SOLO-NZ Op-Ed: Not a Monster?

Philip Duck
March 12, 2011

Rikki Leigh Scott Ngatai-Check had to look after the wee boy, Karl Perigo-Check, for only a few hours. He had done that before, and although the boy was not his own—he belonged to his partner, Lilah McGregor—he claimed to love him.

Ngatai-Check began ‘spotting’ cannabis while Karl slept. Later, the little fella woke having wet his pants. An enraged Ngatai-Check quickly showed his ‘love’ for the boy by violently shoving him into a coffee table. Karl’s ribs were broken, a lung was punctured and he began to bleed internally.

Ngatai-Check then simply left the boy alone in the toilet and returned to his cannabis. Badly injured Karl found Ngatai-Check ten minutes later in the bedroom where he was playing video games. Furious that the toddler had some toilet paper dragging behind him, Ngatai-Check savagely kicked him. And then he kicked him again, splitting his pancreas. Karl died shortly after. He was just two years old.

Justice Williams did his best to soothe the feelings of the monstrous Ngatai-Check. When sentencing him earlier this week to a mandatory non-parole period of 17 years imprisonment he noted that the child-killer's time around the Wanganui drug and gang scene had ‘normalised brutality.’ There, "violence is not just OK, it is downright cool," said the judge. What, was he forced to hang out with junkies and gang members, Williams?

Wickedly, Justice Williams offered a further excuse for Ngatai-Check’s behaviour by claiming that an already stressful relationship was compounded on that day “because "you probably didn't want baby Karl dumped on you again and just wanted to chill out."

And, incredibly, Justice Joseph Williams offered this to Ngatai-Check: "You did a monstrous thing, but I do not think you are a monster.”

Not a monster, Mr. Williams? He bashed a vulnerable toddler-twice- and killed him, and he’s not a monster?

To hell with that. Ngatai-Check, a cowardly murderer of a two-year old boy is indeed a monster—a sick, evil, monster. May he rot and die, ever so slowly, behind bars.

Philip Duck: thonburi-1@hotmail.com

SOLO (Sense of Life Objectivists): SOLOPassion.com

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