R v McLachlan: The 'expensive' camera.

The photo I took of Lorraine Martin attacking me with her camera.

Lorraine Martin hit me with her camera twice. She threw her camera at my face twice. Four witnesses said that they twice attempted to return the camera to her, but she refused. Didn't she value her camera?

Lorraine Martin visited Diane Taylor's home before she embarked on what she claimed was her first vigilante patrol. Lorraine returned to Diane Taylor's home, Ian Taylor rang 111, and handed Lorraine the handset. Diane Taylor could be heard in the background coaching Lorraine what to say. During the ten-minute call, Lorraine said this:

Lorraine didn't tell Police Communications that she'd been offered the camera back twice. Then she claimed that I had damaged the camera. Something didn't stack up.

Lorraine hit me twice with her camera. I photographed the incident. She then threw the camera twice at me. During the second throw, I caught it, confiscated it, and rang the police. During the 4 minute and 23 second call, I described a camera that had grass and my skin on it, and that the camera didn't work as it had a flat battery. When I opened the hatch to view the battery, I noticed that the memory card was missing, so I spent a couple of minutes looking on the grass for it.

I was then approached by Corrine Keast. She demanded that I give her the camera, which I did. As Corrine approached Lorraine Martin, Lorraine fled the scene. She didn't want the camera back. Corrine then handed the camera to her grandson, who used a scooter to catch up with Lorraine and then offered the camera back to Lorraine. Again, she refused.

After I told Corinne and John Keast that the camera had been used as a weapon and that I thought that Lorraine Martin was connected to known vigilante June Turner, John Keast then decided to walk to June Turner's home and offer her the camera. June Turner accepted the camera. At 7:06pm, Constable Jacqueline Fairbrass of the Warkworth Police retrieved the camera.

So, after I confiscated the camera, Lorraine Martin rang 111 and claimed all sorts of damage to the camera and that I had deleted photos. Yet, the following people had handled the camera since:

1. Me;

2. Corrine Keast;

3. Corrine Keast's grandson;

4. John Keast;

5. June Turner; and

6. Constable Jacqueline Fairbrass.

I was charged with assault and robbery before I could get access to any of the following police evidence. This is the evidence that they based their charges on.

"Damage"

Corrine Keast, John Keast, June Turner, and Constable Jacqueline Fairbrass provided sworn police statements. In none of those statements was there any mention of any damage to the camera. Giving evidence in court, John Keast added:

In June Turner's police statement, here is how she described what she did with the camera:

In Lorraine Martin's draft police statement, she said this:

In her sworn police statement, however, Lorraine Martin said this:

OK, so now the alleged damage to the camera is to the hatch and the camera is "unusable"?

Before I received any evidence from the Police, I visited Amazon and bought a camera similar to Lorraine Martin's that appeared in my photos of the incident. It cost me $85, including delivery from the USA:

Here is a video of the camera:

In court, during cross examination, Constable Fairbrass was asked about the condition of the camera:

In September 2021, my lawyer asked for evidence that the camera was damaged. Here are the photos that we received:

There are six sides to the camera, yet the sides that Constable Fairbrass didn't photograph were:

1. The bottom side showing the whole hatch; and

2. The side that Lorraine Martin had hit me twice, which had my blood and skin on it.
   

In the other photos that she did take, the hatch is firmly closed and it isn't damaged. The skin, blood, and grass stains had also disappeared. Who cleaned the camera?

The photos that Constable Fairbrass took on 18 September 2021 were provided to my lawyer in mid October 2021. Fairbrass had obviously imported the photographs into a Word document at low resolution, printed them on a poor quality printer, then scanned them into a PDF file at low resolution. My lawyers asked repeatedly for digital copies of the original photo files that included metadata. We finally received them on 26 January 2024 - days before the February 2024 trial:

The metadata showed that the photographs were taken at 7:10pm directly outside June Turner's home. Again, the photos showed no damage to the hatch. It is interesting to note that there are clearly visible smudges on the camera's screen and residue from a paper towel around the corners. Did June Turner clean the camera with the paper towel mentioned in her police statement?

To our surprise, Constable Fairbrass included additional - previously undisclosed - photographs of the camera that were taken on 8 March 2022 at the Warkworth Police Station:

The photos show additional damage to the camera, including:

1. The hatch completely separated from the camera;

2. A side panel that looks like it had been jimmied off with a sharp object; and

3. A panel next to the hatch that had moved.

What the hell was going on?

The "expensive" camera

During cross examination, Lorraine Martin described how much she valued her camera:

In all the photos that I took of Lorraine Martin, the lanyard was not around her neck:

If the camera was "expensive" and worn around her neck to keep it "safe", then:

1. Why didn't she check to see whether the battery was charged;

2. If she claimed that she was on a patrol to take photos, why didn't she use it as a camera to take photos of me;

3. Why did she instead reposition the camera into her right hand so that the sharpest corner of the camera was pointing at me;

4. Why did she instead use it as a weapon twice;

5. Why did she throw it at me twice; and

6. Why didn't she want it back when offered to her by two different people?

In the first Police Summary of Facts prepared by Constable Fairbrass, this appeared:

In the next Police Summary of Facts prepared by Constable Fairbrass, this appeared:

So, the camera had doubled in value in a matter of days, during the same period that I bought a similar camera for $85?

In the space of days, the charges against me went from carrying a punishment of 3 months in prison to a year:

Weeks after Constable Fairbrass had taken photos of Lorraine Martin's camera at the Warkworth Police Station, which showed additional damage, Lorraine Martin then swore an additional statement with Police:

This statement was supported by the following receipt:

Lorraine Martin had splashed out on buying another camera, which the shop owner claimed was "an equivalent camera." Let's test that claim.

I visited a website which allowed me to compare:

1. The camera I bought, valued at $55.74 + postage ($85);

2. Lorraine Martin's actual camera; and

3. Her replacement camera.

Visit the link displaying the full results here. Here are some screenshots taken from the month that Lorraine Martin made her statement:

Basically:

1. The camera I bought had the same price and similar features to Lorraine Martin's actual camera;

2. The replacement camera wasn't an "equivalent" model, but was clearly more than twice as valuable with substantially more features; and

3. The price quoted by The Photo Store for the second-hand replacement was much higher than if bought new from an online store.

So, where was this "expensive" camera?

Exhibit A?

Lorraine Martin claimed that the camera no longer worked, claiming that it was damaged beyond repair. Constable Fairbrass claimed that the flat battery light flashed.

At the February 2024 trial, the camera was not produced as an exhibit. Instead, only Constable Fairbrass' photographs were produced as exhibits.

There was a twist, however. On the second day of the trial, while Lorraine Martin was still under oath and due to continue her cross examination, she passed a handwritten note to the Crown Prosecutor that contained the following:

Not only is this a blatant attempt to pervert the course of justice (where the judge and prosecutor didn't oppose a mistrial) but this contradicted her sworn police statement that the camera was inoperable. Between the first and second day of the trial, who inspected the camera to determine that there was nothing on the internal memory?

Lorraine Martin should be on trial. Just based on the evidence in this post, she:

1. Either damaged her own camera or got someone else to do it;

2. Lied about it, trying to attribute the damage to me;

3. Involved a camera shop owner to produce fraudulent evidence; and

4. Then attempted to pervert the course of justice when caught out.

  Within months of Lorraine Martin quoting the damage at between the $500-$1000 (1 year to 7 years imprisonment) thresholds, Fairbrass then upgraded the theft charge to one of robbery, which carried with it a punishment of 10 years imprisonment.

Constable Fairbrass was willing to not only prosecute me with evidence that had obviously been tampered with and been fraudulently obtained, she also actively obstructed the release of that evidence to the defence until the last possible moment before a trial.

This is just one example of the many dodgy stunts that vigilantes and police tried in my book Unleashed: Sex, rackets & vigilantes in New Zealand's most corrupted community.