The Mental Health Foundation is deeply sorry for the loss of Laisa Maraia Waka Tunidau, a much-beloved mother of four in Ōtautahi/Christchurch. We send our most heartfelt condolences to her family, friends, colleagues and community for her tragic and sudden passing. It will be a loss only those closest to Laisa can truly understand.

Any loss like this brings strong emotions - often the deepest sadness, but also anger, shock, guilt and a desire to make sense of what is senseless. People can be quick to pin blame for the tragedy on what seems the most probable cause at the time.

We are concerned that some of the media coverage around Laisa’s tragic passing has done just this - pinned the blame for her loss and other random acts of violence on people who access mental health services. While we are not in any way disputing the facts of the case, some media coverage has drawn broad links between people experiencing severe mental illness, sometimes even specific diagnoses, and their assumed potential to perpetrate violence based on those experiences.

These links are both harmful and untrue.

While Laisa’s passing is incredibly tragic and unexpected, it’s important to remember it’s also very rare. People living with severe mental illness are in fact up to 14 times more likely to be the victims of crime than its perpetrators, a truth which isn’t used enough to balance reporting on cases like these.

Even in these very rare cases where mental health is a factor, it’s often just one of many contributing factors and social determinants of a crime.

People accessing mental health services are not alien to us – they are our friends, our whānau, our colleagues. They are not innately dangerous people that must never be allowed out of services and back into the community. They are people that, like one in five of us in any given year, simply experience mental illness and the tough times it can bring.

Headlines and copy broadly linking unexpected acts of violence with people accessing mental health services are not just false – they’re irresponsible. We know from experience that readers seeing these headlines will be less likely to reach out to mental health services if they need them, and less likely to share their experiences with friends and family for fear they will be judged as violent or dangerous - especially if they have more ‘severe’ mental health experiences. This social shame around experiencing mental illness reinforces discrimination and contributes to rates of suicide in Aotearoa.

For these reasons, the Mental Health Foundation would like to encourage media to avoid:

- making broad links between experiencing mental illness and being violent, sticking only to the facts of a given case

- speculating about whether people living with severe mental illness or a certain diagnosis are violent or predisposed to violence

- assuming mental illness is the cause of a crime

- reporting on just one side of the story – we are available to make comment or provide sources to add balance where needed.

Some further recommendations on reporting on mental distress and crime are available in our newly-created, free media factsheet here.

The media hold great power over how people perceive mental illness in Aotearoa. We understand the balance is hard to achieve and are available to advise, discuss and talk things through.

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