A boy runs in and out of the sprinkler on the lawn next to Queenstown District Court.
I’m a newly-minted duty lawyer.
It’s sunny and the sky is blue.
He’s maybe four years old.
He’s a delightful child and similar in age to many of my friends’ children.
While my friends’ children are at school, this child is on a family day out to the court.
His dad is there for driving while disqualified.
I chat to the boy in the meeting room.
He’s a great kid — lively, friendly and utterly charming.
He asks me if his dad is going to be locked up.
My heart breaks.
We sort out the case, and off they go.
A day later I see the boy, his parents and sister on the lake eating ice-cream.
It’s another sunny day.
The boy proudly shows me his ice-cream.
He’s loving it.
The joy is contagious.
They’re a family that could be the face of television ads for first-home buyers.
I really hope the dad means it when he says he’s going straight.
A year later I see the dad on the news.
It’s armed robbery this time.
You don’t need a law degree to know that’s a step up from driving while disqualified.
He’s a ‘‘wanted man’’ and not to be approached.
The photo shown is a long way from the quiet young father I met the year before.
I wonder what will become of the little boy now his dad is inevitably going to prison.
This is life as a duty lawyer — sad story after sad story over the past seven years.
Not everyone summonsed to court has the luxury or means to fund private counsel.
That leaves them with the duty lawyer as first port of call for legal advice and guidance when they are summonsed.
It’s usually a matter of organising legal aid, bail, providing some initial advice and presenting pleas in mitigation.
For some, being in court is the worst thing ever.
There are tears, angst and regret.
For others it’s just another day to add to their CV of offending.
It might be a stolen pie (mince and cheese) or it might be dealing in class A drugs.
Drink-driving, using a stolen credit card, shoplifting, fighting in public places, domestic assaults, it’s a mixed bag.
I’ve met people who were arrested on the eve of their wedding (a punch-up with the brother-in-law) and people arrested as they were about to fly out of New Zealand.
Note to readers: don’t try to flee the country.
It’s unlikely to end well.
Sometimes I ask people why they don’t stay home on Friday night to watch The Repair Shop like me.
Some laugh (or their parents do) but most have no idea what I’m talking about.
At dinner parties people often tell me I must meet some unpleasant people.
I reply that this is rare.
I meet interesting people.
I also meet far more people in desperate need of mental healthcare, addiction services, counselling, and a range of social services than I ever thought possible.
Other times I meet previously law-abiding people who have made one bad decision.
Most of the people I meet are the faces of the statistics — lack of housing, mental health issues, poverty, they all play a part in paving the road to court room one.
When I have time to get into clients background, there are stories of abandonment, dead parents, violent parents, state care.
They are lives of endless chaos.
No story is the same.
The boy in the sprinkler is another face of statistics, a child caught up in it all for no reason other than the family he was born to.
He’s probably 10 now.
Hopefully still somehow finding joy in whatever the day throws at him.
Children are skilled at that, adults not so much.
And on it goes.
I’d willingly give another seven years to those who need, and have the right to legal advice.
That right is sacrosanct.
I’ll continue to hope that some small part of it helps achieve justice, what ever that means.
Tanya Surrey’s a Mactodd senior associate and Queenstown criminal lawyer, chair of the Queenstown Writers’ Festival and arts lobby group Creative Queenstown
