In our last posting we asked Paddy Delaney, Trustee and co-founder of Realstew, for information in response to our becoming aware of comments that he wrote by email to a journalist in the UK who enquired about the Titirangi Three. Mr Delaney’s comments to this journalist, were in full knowledge that they were for possible publication in the UK.

This is what he told them:

“I had limited involvement with the family prior to them being asked to leave but I was requested (after the event) to meet with the Angel and Steve which I did at my house. Pursuant to this meeting I was given access to certain documents and correspondence and it was then that I expressed my opinion that I felt the matter could (not should) have been dealt with differently.   Subsequent to this I met with Mark and my fellow trustees and other COT members and was made privy to more information that Steve & Angel had not disclosed to me (in the course of our meeting and from correspondence) that concerned me AND a sequence of events then started to occur after they had been asked to leave that made it more untenable to consider that Steve & Angel would be welcome back in the school.  

These post events had the effect of giving credence to the school having made the right decision to ask them to leave the school.”

We asked Paddy to tell us what information it was that we had not disclosed to him which made him retract his comments about how outrageously we had been treated, and how he could justify using ‘post-events’ of peaceful democratic protest to justify the illegal expulsions.   

Here is his reply......received this morning.

Hi Steve & Angel 

The post event information was nothing to do with the peaceful demonstrations that you spoke about but rather the fact that on a number of occasions you interacted with other parents at the school at their homes and other places to the point that they were obliged to secure restraining orders against you. This harassment of parents of the school is naturally untenable and the fact that they had to secure restraining orders against you cannot fall under the category of peaceful demonstrations and on balance it was clear that it was becoming increasingly difficult to have an environment where bridges could be built between parents at the school.

You are aware of these restraining orders and we have therefore not withheld any information from you.

 Your non peaceful actions therefore showed an element within your approach to problems that led me to believe that there was credence to the reasoning why the school Management and COT took the stance they way they did. There was no evidence to show anything to the contrary.

Regards 

Paddy Delaney 

We have just replied, and this is what we said.

Paddy

On one occasion Steve went round to Isabelle's house to ask her why she had suggested by email that he might try and hack into people's computers remotely.  She unreasonably refused to answer to this and instead called the police. Her husband told Steve he was "sick".

What other occasion was there?  You will find none.  It is incorrect, inaccurate and misrepresentational to suggest that this happened more than once, or that it was unreasonable for Steve to have been provoked by her attack on his professional integrity, after he had helped Isabelle with her computer so much for nothing.

Please immediately produce any evidence of further "occasions" or withdraw your comment that "on a number of occasions you interacted with other parents at the school at their homes and other places to the point that they were obliged to secure restraining orders against you".

The idea of behaving outrageously and then hiding behind a Trespass Order was obviously given to Isabelle by the disgusting and bullying tactics used by your "Manager" when he illegally expelled our children, without your knowledge (by your own admission), and when we went in to demand explanation for this cruel, unnecessary and illegal action which really was your job as a Trustee.  

Yes Paddy, you should have dealt with that, you should have known that he would and was likely to act this way, becoming a hazard and causing harm to children on school premises, and you should have taken action to stop it.  You and the other Trustees.  Your inaction is basically to blame for the whole sorry mess and even the fact that we felt we needed to bring a camera into the school can be seen as a defensive response to your own lack of action over such an important matter.

Your job as a Trustee, with a duty to protect the liabilities of the school was to make sure that our contractual agreement to meet with the school, including Trust members, was honoured.  We had written to the Trust prior to the expulsions and alerted you all to the situation and its many dangers and it was negligent inefficiency not to realise that your "Manager" had got above himself and was about to open the school to legal and financial danger.  You failed in that duty.

We will not allow you to project this failure onto us, and neither should we.

We have footage of the peaceful nature of our behaviour at the school on 8.6.09 and people will be able to judge how untruthful what you have written is as well as how untruthfully it was represented to the parents by your "Manager".

Regarding Isabelle's comment, "Who ever had his/her computer for maintenance in Steve's house - should be worth to change password."  This was her response to a post we made about the slanderous meeting parents had on school premises, hosted by Mark Thronton and with our eldest daughter's ex-teacher present as well.   At this meeting things were said that further compounded the harm done to our children by the illegal actions of Mr Thornton.

Why was Isabelle so surprised or disbelieving that people might communicate with us about that meeting from within the school?  Just because the structure of the school is inefficient or corrupt (take your pick) or maybe both, doesn't mean that many parents haven't been aghast and disgusted at the revolting treatment doled out to a well-meaning family who took the school at it's word on bullying and found out just how little backbone existed to keep children safe.  Yes,still, even now, and definitely immediately after the expulsions, even a month later you told us about all the friends we had at the school.  (See below).   Yet that possibility did not enter Isabelle's head, and she'd obviously been watching too much TV and came up with such a far-fetched and fantastical idea of how we knew about the awful things people were encouraged to say about us by your "Manager" and Susanne Cole, Our Eldest Child's ex-teacher.

Isabelle really does owe Steve an apology for what she said, especially in view of his kindness towards her, and if you had any decency, you would agree.  The things she said about one of the other parents who left because of the bullying, not two weeks before we were thrown out, were atrocious and completely untrue as well as she tried to represent her as crazy, when in reality this woman had been struggling with the bullying for years, but this fact was hidden from us by staff, including Susanne Cole.

Paddy you have sunk well below the level of decency or any honesty in saying this.  We met at that 'secret meeting' only because of this incident because Kay contacted you and I doubt she would have hidden these circumstances from you.  

In reality, in direct contradiction to your assertion that this information had been withheld from you by us, the fact is that you actually talked about what happened with Isabelle AT THAT MEETING, which was BEFORE you went back and read the correspondence which led you to make your (true) comments about how we were being scapegoated etc.,

How then can you say that you found out about it afterwards and that it was knowledge that we had withheld and which made you rethink all those comments that you actually made afterwards and in full knowledge?

Basically, there is no truth in what you have written and the fact that you were prepared to tell someone lies like this for publication in other countries really puts you on the same level as Mark Thornton and makes you, Paddy Delaney, guilty of attempting to besmirch our reputation using lies in defence of illegal acts for which you hold ultimate liability.

Where have you left your conscience?  What agenda is so powerful that it would make you turn from the light and sink to dishonesty to protect a sequence of illegal actions that hurt children?  Is this really the best you can be?  Do you really think that such low, dishonest and underhand behaviour is the best way to serve any school? or any children?  

We are actually surprised, and have no problem admitting that we didn't expect this from you.

Ok, now that we've dealt with that, would you mind answering the other questions please?  

We have shown that there were, in fact, no non-peaceful actions - Isabelle having provoked Steve into anger by attacking his professional integrity, to the point that he went to her house and demanded an explanation in a raised voice (an explanation which he did not get by the way).   In your answer you have dressed things up to insinuate or suggest that we acted non-peacefully on more than one occasion using such fiction to create an imaginary "balance" which you then use to try and convince others of your own objectivity and fairness, whilst actually lying about the existence of such actions.  Oh dear.  

Would you now please answer the other part of our questioning by explaining how you have used our peaceful democratic protest after these illegal expulsions, as a reason for having expelled the children in the first place.

Your stated reasoning for retracting the comments you made to us is now proved to be null and void.  So here are those comments again:

“I am of the view that you and your family have been very badly treated. [...] My wife & I discussed your situation at length and we questioned what we would do if we had been in your situation... we concluded that we would have not kept quiet either. “

"This communication with you is totally off the record .......  We have not communicated to you as a collective as we are not all in agreement - my stance and certainly my fellow Trustees are coming round to the same place - slowly - is that you have not being treated well and you are being blamed for everything that is wrong in the school rather than seen as the catalyst of change that is needed...... hold in there you do have lots of support and friends....  I meet with Desmond later today (he is back in town)... I cannot guarantee an out come ....."

We make no apologies for using material that others wish to remain hidden if it is evidence of the illegality and injustice of the school's actions that have caused harm to vulnerable children in direct conflict with its legal duties.

So we must ask you: 

Why did you not act on your belief in the wrongness of the actions against our children which it was your duty to prevent?  

What pressures came to bear on you that stopped you from fulfilling your fiduciary duty to the wronged children?  

Why did you not take all practicable steps to undo the harm done to our children by the illegal actions of your "Manager" and possibly other members of the Management team and/or the College of Teachers.

During the "secret" meeting both you and Sean Gribben made comments that we had "played into Mark's hands" by our actions, and you clearly admitted that he had acted without your knowledge or agreement in expelling the children, yet you have allowed things to stand without calling him to account for his actions as it is your clear legal duty to do, whether or not you had expressed your disagreement with the harm done to our family, which you had.

We followed school policy which is to tell.  Our eldest daughter did, and when nothing happened, we did.  In response, and following the admission of a teacher that he had left children unsupervised in the bush with potential weapons, Mark Thornton illegally expelled all our children, breaking a clear and explicit contract to meet with us on that day as well as all our other written and verbal contracts, and he did it without your knowledge, in spite of the fact that you had been alerted to the dangers of what was going on, so it was a foreseeable hazard.

In spite of disagreeing with this violent and harmful action, the Trustees did not step in and fulfil their legal duties..  By their inactions they have opened the school up to legal and financial dangers as well as compounding the harm done to the children.

These are difficult facts.  Nevertheless, unlike your creative writing, they do have the virtue of actually being facts.  When will you wake up to the reality that this mistake is not going away and that you will have to answer to it?

We are now inviting you personally to commit yourself to an on-camera interview to put forward these points of view as a Trustee of the Titirangi Rudolf Steiner School in full knowledge that it may be broadcast anywhere in the world.  

We would like you to ask you to provide the required evidence for your allegations or to withdraw them and to explain your post-event theory as it relates to democratic principles.  Further, we would like to ask you for evidence of our alleged “anti-Steiner” point of view, that you have told others about.

When you think about it, it is the Trustees and Management’s negligent inefficient and damaging actions that should be seen as being anti-Steiner, by bringing the movement into disrepute, as they have already started to do.