The rumble in Raetihi
Rehearsals for a children’s pantomime ended with the mayor lying in a pool of blood – and conflicting stories of who started the brawl. Tony Wall reports.
‘‘Don was unconscious for a very long time. I thought he was dead, lying in a pool of blood. I thought he was dead, and that I was left to cope.’’ Phyl Cameron
It started with some fairy wings and ended in bloodshed. Nirvana Christensen, 23, her sister Machaela Christensen Herewini, 21, and some friends had been boozing in Raetihi’s main street. It was Tuesday night, and a few doors down the cast of Hooked on Xmas, a Captain Hook-themed pantomime written by mayoress Phyl Cameron, was rehearsing. Christensen and a friend stumbled by and decided to take a look. ‘‘I went in, I was showing my friend the costume room, we used to play in there when we were little kids,’’ she says. ‘‘We put some fairy wings on and decided to walk out with them,’’ says Christensen, a seasonal shearer. ‘‘We were just being silly, playing around.’’ What happened next is disputed, but what is clear is that Phyl and Ruapehu Mayor Don Cameron were left with serious injuries. In some ways it was a clash of worlds – the mayoral couple live in a large, modern homestead in a bush setting in the shadow of Mt Ruapehu; Christensen and her sister rent a flat above a shop on Raetihi’s mostly boarded-up main drag. The Camerons insist the attack on them was unprovoked, but the sisters have a different version. Nirvana Christensen says she’d put the fairy wings under a truck when Don Cameron, who was leaving the theatre, confronted her, accusing her of stealing the wings. She claims Cameron assaulted her first and her sister ran over and started punching Cameron, and a brawl erupted, with Phyl Cameron also getting involved. The sisters’ cousin, Maia Herewini, 19, is then alleged to have assaulted the couple. Machaela says she came around a corner and saw Don Cameron with his hands on her sister’s neck and her first instinct was to ‘‘attack’’. She admits she was drunk.
At her home, Phyl Cameron is sporting a rainbow-coloured bruise around her left eye. She doesn’t want to comment in detail while the matter is before the courts but disputes the sisters’ version.
She describes the marks on Christensen’s neck as the result of her husband defending himself.
It’s clear she was terrified during the incident.
‘‘Don was unconscious for a very long time. I thought he was dead, lying in a pool of blood. I thought he was dead, and that I was left to cope.’’
Initially, she says, it seemed the incident would end peacefully. ‘‘They’d stolen the kids’ costumes for the play, a whole pile of stuff. They offered to give them back, very pleasantly, and I said ‘that would be great’. And then the assault happened.’’
An argument broke out on Facebook during the week, over who started the altercation. A witness, Vicki Condon-Harris, wrote that no-one would have been hurt if the Camerons had just called the police.
Phyl Cameron posted: ‘‘Just so you know, I was punched before my husband dragged that girl from me. He was then knocked out.’’
In another post she wrote: ‘‘I have spent 20 years working in your town, doing great things with kids and I can’t do this again . . . I am not getting involved again.’’
Condon-Harris has given a statement to police as a sober witness. She says she was at a shop across the road getting dinner when she heard the commotion and saw Machaela, a friend, was involved.
‘‘When I got there, that’s when Don had Nirvana . . . but I hadn’t seen anything that had happened before that.’’
She says she spoke to the Camerons for about 90 minutes after the incident and the mayor said he didn’t want the police involved. ‘‘Nirvana went and hugged him and gave the fairy wings and said sorry, she doesn’t usually do things like that.
‘‘He just hugged her back and said ‘it’s OK, love’. He asked us if we could bring our kids to the show. And then he goes ‘we’ll just leave it at this’.’’
A spokeswoman said police were not looking to lay any further charges.
Nirvana has been charged with entering the theatre with intent to commit burglary and injuring Don Cameron.
Machaela is charged with injuring Phyl Cameron, while Maia Herewini is charged with rendering Don Cameron unconscious. After Sunday Star-Times started asking questions about the incident, Cameron, who has gone back to work against his wife’s wishes, put out a statement saying he was ‘‘surprised over rumours circulating around how events unfolded’’. He said he and his wife were the victims of an unprovoked assault, a ‘‘very serious attack’’. The charges ‘‘highlight the reality of what occurred’’. Condon-Harris believes both parties were in the wrong. ‘‘If they weren’t drunk and didn’t go and get the wings in the first place then none of it would have happened. ‘‘But I don’t think the violence would have happened if Don didn’t grab Nirvana.’’ Christensen says she regrets taking the costume. ‘‘But instead of taking matters into his own hands . . . he should have just rung the cops.’’ Meanwhile, Phyl Cameron is determined to go ahead with the pantomime, to be staged by the theatre group she founded 14 years ago. ‘‘It put me off at first, but I don’t see why other people should suffer.’’