Page 2774 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I wish to read a letter from Mrs Rita Cameron that is pertinent to the Bill. I gained approval to read this letter. She wrote:
Dear Mr Stevenson,
I am writing to you as the mother of a 16 years old son, who should not have died. He lost his life because a letter to the then Attorney-General's Department in May 1987 from the then Assistant Commissioner, P.D. McConachy asking for the police to be given powers to move on was refused.
On 31 October, that same year because of the lack of that power, the son of a police officer died.
My son Grant Andrew Cameron, who turned 16 on the 9th of October, went to the Duffy Primary School Fete, as he did each year to meet up with ex-students. It was their annual get-together. There were some groups of juveniles who appeared to have gone to the fete just to cause trouble. There were two fights, one person had his face smashed onto a tow-bar. The police had been called on both instances. The person who killed my son said in court that "seeing the fights got his adrenalin going" and he "wanted to get someone".
My son had just visited the public phone, at the Duffy shops to get my permission to stay on at the fete. The time was about 5 pm. Grant was at the corner of the school when the youth came up to him and said "I hate f...g westies" my son said "I am not one". With that Grant was hit about the head and kneed in the stomach, he went down on the ground, he was on his side, leaning on his elbow, he looked up at this person and said "what did I do?" We were told later that a youth nearby at this point called out "he's a pigs kid". It was then the youth spun around and as demonstrated in court, with a Karate type kick, kicked our son so hard that he was brain dead from that point.
I could not understand why the police didn't do something to stop the trouble that day. It was later I learned they didn't have the power to do anything. I feel sure that if you asked the family of the person who killed Grant, they would say they wish the police had been able to move on the groups who were causing the problems that day. They also have to live a life of hell because of the fact that the police could not move on the trouble makers.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .