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Focus on
Police Competence |
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Police regret the
amount of time it has taken to deal with the inquiry into the wrongful
imprisonment of three teenage girls for a crime they did not commit, says
Commissioner Rob Robinson. The trio are seeking
compensation -- likely to be hundreds of thousands of dollars -- after being
convicted of an aggravated robbery and spending seven months in Auckland's Mt
Eden women's prison in 1999. They were freed when an
Auckland lawyer and a private investigator persuaded police to reopen their
case. The Court of Appeal later overturned the conviction and offered the
girls "sympathy". Lucy Akatere and Tania
Vini, both 17, and Krishla Fuataha, 16, said they were nowhere near the scene
of the crime in the Auckland suburb of Three Kings. Police apologised to
the girls but their lawyer Gary Gotlieb said they deserved compensation. The
seven months they spent in jail had changed their lives and seriously damaged
their education. Mr Robinson said
yesterday an internal inquiry report was still being finalised by the
Auckland district commander. However, police did
regret the time it had taken to deal with the issues. |
