How a right wing racket unleashed on me.

Grant McLachlan
Jul 29, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Jan 27

As vigilantes and racketeers sat in the front rows of a packed Warkworth Town Hall,

Chris Luxon said:

"We will give the police special powers to break up planned criminal activity

and deal with intimidating behaviour.”

Source: Mahurangi Matters.

When RNZ’s Ruth Hill contacted me about my September 2020 astroturfing article, a year later I would be facing prison time.

My article was an excerpt from a book that I was writing. Ruth’s April 2021 RNZ article was shared by 1News, Stuff, and Newshub.

That's when the the trouble started.

Former Act deputy leader Beth Houlbrooke and her son, Taxpayers’ Union campaign manager Louis Houlbrooke, got pretty worked up. Louis described it as “Tantalising journalism.” Local MP Chris Penk, who hosted Taxpayers' Union events in Parliament, called it a “Weird and ridiculous item.” Days later, someone lodged a baseless complaint with the Law Society, which was ignored.

Beth Houlbrooke and her drunk boyfriend then tried to provoke fights with me at a bar. Following a second attempt, the bar manager told them off. In response, she drunkenly shouted:

“The police will believe me! I’m Beth Houlbrooke!”

Apparently, getting people thrown in the cells for the weekend as a favour is a thing in Rodney.

I applied for a restraining order. Days later, the Law Society was pressured again by the same person. Instead of defending her actions, Beth Houlbrooke sent the local police a malicious dossier about me prepared by Act’s Campaign Manager, Stu Wilson.

The police have gone to extraordinary lengths to obstruct the release of the contents of this email.

According to information eventually released by Auckland Council, Beth Houlbrooke had engaged on a campaign to stigmatise me. Describing me as a bully, liar, and hacker, it provided the council an excuse to stall, withhold, and redact information. A council relationship manager then tried to gaslight me.

Local police stigmatised me in their National Intelligence Application database. Internal police emails revealed bias in the way that they handled information requests and complaints. The day after one complaint was fobbed off, Beth Houlbrooke, Mark Mitchell, and Chris Penk hugged local police and then refilled their glasses at an event held by the local racket in the Police's honour. According to the Police, who are meant to be apolitical and independent, it was the only event of its type ever held.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/24e8e5_4d1bc2ce842f42e39ab8d4d929290cbd/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

The local chamber of commerce ran a piss-up for the local police.

The "three strikes" plan

With Auckland enduring a fourth Covid lockdown, there were fewer opportunities to target me. There would be three further attempts by vigilantes to stitch me up, targeting me on my daily walk.

A dog ranger led the vigilante network to believe that, if they caught my dog off leash three times, there would be dire consequences. The whole plan sounded nuts if it weren't for my photography of all three incidents, a vigilante admitted to the plot in their 111 call, admitted to it in court, and evidence emerged about the dog ranger's complicity.

During the first attempt, Houlbrooke’s associates unleashed my dog tied to a fence, resulting in a council fine (which was waived).

The day after I published a second excerpt from my book exposing the racket, another vigilante (who was the mother of a cop) unleashed my dog tied to the same fence. When I noticed her and tried to take a photo of her, the vigilante attacked me with her camera, threw it at me, and then fled the scene. Another vigilante tried to convince onlookers that I had attacked the vigilante twice. Police leaped at the opportunity to stitch together statements, falsified evidence, and I was charged with assault and robbery.

I was effectively charged with breaking a weapon with my nose.

Days later, when my lawyer asked me to take scene photos, I was followed by nine vigilantes. I photographed all three incidents, which I withheld until my trial.

Malicious prosecution

Local police then stalled the release of evidence which contradicted the police statements, including the vigilante’s 111 call where another vigilante (who coordinated volunteers at the police station) could be heard in the background coaching her. Despite this, the police had the audacity to upgrade one charge to where the starting point for sentencing was imprisonment, and then try to use it as leverage in a plea bargain.

During the February 2024 trial, the vigilante claimed that she was part of a plot to send photos of dogs off leash to a community paper. She had already sent a submission to the council stating that dogs should be destroyed for breaching council rules. A council dog ranger led the vigilante to believe that, if my dog was caught off leash three times, there would be dire consequences.

I was offered mistrials twice due to vigilantes trying to pervert the course of justice. The vigilante passed a note to the prosecutor while still under cross-examination. Another vigilante then whispered answers to her. It was obvious that, knowing that I filmed the incident, the conspirators were trying to sabotage the trial so they could claim that I "got off on a technicality." I wanted a verdict, the trial continued, and the judge recorded minutes so the vigilantes’ offending could be addressed later.

I was acquitted. My physical evidence unravelled the vigilantes’ plot. Despite my lawyer asking that local police not be involved with the complaints against the vigilantes, they still interfered.

The cover up

Within days of the acquittal, the Mahurangi Police Station that the vigilante network operated from, was closed - to protect their "unsupervised and unvetted volunteers" from the public. The police were "aghast" that it was going on for years.

Since the acquittal, every official information or privacy request my lawyers have lodged with the Police has been personally handled by the minister's staff.

There were nine stitch up attempts designed to silence me. Throughout 2021, National Party Courts Spokesman Chris Penk informed locals that there was at least a two year wait for criminal jury trials. This was like a red rag to a bull for vigilantes sitting in the front rows of his rallies.

Always claiming that she didn't know me, Lorraine Martin was always someone's puppet in a sick game. She:

lodged letters to the editor against my campaigns,
admitted in court that she lodged submissions to the council on behalf of others,
went along with Paul Shanahan's narrative,
was told what to say during the 111 call,
tried to provide a 'secret note' to the Crown Prosecutor with suggested questions that obviously someone else had prepared, and .
was told what to say by Lois McPherson during the trial.

It was only after Lois McPherson was ejected from the Court did Lorraine Martin reveal what really happened.

Make no mistake, there was a cover up. The Crown Prosecutor argued vigorously that a documentary team not film the trial, misleading Lorraine Martin to say this (after her support person was ejected from the Court):

It was unprecedented that the Crown would oppose its leading evidence from being filmed. Usually, it was the Defence who would oppose.

Lorraine Martin was the mother of Police HQ Sergeant David Martin, who worked alongside the Police Commissioner. Her husband was Ross Martin, who worked for Murray McCully on campaigns when Mark Mitchell's grandfather, Frank Gill, was the local MP and Police Minister.

The police didn't want Lorraine Martin prosecuted. The police found any excuse to ensure that the mother of a senior cop faded into obscurity. Lorraine Martin even lodged a complaint against my lawyer with the Law Society, falsely claiming elder abuse and that she had a heart attack following his cross examination of her. The complaint had obviously not been drafted by Lorraine Martin, being printed but amended with Lorraine's handwriting, and used as an excuse to not prosecute her.

Meanwhile, while I was on bail, the vigilantes escalated their agenda. Beth Houlbrooke also got a job at Auckland Transport - an organisation busted for corruption but the Serious Fraud Office ran out of budget to prosecute all the offenders. Louis Houlbrooke became a senior press secretary for Act. Stu Wilson became David Seymour’s senior advisor. Mark Mitchell became Police Minister in charge of the Serious Fraud Office. Chris Penk became Minister of Building and Construction.

Beth Houlbrooke with vigilante June Turner and members of the Rodney racket

at Houlbrooke's ratepayer-funded election campaign launch.

So, what is my book about? It is about the sex scandals, rackets, and vigilante networks that led to Rodney being the most corrupted community in New Zealand. Starting with the country’s largest corruption trial involving Rodney District Council and Auckland Transport, I explore the culture that continues unleashed throughout Auckland Council, the Police, and the government.

My book was originally 350 pages. Thanks to the vigilantes not covering their tracks, it is now over 800 pages. I am selling the book exclusively online as the local booksellers have been accosted by the local racket before. I don’t want what happened to me happening to them.