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Author Ian Wishart with Macysna King (inset) and her twins - Source: ONE News -
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The author of a new book written in collaboration with the mother of the murdered Kahui twins is facing the prospect of retailers not stocking the book.
Two major retailers have announced they will boycott journalist Ian Wishart's book Breaking Silence, written in collaboration with Macsyna King about the deaths of her sons.
Three month old Chris and Cru died in 2006 from head injuries. Their father Chris Kahui was acquitted of their murders in 2008 and an inquest into their deaths is ongoing.
There have been growing calls for people to boycott the book and Paper Plus and The Warehouse said today they had listened to those calls.
Paper Plus CEO Rob Smith said the company had received a lot of feedback from customers about the book.
"We have also been in close consultation with our franchise holders and staff to understand their position on this subject," Smith said
"The prevailing opinion is that our stores do not feel comfortable selling this book and our customers do not want to buy it.
"This is certainly not about censorship or Paper Plus taking the moral high ground. We are simply listening to our most important stakeholders and acting in accordance with their feelings."
The Warehouse general manager of merchandise Nick Tuck said the chain had also had a lot of feedback from customers asking it not to stock the book.
"We have listened to its customers and The Warehouse has chosen not to stock the book."
Whitcoulls said it was still considering whether or not to stock the book.
Booksellers New Zealand says the decision should be left up to individual retailers, but Carole Beu from The Women's Bookshop in Auckland said stockists should tread carefully.
"In my opinion any publisher should leave this situation alone," Beu told ONE News.
"It's a very, very tricky situation. I don't think anybody should be speculating about who's killed them. Its for the law to decide."
If no retailers stock it, Wishart says he will sell it himself at $40 a copy.
He is also looking to release it in Australia.
Audio released
Wishart today released an audio recording of an interview with King talking about the lead up to her sons' deaths.
"Please man, if you can ever help me then you should help me. Now ring your brother and make sure you get it done. I'm not f*** going to go through all of this on my own. These are our kids," King says in the recording.
Facebook group 'dishonest'
Wishart says a Facebook group protesting against the book is dishonest.
The Facebook group has more than 31,000 members, with many calling for the book to be boycotted.
"Thousands of other commenters on that site have also made erroneous statements, often from ignorance (one of the things the book aims to correct)," Wishart said in a statement.
He said one example was that after going to the doctor's and being told to go to hospital, that Macsyna and Chris Kahui instead went to McDonald's.
He said he shares the sentiments of the people on Facebook, "but I think having looked at the Facebook page last night there's an awful lot of hate in there, there's an awful lot of mouthing off. It's like a lynch mob".
King's brother Stuart has made his feelings felt on the Facebook page, saying anyone giving their opinions on his sister and her book is jealous.
Wishart said people have to step back and hear what Macsyna has to say, see what comes out of the book and then have an intelligent discussion about what caused it and who's to blame.
The book's description claims that by the end of reading it "you'll be able to judge for yourself who killed the Kahui twins".
"If we sit there and burn books and burn witches and drown people... and put bullets through their head as they're suggesting on the Facebook page we're not going to learn anything," Wishart said.
Wishart said King is the first person to admit she was "the world's worst mother" and she goes into that chapter and verse in the book as a lesson to other women and parents. She appeals to them not to make the same mistakes.
He said when he interviewed King for the book he found a woman who has turned her life around.
"Every single day she is living with the pain of losing her kids. And the interviews that we did were extremely gruelling, very emotional."
King 'won't make money'
Many of the Facebook posts say King should not be able to benefit financially from the book and Wishart told TV ONE's Breakfast today that she isn't.
He said King contacted him after his book on the Arthur Alan Thomas case was published last year and asked if he would be willing to tell her story in a book.
Wishart said she told him she had read his book on the Thomas case and that friends of hers had been saying it was time for her to tell her story. She told him she had had a bad run with the media and had thought maybe the way to tell her story was in book form.
"And I said yeah I'm willing to do that," Wishart says. "She said 'I'm not looking for any money, I just want to tell my story'."
Wishart said it is a standard commercial deal and he will make some money from the book "but it's nothing more than a wage on the table".
He said he understands the outrage of those who are calling for a boycott of the book and that is one of the reasons he wanted to write it.
"I wanted to get at the core of this and say what went wrong here and what can we learn from this. Is there new information that can possibly help us identify who the killer, or the person who harmed those babies, was?"
Police know the evidence
Answering a question from Breakfast host Corin Dann on whether the evidence in the book had been presented to police, Wishart said they knew it already.
"The police have had access and have been interviewing and been constantly talking to Macsyna King since 2006.
"There's a myth in the widespread internet at the moment that Macsyna King hasn't co-operated with police. She's been co-operating with police since very early on in the case.
"So they're aware of what she said, they just haven't gone into perhaps some of the detail and the avenues that I went into."
He said the question now will be whether the police find it
relevant after the book is released.
What do you think? Have your say on the messageboard below.
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Add a Comment:
Post new commenthickory13 said on 2011-07-04 @ 18:39 NZDT: Report abusive post
R Wong are you counting on Ians word for that or do you know for sure. Can you stand in a court of law and swear you know that for a fact. I am reserving my decision. In my opinion he put her in harms way because he knows all about the emotion that comes out of his version of events ... he abused her in my opinion to sell a book
hickory13 said on 2011-07-04 @ 18:36 NZDT: Report abusive post
I think he was counting on emotion to sell it no matter what , yes the boycott probably has fed his marketing however not speaking up on behalf of two dead babies would be a bigger sin
hickory13 said on 2011-07-04 @ 18:35 NZDT: Report abusive post
This word ban keeps flying around aided by Mr W himself it is a boycott thats it. He is supposed to be a writer yet he does not know the difference. He uses the word ban to incite the public against his critics .
hickory13 said on 2011-07-04 @ 18:33 NZDT: Report abusive post
I
IndustryUnknown said on 2011-07-04 @ 15:45 NZDT: Report abusive post
I find it exceptionally hard to believe that the timing was coincidental, irrespective of how the general public found out. That a very intelligent, very savvy man, realised that a book about one of the most controversial Child Abuse cases in NZ history, realised that the book was doomed to obscurity, mediocrity even, without a little aggressive promotion I CAN believe. He is gambling that controversy will translate to higher book sales. Nothing more.