Deportee blows fresh start after meltdown
The first friendly face convicted murderer Michael Heron saw in Christchurch was Helen Murphy.
It was late 2014 and Heron, then 43, arrived at Christchurch Airport as one of the first people deported under a change to s501 of the Australian Migration Act.
Murphy was a Prisoners’ Aid and Rehabilitation Society (PARS) worker and went to pick him up from his motel. He was upfront about his background and she, with a few reservations, was ready to help and give him a chance.
Heron’s fresh start ended in the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday when Judge Bridget Mackintosh jailed him for seven years and 10 months for dealing in methamphetamines, unlawful possession of a pistol and possession of synthetic cannabis for supply.
Samoan-born, he lived most of his life in Australia and served a 14-year sentence in Australian jails for fatally stabbing a man in a Sydney bar fight in 1996. Time was added for violent behaviour in jail.
Murphy, who is 67 this week and described herself as short, round and motherly, said Heron was ‘‘wide open’’ from the start about his background.
‘‘He told us exactly what he had done. I spoke to my colleague and we picked him up from his motel thinking we would see how we go.’’
Murphy got Heron somewhere to stay, a bank account, an IRD number, a doctor and a job with a ‘‘marvellous’’ employer.
Before too long he was in a relationship — living with the woman and her children. Things started to unravel and the relationship foundered.
‘‘I kind of had to watch it unravel, which was kind of sad,’’ Murphy said.
‘‘He was kind, courteous and he wanted to make the best life he could for himself. He had every good intention.’’
In the dock on Wednesday, Heron, wearing a white shirt and tie with a waistcoat, gave nothing away. Through his lawyer, Nick Rout, he apologised for letting the PARS workers down and thanked them for the help that failed to keep him away from the Christchurch criminal scene.
After his arrest in November last year, police found a .32 calibre pistol, loaded with four live rounds, at his shared address along with $150,000 cash. About 336g of methamphetamine, worth about $330,000 on the street, was recovered from the motel room. Heron was then consuming one gram of methamphetamine every two days.
Heron told police that he had not fired the pistol, but threatened people with it and kept it for protection in case anyone tried to rob him.
Rout said Heron had come back to New Zealand ‘‘in very difficult circumstances’’.
There was media attention and, after he lost his job and his relationship broke up, he began drinking and got into debt.
Rout said Heron denied the $3935 found on him was from drug offending. His client maintained he won it at the casino and planned to bank it.
Heron was an isolated case, Murphy said. Most of the 100 or so deportees in Christchurch had stayed out of trouble.
Figures show the 660 inmates deported from Australia in the two years from January 2015 and 2017 have committed 877 offences.
‘‘Most of them are bringing huge skills. We are very lucky. If you knew some of the skills these boys are bringing back to New Zealand,’’ Murphy said.
The rebuild in Christchurch and Kaikoura offered plenty of work opportunities.
Detective Inspector Darryl Sweeney, of the Christchurch Criminal Investigation Branch, said some of the deportees were a different brand of criminal who felt the local crime scene was amateurish.
Police worried a group of the 501 deportees might form their own criminal group although with such a mismatch of personalities it was unlikely, Sweeney said.
Murphy said the deportees were well supported and monitored by PARS and the Salvation Army, the organisations Corrections assigned to the work.
The deportees came with some difficult baggage, she said.
‘‘These people don’t even know the street they are living in. You have to come right back to that.
‘‘We see post-traumatic stress disorder because they are taken from a country where they might have lived since they were six weeks old. So there is going to be a trigger and it might not come until one or two years later. We monitor them from the start and we warn them what happens. With Michael it was a relationship breakdown and that was a trigger for him to have a little bit of a meltdown.’’
Most did not have many family or friends.
‘‘We become their family,’’ she said.
‘‘We welcome them home to New Zealand. We make sure we are there to get them everything they need to become a citizen and we keep a fairly tight eye on them.’’
She tried to get groups of the deportees together to support each other and share the pain of being away from home.
‘‘There is so much grief ‘cause of the children they have all left behind . . . especially when new grandchildren are born.’’
Murphy had not seen any sophisticated criminals among the deportees and had not heard any talk of gangs being formed.
‘‘If they do form a gang it will be to help old ladies across the street. They come to Christchurch to get away from gangs. You see I have a lot of faith in them.’’ Misplaced perhaps? ‘‘No. They feel extremely accountable to us. They see how we go into bat for them and how we go out of our way. How we work late at night and get up early to take them for a drug test before a job.
‘‘They see the passion and energy that goes into it so, when they do stuff up, we get the first letter saying sorry.’’
She made a point of telling the ‘‘the boys’’ not to ‘‘stuff us around’’.
‘‘They get told we have had enough in Christchurch. Don’t you dare do any more damage to the people of Christchurch.’’