|
|
Allegations of Sexual
Abuse |
|
|
|
|
More prosecutions and tougher
penalties for perjury would help reduce the incidence of miscarriages of
justice, a seminar at Auckland University was told yesterday. On many occasions the judiciary
did not take perjury, or evidence tampering seriously enough, associate
sociology professor Greg Newbold told a seminar organised by the Legal
Research Foundation to discuss a report by retired High Court judge Sir
Thomas Thorp. Sir Thomas, who made a two-year
study of the topic, advocates that an adequately-resourced independent
authority with an investigative capacity be set up to look into claims of
miscarriages, which he believes are under-estimated. Professor Newbold supported such
an authority but also wanted a tougher, deterrent approach to perjury. Police
figures showed that in up to 30 per cent of sex abuse cases, officers were
not convinced that an offence had occurred. He believed penalties imposed for
perjury - which carries a maximum 14 years imprisonment - were too soft, and
gave the example of a Waikato University student falsely accused of rape in
1995. The student's name was splashed in
the media, he was hounded out of university and faced, had he been convicted,
an eight-year prison term, whereas on conviction for perjury his accuser
"got off with 150 hours' community work and reparation, and the court
awarded her name suppression". Professor Newbold, one of 10
speakers, entitled his address Stories From Prison. He served a prison
sentence for drugs in the 1970s before becoming a criminologist and witnessed
the confusion and distress of Arthur Allan Thomas, convicted of the Crewe
murders but later pardoned. "To his great bewilderment,
he found that the criminal justice system doesn't always work in the way it's
supposed to." Professor Newbold nominated the
case of Teina Pora, convicted of the murder of Susan Burdett in Auckland in
1992, as "particularly disturbing". Convicted serial rapist Malcolm
Rewa was acquitted of murdering Ms Burdett though DNA showed he had raped
Burdett about the time she was killed. No evidence was produced that Pora and
Rewa ever knew each other, Professor Newbold said. While not all cases were so
serious, the same process applied, he said. Following the Springbok tour of
1981, Professor Newbold watched five men convicted of crimes they denied and
which he knew they had not committed - "because the person who committed
them was me". He said there was a
"culture" in the Auckland police in the 1970s of fabricating or
manipulating evidence, including the practice of "verballing"
whereby police manufactured false confessions. This was not such an issue now
due to videotaping interviews with suspects. He believed the use of
"jailhouse informants" or "narks" posed a great risk of
miscarriages today. "Typically, narks are repeat offenders and social
misfits who act out of self interest and without any concern for higher
principles. "There is a clear need ...
for judges to issue the sternest of warnings to juries about the dangers of
evidence of this type." Ricardo Sannd, who was on witness
protection when he stole the Tissot painting in 1998 and Travis Burns,
convicted of beating Whangaparaoa housewife Joanne McCarthy to death, have
been used as jailhouse witnesses. Most in the audience of 200 were
lawyers. Others included Chris Watson, father of convicted Marlborough Sounds
double-murderer Scott Watson, and David Bain campaigner Joe Karam.
Apart from perjury and
evidence-tampering, speakers identified these factors in miscarriages of
justice: * Racial and cultural prejudice. A
paper introduced by Manukau Urban Maori Authority chief executive June
Jackson said the most common answer from Maori about their low rate of
appealing was that they felt there was no point. "Their attitude is that
the Court of Appeal is the last leg in a system in which they have no chance
of succeeding." * Misinterpretation or statistical
exaggeration of forensic evidence. * Eyewitness misidentification,
flawed disclosure, false complaints and confessions, police "tunnel
vision", pressure from public, media and victims. |
