Thank you Forrie Millar J for your commonsense and decency in discharging without conviction the poor mother whose child drowned after being  left with her 12 year old, 11 year old, and 5 year old by the pool for a few minutes.

What possible interest can the state have in adding to the misery of a mother and family who have lost a child in those circumstances.

I'm concerned too for all the kids who are now over-mothered and never have the chances my generation  had to play in ponds and pools and creeks from toddlerhood . The price we pay for the safety fetish is enormous.

Not that they will care, but Water Safety New Zealand  will never get any favour from me. Their priggish support for the Police bringing of the charges is equally callous.

If only there was a party, or just one politician, standing in this election on a platform of confining the Police and the criminal law to pursuing and punishing people deliberately breaking the law.  If they could do that satisfactorily there might be some excuse for pouring resources into hunting the victims of accidental harm, but they are not.