08: Lying without Lying

June 5, 2022·39 min·3 clips

Barbara went to the High Court determined to 'lie without lying' for Burt Potter — and admits she committed perjury about drugs being given to teenagers.

The episode opens with journalist Rosemary McLeod digressing to a story about a racially motivated assault at a university party in the late 1960s, in which educated, middle-class people conspired to cover for the perpetrator — an analogy for how privilege and group identity can shield wrongdoers. The episode then moves to 1989, when detective sergeant Ray Van Bainen, who had previously been blocked from investigating Centrepoint, is now on the Auckland Drug Squad and has the authority to pursue the case. He receives drug samples from Centrepoint, has them verified by government scientists, and decides to target Potter directly rather than the whole community. On September 8, 1989, his team executes a quiet dawn search warrant at Potter's house and finds LSD, ketamine, MDMA, and cannabis openly stored in kitchen cupboards. Potter is arrested and charged with possession for supply. The Centrepoint community rallies around Potter, with his son publishing a statement that Burt is a 'revolutionary' being persecuted for challenging wider society. Original member Barbara admits she attended the High Court trial intending to 'lie without lying' and committed perjury when directly asked if she had seen Burt give drugs to teenagers. The 10-day trial heard 25 witnesses; Potter himself claimed not to know the drugs were in his house. The jury convicted him, and the judge observed that Potter's offending was about control rather than money. Sentenced to three and a half years, Potter is first held at Auckland's Mount Eden prison then transferred to Ohura, a minimum security facility in the central North Island. From prison, Potter writes regular letters to the community, framing his imprisonment as political persecution. The community rents a house near the prison so members can visit on a roster. During one visit, Barry unknowingly carries drugs into the prison hidden in a food box, which Potter retrieves and kicks under a fence to another inmate. During the same visit, Barry hears Potter ranting about expanding the drug operation to sell LSD to gangs. Back at Centrepoint, Ray and the police find the drug operation has actually scaled up rather than collapsed without its leader. Potter's conviction has an unintended consequence: young people who had been silenced by Potter's aura of invincibility begin coming forward about sexual abuse. The episode then turns to documents from 'Barry's Hoard' — boxes of Centrepoint papers including affidavits, press cuttings, and personal correspondence. The documents show Barry writing letters to Burt in prison while also meeting with abuse victims and their mothers, and in at least one letter advising a victim's mother against pursuing criminal charges. When confronted on air, Barry acknowledges she was acting as a kind of double agent, attributing it to a belief she could persuade Potter to take responsibility. The episode closes with the observation that Centrepoint is on the brink of something it will not be able to survive.

As heard by us

A prison chapter that shows how authority can keep going after the leader is gone.

With Bert Potter in prison, the episode settles into the harder question in a cult story: what keeps working after the leader is locked up and still sending letters.

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Why you'd press play

When the leader is locked up but still running the room.

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