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Stuff It seems like a spectre of the
Thomas case. Nearly 28 years after it
grudgingly had forced on it the innocence of Arthur Thomas over the Crewe
deaths, the New Zealand justice system’s investigation and trial processes
are in the dock again. And the jury is out. Now, all at the one time, critics
of at least four controversial verdicts could point to the report of the
Thomas Royal Commission which accepted the validity of a nine-year campaign
to free Thomas. Back then its three high-profile
members angrily cited police evidence against him as being "manufactured
and other evidence withheld ... an unspeakable outrage" – the actual
words of the commission. It found that the campaigners were
right, that verdicts of two trials and numerous appeals were wrong, he had
been framed and unjustly jailed for those nine years. The freeing of Arthur Thomas set a
precedent. It prompted pledges from people in authority that the public could
rest easy, that such a travesty would never be repeated. In its way it also set a new
benchmark for campaigners to fight apparently lost causes and they’ve
certainly taken up that challenge – including the Sunday Star-Times’ Donna
Chisholm on the David Dougherty case. (Freed after three years four months in
jail when DNA evidence cleared him of rape at a second trial in 1997, he was later
given $868,728 compensation. Arthur Thomas got $950,000 in 1980
after nine years in jail.) Other campaigns have followed,
notably Joe Karam on the David Bain case, Keith Hunter on the Scott Watson
Marlborough mystery, author Lynley Hood on the Peter Ellis creche case. Add in the unfaltering belief of
the Tamihere family that brother David was not the killer of the two Swedish
tourists in the Coromandel nearly 20 years ago. They say, David, 37 when
jailed, was simply the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. David Tamihere’s fate is a clue to
the possible long-term outcomes of suspect courtroom verdicts. Look at the worrying aspects of
key evidence against him – that a watch police claimed he took from the body
of Urban Hoglin and gave to his son was still on the dead man’s wrist when
his skeleton was found near Whangamata 10 months after Tamihere was jailed.
It was 70km away and over the ranges from the area where the Crown said the
two victims had been killed. The discovery there also
contradicted the unlikely "jail confession" evidence of other
prisoners wanting favours who claimed Tamihere had told them how he chopped
up the bodies and disposed of them at sea. There were people and tactics
involved in the case against Tamihere that took me back to the Thomas case. But once again, as it had done
three times with Thomas before he was pardoned, the Court of Appeal saw no
reason to reopen the case as I believe it should have. David Tamihere’s 10-year
non-parole period ended in 2000. He has been refused parole five times. His brother, former Cabinet
minister John Tamihere, believes David’s refusal to admit guilt counts
against him. For his part, David Tamihere
apparently says he will stay in jail rather than admit to a crime "I
didn’t commit". Which raises the question: Should
a man be punished over and over again for sticking to his version of truth? When former Judge Sir Thomas Thorp
warned last year that, on the basis of his studies of overseas experience, as
many as 20 New Zealand prisoners may be innocent, he called for an
independent authority to identify miscarriages of justice. He referred to the Tamihere
conviction as one he "expected to bubble at some stage". Sir Thomas has also expressed
doubt about the conviction of Peter Ellis in 1993 on 13 charges of sexually
abusing children at a Christchurch creche. His doubts on Ellis clash with the
opinion of former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum. Peter Ellis served two-thirds of a
10-year prison sentence. He has always protested his
innocence and is fighting to clear his name, hoping for a Privy Council
hearing. After a High Court trial and two
failed Appeal Court hearings, a ministerial inquiry conducted by Sir Thomas
Eichelbaum in 2000 found that the interviewing of children who gave
apparently damning evidence at Ellis’ trial was appropriate and hadn’t been
"undermined by contamination by others". Why no action on the Thorp
proposal for independent authority to check for miscarriages of justice? Or
will we just go on depending on concerned citizen crusaders to exhaust
themselves and their bank accounts fighting for jailed innocents? |
