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3 weeks ago | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
It began with a single email. In November 2023, Joris de Bres, a former New Zealand Human Rights and Race Relations Commissioner, wrote to Newsroom’s investigations editor Melanie Reid with the subject line: “Separated by the State”. De Bres described how he’d been helping an Auckland-based couple who had arrived in New Zealand from India to make a life for themselves in what they called “the dream country”.
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1 month ago | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
A year since the inquest into the death of Gore three-year-old Lachlan Jones began and the Coroner has completed his provisional findings. Interested parties have been provided with a copy of Coroner Ho’s provisional findings and have until May 16 to respond. The Coroner has indicated the final decision will be delivered on June 3 in Invercargill, citing high community interest. It’s a rare move. But then nothing about this case has been ordinary.
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2 months ago | 
newsroom.co.nz | Melanie Reid |Bonnie Sumner
A US obstetrician-gynaecologist has cast serious doubt on a high-profile child abuse conviction, asserting the main injuries sustained by the baby were the result of trauma suffered during labour and delivery, not parental abuse. Concerned about her excessive crying, the eight-week-old baby’s parents took her to their GP where she was transferred to Starship Children’s Hospital with suspected meningitis.
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Feb 25, 2025 | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
The truth is rarely simple. And in season two of Fractured, the shocking revelations will leave you questioning medicine, justice and the devastating power of a single diagnosis. Award-winning investigative journalist Melanie Reid returns with the next chapter of Fractured, the podcast rocking legal and medical assumptions in New Zealand and beyond.
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Feb 10, 2025 | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
A lineup of prominent figures have joined the call to halt the deportation of a mother convicted of inflicting injuries on her baby, as fears grow she could be another victim of a medical diagnosis now being labelled ‘junk science’.
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Feb 5, 2025 | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
Six years ago, most New Zealanders assumed the state’s practice of uplifting children from their families and placing them in foster care was almost always justified. It seemed unimaginable our child welfare agency, Oranga Tamariki, would remove a mother’s baby without good reason. But that all changed on June 6, 2019, when Newsroom’s investigations editor Melanie Reid released her video story, NZ’s Own Taken Generation, and obliterated our collective ignorance.
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Jan 16, 2025 | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
Satanic Panic: Peter Ellis, the creche case & me is a nine-part podcast presented by Melanie Reid, now on DELVE. “It’s not bizarre. It’s just totally and utterly unbelievable.” It was 1993 and the climate in Christchurch had reached fever pitch. Peter Ellis, a 34-year-old childcare worker with curly hair and glasses held together with sellotape, sat on a couch in a rundown motel for an interview with a young television reporter, Melanie Reid.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
In our latest in-depth podcast investigation, Fractured, Melanie Reid and her team delve deep into a complex case involving a controversial medical diagnosis and its fallout on a young family. While Fractured is a forensic examination of this case here in New Zealand, the diagnosis that started it all is now being blamed for putting hundreds of innocent parents behind bars worldwide – and is fast becoming a medical scandal of international proportions.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
In our latest in-depth podcast investigation, Fractured, Melanie Reid and her team delve deep into a complex case involving a controversial medical diagnosis and its fallout on a young family. While Fractured is a forensic examination of this case here in New Zealand, the diagnosis that started it all is now being blamed for putting hundreds of innocent parents behind bars worldwide – and is fast becoming a medical scandal of international proportions.
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Dec 1, 2024 | 
newsroom.co.nz | Bonnie Sumner
A years-long investigation into the death of a three-year-old Gore boy has won two honours at the 2024 Podcast Awards. The Boy in the Water has taken out gold for Best True Crime Podcast and silver for Best Documentary Podcast. The Boy in the Water has also secured the number one spot on the 2024 Apple Podcasts NZ chart for Top Series and Most Shared Show, with three further top five rankings for the year.
