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Sunday Star Times
July 21 1996
A convict at all costs mentality
The police story was compelling
enough to convince a jury that David Wayne Tamihere raped and killed two
Swedish tourists in the Coromandel in 1989. But was their reconstruction fact
or fiction?
Without bodies, weapons, crime scene, eye witnesses or confession, the police
case had to be based on circumstantial evidence. The trial judge pointed out
that such a case had to be built out of a series of strands which strung
together could be strong enough to sustain a guilty verdict. It took the
obviously worried jury three days to decide.
Since that day the carefully woven rope used to "hang" Tamihere has
begun to unravel. First came one of the bodies. It was on land, not dumped at
sea where the police's most credible -- in the police's eyes -- secret
witness had claimed it had been dumped. The Crown claimed Tamihere gave the
watch of this victim to his son. Not true. The watch was found with the body.
Now that secret witness -- a cell mate of Tamihere -- has declared he
fabricated the evidence he gave at the trial in return for police promises of
upwards of $100,000 and other inducements. In his "evidence", he
claimed Tamihere had bragged about viciously raping both the man and woman
victims, that he'd smashed the man's head in with a piece of wood (not true
according to the skeletal remains subsequently found) and dumped the bodies
at sea.
The trial judge warned the jury of the dangers of evidence and the Court of
Appeal later said it would have been surprised if the jury had given this
evidence much credence. We disagree.
Judges might be able to wipe such gruesome detail from their minds. But mere
mortals find such self-induced, selective amnesia harder to achieve. Whether
or not Tamihere was involved in the Swedish tourists' disappearance we do not
know. What is clear is Tamihere was convicted on a string of circumstantial
evidence that is now unravelling.
Worryingly, this is not the only case in recent times to throw into question
the fairness of our justice system. The conviction of Peter Ellis in the
Christchurch Civic Creche case is another. There was a hysteria surrounding
this prosecution akin to the witch trials of 17th century Salem. We had the
detective inspector in charge of the case appearing on television and declaring
the Civic Sodom was evidence society was reaping the fruits of mocking the
likes of John Banks and God. The police, the judge, the prosecution all got
caught up in a madness that has still to be undone.
Justice is not served when the hunt for a guilty verdict overwhelms the
commonsense and sense of fairness we expect from our police and prosecutors.
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