Child-killer: There is no point running away
As more Kiwi criminals are being deported home after committing crimes abroad, Kelly Dennett talks with one woman seeking to rebuild her life in small-town New Zealand after torturing and murdering a teen in Australia.
YOU might never guess Rebecca Papalii’s background – but she’s happy to tell you about it anyway.
The 55-year-old cuts a glamorous figure in the Northland town of Kaikohe, her smiling face and warm nature prompting a stranger to embrace her.
‘‘I know you,’’ the woman says, hunching over to kiss Papalii on the cheek at a cafe. ‘‘But I don’t know why. I’ll say hello, anyway.’’
When Papalii arrived in Kaikohe more than two years ago, her presence caused a ripple in the town. Now, you could say she is part of the furniture.
In January 2015, she was deported to New Zealand after she served a lengthy sentence for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of Australian child Cleon Jackman in Perth.
Cleon was 14 when he was targeted by Papalii and her friends Derrin Bardsley and James Stapleton after Papalii alleged the teenager had been harassing her. Over five hours Jackman was tied, tortured, and eventually killed.
Papalii was sentenced to 171⁄ later reduced on appeal. After being paroled, she was sent back to New Zealand.
She was one of the last to arrive under a regime where deportees with convictions weren’t monitored by New Zealand authorities despite their Australian crimes, and information sharing between the two countries was lacking.
In late 2014, Australia had changed its laws, lowering the threshold for visa cancellation, resulting in hundreds of deportees flooding into New Zealand. Around a third have reoffended.
Mere months after Papalii’s arrival the law changed and paroled deportees are now monitored and subject to police checks.
Papalii said her initial return to New Zealand, and the ensuing fracas was ‘‘awful’’, but recalls a recent defining moment, when the town’s policeman told her she had done well and was free from police gaze.
‘‘Of course it was awful, but it had a good result. It’s basically – I took the scab off the volcano,’’ she says.
‘‘It’s like a healing process. It’s about making communities stronger. For me, there’s no point running away.’’
Her family was particularly hurt by the publicity, but Papalii is philosophical. She believes telling her own story could help other ex-inmates.
Especially those who have been deported to New Zealand with nothing, or have been released from prison after lengthy stints.
Papalii is fortunate that her family have longstanding ties to Kaikohe, and she has been able to get on her feet again with their help.
Still, she acknowledges it’s not been an easy road.
Her convictions have made it almost impossible to get a job. She has applied for hundreds, she says, and the stigma of her past makes it hard for some people to fully accept her.
‘‘People always look for the smoke first. You can say, the facts are here, and they’ll say, but the fire is over there.’’
She has nearly finished an automotive engineering course and receives a meagre weekly student allowance. The majority of that pays off her new Holden
It’s like a healing process. It’s about making communities stronger. For me, there’s no point running away.’ REBECCA PAPALII
Commodore.
It’s a nice car, and there’s a reason. Sometimes she sleeps in it when she travels looking for work.
For a while she lived in Auckland but found it overwhelming, expensive, and crowded, and was particularly horrified at its underbelly methamphetamine scene.
She moved back to Kaikohe to be closer to her elderly mother and now lives with her family.
She’s just opened a basic hair salon in the corner of a secondhand clothing store on Broadway, in Kaikohe, charging a modest fee for cuts, but also accepts food or goods in exchange for a new hairstyle.
‘‘Mentally I’ve changed a lot of