Judge Aitken not helping Judge Aitken

The Herald reports:

A Judicial Conduct Panel investigating the actions of a judge has been played a video of a King’s Counsel being asked to leave a New Zealand First event, with a party official claiming the respected lawyer was “entitled”, “unstable” and she feared for her safety.

“I asked him to leave,” the party’s secretary Holly Howard said today during her evidence about the alleged incident at Auckland’s exclusive Northern Club in November 2024.

She claimed Michael Reed, KC refused to leave, took photos of those gathered, and threatened to sue her and a staff member if they touched him.

Reed was being a boorish bully. He gatecrashed a private function and started throwing his weight around.

Now Judge Aitken is not responsible for what Reed did, but his behaviour gives an insight into that night.

“Don’t touch me or I will sue you for a lot of money,” Reed is heard telling a Northern Club staff member in the video played to the panel.

”Will you tell Winston from me please that I’m upset about being a New Zealand First supporter. I’m on the mailing list,” Reed continued.

So Reed clearly knew it was a NZ First function. In fact it seems clear that he went into the room purely because it was a NZ First function.

The judge – who says she did not realise it was a political event or that the speaker was Peters – appeared to be focusing her comments at NZ First Cabinet minister Casey Costello, adding, “How can you let him say that?”

So the Judge is testifying (presumably under oath) that she did not recognise Peters’s voice, did not see Peters, did not see the two large NZ First banners and also did not recognise Casey Costello. She just happened to very soberly comment to a total stranger that another total stranger was lying. I mean, who hasn’t done that.

Howard said another man then appeared in the foyer, who was “loitering” outside the room for about 20 minutes.

She claimed the man accosted Peters as the veteran politician was leaving the venue, accusing him of “doing a shit job”.

Howard said she later learned the man was the judge’s husband, celebrity doctor David Galler.

And here is where it gets interesting from a further story.

Judge Aitken said it was only as she was being escorted away from the room that she looked over her shoulder and realised that speaker was the Deputy Prime Minister.

She returned to her own function and took a seat at her table, admitting: “Oops, oh God. I’ve just called Winston Peters a liar.” 

The judge said she warned her husband not to get involved and had no idea he would later disrupt the NZ First function, allegedly calling Costello “despicable” and accusing her of “killing hundreds of people”, in apparent reference to the party’s tobacco policies. 

Judge Aitken said she only got wind of Galler’s alleged behaviour days later when she received a call from another judge.

So she is saying she told her table that she had just called the then Deputy PM a liar by accident. The table would have been aware this would be very very bad for her, and her husband ignored her explicit instruction not to get involved, and he did so anyway. And more remarkably she didn’t notice he was gone.

The judge said she felt “pressured” to write the letters but was prepared to offer a genuine apology for her behaviour, which she described as “completely out of character”.

So the Judge didn’t;t really want to apologise.

Judge Aitken defended “venting” comments she made in another letter to Judge Taumaunu in which she wrote, “There is a time and place to get involved and this is one of them”, and “I can no longer stay silent” in the face of divisiveness “coming from politicians”.

To me this tally undermines her claim that she had no idea at all the speaker was Winston Peters and that it was a NZF function. In this letter she states she can’t remain silent and must respond to what politicians are saying.

She really doesn’t seem to understand what being a Judge entails.

She also expressed disappointment at the contents of a letter of apology sent by Judge Taumaunu to the NZ First Party president, in which he “unreservedly apologised” on behalf of the entire district court. 

Judge Aitken felt this was unfair on other judges, given the incident was of her making alone.

It wasn’t. The two other people who disrupted it were spouses of judges. They were only at the function in that capacity. The bottom line is an event for judges led to people being harassed and abused at a neighbouring event. Entirely appropriate the apology should be on behalf of the wider court.

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