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Focus on
Police Competence |
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(L-R) Krishla Fuataha,
Tania Vini and Lucy Akatere with their lawyer Gary Gotlieb. Picture : Martin
Sykes Three teenage girls
convicted of a crime they did not commit spent seven months in Mt Eden
Women's Prison. Now the girls want
police to apologise for a botched investigation and they plan to seek
compensation. The Court of Appeal in
Auckland yesterday quashed the joint conviction for aggravated robbery of
Teangarua (Lucy) Akatere and Tania Mayze Vini, both 17, and McCushla
(Krishla) Priscilla Fuataha, 16. The court heard that
after their trial, the Crown's principal witness, a 13-year-old, retracted
her evidence by affidavit. The 13-year-old had claimed she and the three
older girls committed the 1999 attack on a 16-year-old schoolgirl at Three
Kings Plaza in Mt Roskill. The victim was thumped
and kicked and her head banged against a tree stump before she was cut with
scissors and robbed of $10. The officer in charge
of their case, former test cricketer Detective Constable Trevor Franklin, did
not accept the girls' denials. They were convicted after a High Court jury
trial in August last year. At the time of the
attack, Akatere was aged 15 and the other two 14. Fuataha - who was said
to have wielded the weapon - was sentenced to two years' jail, the others to
18 months. Yesterday, Justices
Bruce Robertson, Thomas Gault and Peter Salmon overturned the conviction and
told the girls they had the court's sympathy. Justice Gault said the
"investigation and trial system failed in this case". The wrongful conviction
"raises questions of conduct by the police which is a serious matter and
must be properly investigated", he said. "They have been
subjected to the demeaning experience of a public trial and the constant
rejection of their protestations of innocence." The girls told the
Herald their first week in jail was terrifying because they were separated,
surrounded by older women and scared. "I just hid in my room," said
Akatere. They wore prison-issue
track pants and shirts and had to work in the laundry, washing male
prisoners' clothes. At first, said Vini,
other prisoners said: "Why don't you just admit you did it?" but
soon accepted the girls' innocence and took them under their wing. "We
had lots of prison mothers and aunties." But seeing their
children behind bars was heartbreaking for their families. None of the
parents doubted their daughters' innocence. "From my heart I
know they never do it," said Vini's mother, Kaiei Timi. Fuataha's mother, Sue
Johansson, said: "I've had people making jokes about her being in jail.
I've had to lift my head high and ignore it." The girls said they
were happy with the ruling but "we just want the police to say
sorry". Their lawyer, Gary Gotlieb, said the system had failed the girls
and their families all along the line. The battle to clear the
girls' name began when Vini's father, Vini Kavi, went to Mr Gotlieb this year
because he could not bear his daughter being in jail. Mr Gotlieb engaged
private investigator and former police superintendent Bryan Rowe. Mr Rowe interviewed the
13-year-old girl, who formally admitted for the first time that she had lied.
She told him the police pressured her into confessing. He also uncovered a
series of oversights and blunders by police that he said bordered on
"criminal offences". As a result of his
inquiries, an appeal was lodged, district commander Superintendent Howard
Broad agreed to a police reinvestigation and the girls were given bail in
April. |
