Laws in row over dead child's photo

Michael Laws

Sahara Baker

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Former Whanganui mayor Michael Laws has become embroiled in the latest child abuse death after the district's current mayor asked him to remove a picture of the five-year-old from his Facebook page.

Laws refused, saying he was taking the case personally because he knew Sahara Baker from her time at his daughter Lucy's pre-school.

Laws, an outspoken critic of child abuse, writes about his shock at the death in his column in today's Sunday Star-Times.

Sahara Jayde Baker-Koro, aged five, was found dead in her bed in Napier on Christmas Eve and a 24-year-old acquaintance of her mother has been charged with assault.

Laws said Sahara would hug him when he dropped Lucy off at the pre-school.

He posted a picture of her that had already appeared in newspapers, but within hours he was contacted by a partner of Sahara's aunt and Whanganui mayor Annette Main, both asking him to take the photo down because the family wanted "privacy".

An email exchange with Main followed, Laws saying: "I have no intention of letting the feral Maori underclass keep killing their kids. They are almost all exclusively Maori ... victim and perpetrator. Look at the local roll call: Karl Perigo-Check, Cherish, Jhia Te Tua ... now Sahara. Notice the common thread?"

He said Main was helping protect a "feral family she didn't know" and signed off: "I regard you and your ilk as part of the problem. Have a great White Ribbon Day next year and feel better about your liberal impotence."

Main told the Star-Times she felt she was only passing along a grieving mother's wishes. It was not the picture so much as the comments on the page that provoked the request.

"There are some pretty judgmental comments about the whole family on there."

Laws told the Star-Times Maori children's deaths were becoming so common "it's almost like they don't have a value any more".

"It hasn't become shocking any more. That's what has given me the jolt."

- © Fairfax NZ News