I come back to the legendary stroppiness of pre-teen girls.

. The thought of a teacher being able to persuade seven of them to write letters against their will is simply inconceivable, unless electric cattle prods were involved

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A 32-year-old man found dead with a gunshot wound in Palmerston North yesterday afternoon has been named as Jamie Martin Faulkner who lived in the city. . Area enquiries are also still continuing.

The road has also now re-opened and all residents are back in their homes, but a small area is still sealed off and the full scene examination is expected to take another two days.

That man is being questioned by police.

The victim was reportedly involved in an altercation with another man at a close toby flat shortly before his death, police said.

“We are also examining to get a better understanding of the relationship between the two men.

“We’re examining at that altercation and the extent that that is relevant to his death,” Detective Sergeant Craig Sheridan said this morning.”

The death is not being treating as a homicide at this stage and no arrests have been made, he said. These enquiries are likely to take some days.

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An Auckland woman has taken a high profile political figure to the Family Court seeking a protection order under the Domestic Violence Act.

has been gagged from revealing any details relating to the identity of the two parties - including their names, occupations, ages, qualifications, medical history, business interests, charitable interests, directorships, share-holding and their political and judicial affiliations.

The woman applied to the court for a protection order against the man.

The occupation order is an attempt to force the woman out of an Auckland house, the court has heard. The man in turn applied for what is called an “occupation order” against the woman. .

In today’s hearing, which was the second day of the case, the court heard details as to why both orders should be granted.

Mrs Fisher said the man had also once tried to kick down the woman’s door.”

A witness - who gave testimony via a video link from overseas - said she had heard the man “yelling and screaming” obscenities at the woman in the past.

“He seemed to see nothing wrong with attempting to kick down the front door.

Mrs Fisher asked the witness whether she was aware of the man grabbing the woman by the neck on one occasion.

The witness said she tried to talk to the man many times about his behaviour, telling him “it was abusive and really unacceptable”.

The man’s lawyer, Anthony Grant, said his client was seeking the right to occupy the home.

The witness said the man “accepted what he had done” and she had told him “grabbing someone in the neck was inappropriate at any time”.

Mr Grant said it was “not that surprising” that there might have been shouting between the man and the woman.

Mr Grant said it was “not that surprising” that there might have been shouting between the man and the woman.

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Judge Sarah Fleming has reserved her decision

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A French embassy employee detained in Tehran on espionage charges has been released from prison but she will still face prosecution, a statement from the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Tuesday.

Sarkozy office greeted the release of French-Iranian national Nazak Afshar with great joy and relief.

&raquo Focus: Is Iran using Reiss as a pawn?

Afshar, employed at the French embassy cultural section, will face prosecution at a mass trial in connection with widespread public protests that erupted in the weeks following the disputed June 12 re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

France has dismissed the charges as baseless and has called for both women release .

A second French national, 24-year-old teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss, remains behind bars, accused of spying and involvement in a Western plot to destabilise the Iranian regime. France criticised Iran for failing to inform its embassy in advance that either woman would be appearing in court, which French authorities say flouted international regulations and the rules of consular protection.

The two women appeared in court on Saturday along with several other detainees.

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A diplomatic source told on Saturday that it was surprising to know Reiss was in the court, saying he had learned it from television only that morning.

Reiss was initially accused of spying for taking a photograph of a demonstration in Isfahan and emailing it to a friend in Tehran. We were not informed previously, he said.

Iran ambassador to France, Seyed Mehdi Miraboutalebi, told French radio station RFI on Tuesday that the Iranian authorities had offered to let Reiss stay in the French embassy pending her trial if the French government promised she would remain there, but that Paris had declined to respond to the offer. According to Iran state-run IRNA news agency, Reiss admitted in court that she had filed a report on protests in the city of Isfahan at the cultural department of the French embassy in Tehran. We refute them categorically, the ministry said in a statement.

The French foreign ministry denied the allegation, saying that Miraboutalebi comments suggesting the French authorities were not doing everything they could for Reiss release were incorrect.

Presumption of innocence

Miraboutalebi said that France had been told not to publicise Reiss case in the media, and warned against jumping to conclusions before her trial.

Presumption of innocence

Miraboutalebi said that France had been told not to publicise Reiss case in the media, and warned against jumping to conclusions before her trial.

As in France, the Iranian judiciary is totally independent, he added. In other words, they took the place of the Iranian judges.

The EU presidency said the prosecution of the three was an act against the whole European Union .

The EU presidency had joined Britain and France in calling upon the Iranian authorities to release Afshar, Reiss and Hossein Rassam, an Iranian political analyst employed by the British embassy who has been detained since late June. .

Tehran has responded strongly to Western criticism of the mass trial of the detained protesters, vowing to resist what it called foreign intervention in its domestic affairs

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LATEST:
One of the pilots killed after a small plane clipped a helicopter over New York is reportedly a New Zealander.

One News reported that Jeremy Clark was flying the helicopter that hit the plane, both plunging into the Hudson River killing nine people. According to the New York Times Mr Clark lived in Lanoka Harbor, New Jersey.

TV1 said Mr Clark’s parents were at Auckland airport this evening preparing to fly to New York. Three bodies had been recovered by nightfall and officials held out no hope of finding survivors.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said there were five Italian tourists and a pilot aboard the helicopter and three people on the plane including the pilot and a child. “There’s not going to be a happy ending.

“This has changed from a rescue to a recovery mission,” Bloomberg said. The weather was clear and mild.”

Search and rescue craft rushed in vain to the crash area in the vicinity of West 14th Street in Lower Manhattan immediately after the collision at noon EDT (4am NZT).

The helicopter was operated by Liberty Helicopter, the largest sightseeing helicopter operator in the US Northeast.

Bloomberg said the plane, a Piper Saratoga, appeared to hit the back of the helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350, which immediately broke up and fell into the river.

The NTSB’s 10-member investigation team suspended operations at nightfall and would resume the search on Sunday at 7am (11pm NZT), Hersman said.

Debbie Hersman, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in a briefing the helicopter had been located and marked with buoys and investigators were using side-scanning radar to try to locate the aircraft.

While the NTSB does not expect to find recording equipment in the wreckage because small aircraft are not required to carry them, Hersman said investigators expected to be able to determine the cause of the crash by interviewing air traffic controllers and reviewing air traffic control and radar data. She said the team hoped to be able to remove the debris from the river on Sunday. “He saw a small single-engine aircraft approaching from behind (the helicopter). . . . He stated that he saw the right wing of the aircraft impact the helicopter.. Others reported hearing a loud boom.”

An eyewitness told the NY1 local TV station he saw a wing come off the plane and the helicopter “fell like a stone” into the river.

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The police national dive squad has started a grid search for the 22-year-old man who went missing in Lake Te Anau early earlier today.

Police said earlier today they presumed the young man, from Cromwell, had drowned.

Senior Sergeant Richard McPhail said this afternoon police understood three people on a small dinghy that sank shortly before 3.Early police inquiries suggested the missing man, along with another man and a woman, had taken a dinghy from the foreshore and rowed to a floatplane moored close to the jetty area.30am had been drinking before they decided to row out to a float plane moored not far from shore.One of the men and the woman had managed to swim back. The dinghy was swamped and sank as they rowed back to shore, Mr McPhail said.The alarm was raised when they could not find their companion.

The submerged dinghy and other gear had been found during the initial search, which had involved police and volunteers in a helicopter, boats and on foot. .A helicopter continued the search earlier today until the divers arrived from Wellington early this afternoon. However, there was still no trace of the Cromwell man.Police had contacted the missing man’s family in Cromwell. They had started a grid search of the lake, helped by search volunteers in boats.Mr McPhail said none of the group in the dinghy had life jackets or were authorised to take the boat or go on to the jetty or float plane.Mr McPhail said none of the group in the dinghy had life jackets or were authorised to take the boat or go on to the jetty or float plane.”Police were interviewing witnesses to the incident. ”Inquiries are continuing with the group but it appears to have been an alcohol-related act that has ended in tragedy.

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Forget fast cars and wild women. The recession has changed the way many younger men are living, with stability and security at work and home becoming top priorities, according to a survey.

It showed that men are putting a bigger emphasis on security in their jobs and at home in a return to traditionalism, including smartening up their wardrobes, although they are continuing to embrace new technology at a fast pace.com, which conducted the poll.

“We have seen a clear move by men toward seeking more security in their finances, in their relationships and in the workplace,” said James Bassil, editor in chief of the website AskMen.

The annual lifestyle survey by AskMen.

“It seems guys haven’t been as affected as negatively as they anticipated by the downturn but they’ve changed their habits pretty dramatically to anticipate losing their jobs or careers changed and are saving more money and seeking more stability in their jobs than in the past,” he added.com included 50,000 men in their 20s, 30s and 40s who were questioned about how the economic crisis had impacted their lives.

Last year 21 percent said salary was the major consideration for any new job but this dropped to 14 percent in 2009, while the number of men who cited personal achievement as the major motivator rose to 40 percent from 34 percent.

It showed that five percent more men than last year said stability and security were key attractions in a new job while salary was no longer the most important factor.

The survey showed 84 percent of men think it’s important to have a girlfriend with serious “wife potential.

Bassil said this shift toward a more traditional approach in the workplace was also reflected in attitudes toward relationships.

The poll also showed that 84 percent of men own at least four pairs of shoes, 20 percent have at least four suits, and 50 percent have a daily skin care regime.”

“We saw this move toward more traditional relationships in 2008 as well but the numbers spiked up in 2009 with 12 percent more saying it was important that a girl has “wife potential” and 15 percent more men believing in marriage,” said Bassil. .

Seventy-five percent of men spend more time in front of their computer monitor than any other type of screen and email is going the way of the telephone with more men using Facebook than email.