Falsely convicted Alan Hall, a study of never being wrong investigated by The Innocence Project.

After Arthur Easton was killed in his Papakura house prime witnesses described a 6ft offender probably Maori. According to Easton's sons the offender was right-handed, they fought with the intruder who came into their house, got a good look at him and were definite about his being right-handed. It would be likely that the pathologist had something to say about the dominant hand of the offender, or may have had something to say about that under questioning. One of those sons clubbed the offender over the head with a squash racket until the racket broke.

Some 4 months later a short, left-handed asthmatic European Alan Hall was charged with the murder. He'd never been in trouble before. The Innocence Project manager Dr Mathew Gerrie says of Alan Hall, 'I will tell you he is a very simple guy,' and points out that Alan does not have the cognitive abilities to mount his own case. He also says that the case is one that has flown under the radar and 'is one of the real shockers of the NZ justice system.' Alan was convicted and served some 10 years. It was his mother and brothers who uncovered the information that there was a witness from whose evidence it was omitted by police that he, the witness, had seen a 'Maori or dark - skinned male running' in suspicious circumstances nearby the crime scene at the relevant time and  not a shorter fair skinned older man.

There was no physical evidence linking Alan to the murder scene, not only was he too short, left-handed and white but the next day his workmates didn't notice any marks on him that might have resulted from his being clubbed with a squash racket that spilt none of his blood, saliva, foot or fingerprints at the scene. A woman whose evidence, had it been called, corroborated the evidence of the witness Turner gave the description above of 'a Maori or dark-skinned' told police in a patrol car near the scene that night, and repeated it the next day. The witness, Denise Richardson was never called by police nor were two motorists who corroborated what Denise and Ronald Turner said.

To make matters worse Ronald Turner was led by police to believe that a statement, that he signed unread, was a faithful account of Turner's description of the man seen running away after the fatal stabbing. Turner, conveniently was never called to give evidence or be cross-examined, his evidence was entered by consent. Hall's lawyer of the time was not told of Ronald Turner's description of the offender being omitted from the statement, nor was he  told of the evidence of the 2 other motorists and Denise Richardson. The information only came to light following its discovery through the Official Information Act after Alan Hall's appeal had already been dismissed. This being despite the fact that the trial Judge said Ronald Turner's evidence was important, not realising that it wasn't a faithful account of what Turner had seen, and being unaware that the true account was supported by 3 other witnesses not even called.

This is the first case that Project Innocence have sought to bring before the Courts, on this occasion by exercise of The Royal Prerogative of Mercy which for many years has shown itself to be an unwieldy, out dated concept. Alan Hall  is reported as saying that 'Arthur Easton has been wronged twice. They used his murder to convict an innocent man.' And points out that all he wants is for 'it to go back to court to get another trial where the whole story is heard.' Alan lives with his mum now, she had to down-size her house and shift to another area to fund help for her son.

Arthur Easton was killed on the evening of 13th October 1985, 6 years after Arthur Thomas was pardoned, around a decade before David Bain would be afforded 'an actual miscarriage of justice' by Dunedin police and prosecutors after his father shot his own family before turning the gun on himself leaving a plethora of forensic proof of his own suicide and 15 years before Scot Watson was imprisoned in another case where police preferred their own version of offender identification to that of their own witnesses. Two of those convicted, beside Alan are now freed, Arthur by a 'Royal Pardon' which accounted for planted cartridges cases used in the murders of the Crewe couple but which at the time of their deaths had not been manufactured. His ex wife unfortunately was never officially apologised to or compensated for being identified by 'innuendo' as being an accomplice at least after the fact when the police already had a positive identification of someone who remains alive being seen on the Crewe farm after the killings, and likely to have been feeding the Crewe's baby daughter. David Bain was found not guilty after a re-trial in which it was revealed that police, like in the Hall case, gave 'undertakings' to faithfully relate statements from uncalled witnesses but never did. Alan Hall has been 'free' since 1995 and now waits with Scot Watson the outcome of petition for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy.

There is little sustainable argument that any of the 4 men should have ever been charged, and each case is characterised by the investigators misconduct and omissions of evidence. But in reality Arthur's ex wife Vivian Harrison went to her grave earlier this year plagued by the fact that there had never been as little as an official apology to her and I doubt that the case will ever be probably resolved until at least that happens or the police involved in the framing of Thomas are charged. David Bain waits 'patiently' while the current Government fail to act on his compensation for wrongful imprisonment. Hall and Watson wait, 2 of 4 brought together by injustices that now span over 40 years and which have resulted in 4 innocent men spending a cumulative total of 50 years in prison.

It's good to see The NZ Innocence Project embark on it's first case, but at the same time there remains a sadness that sucessive governments over 40 years have done little of lasting effect to expunge from our justice systems injustices that each have individual and collective characteristics that show the failure of a system. Even the formation of The Innocence Project blights the stagnant way our country deals with the falsely imprisoned, treating each case individually in a way that protects the system from criticism that draws substantial change and not connecting common features in a way that becomes 'text' book established, hallmarks, precedents, common events in the way the innocent are railroaded and left starved of justice and truth.

I hope  today, as Justice Minister Simon Power, fiddling in his last few months in office takes time to accept his own failure and that of his predecessors for not having the courage, willpower or humanity to connect common characteristics of known miscarriages of justice together, or even make a start on it, leaving it instead to individuals to unpick the deciet of the upholders of the law, the lethargy and failure to question from the Judicial bench, anybody within the system to say enough and to begin to construct a net that will not fail and let these cases of this type continue to fall through. As the record shows miscarriages of justice are often easily sighted, clumsly and illogical in their construction along with  requirements for evidence to be hidden or ignored, or sadly to be fabricated - something to prevent that in the majority of circumstances is within the easiest intellectual grasp of the brave and driven, to see there is no substitute for truth within our system of justice.

Good luck to Alan Hall and his family, of course to Scot Watson, the only 1 of the 4 mention above who still lanquishes in prison, best wishes to Project Innocence and how ashamed our past and present Ministers of 'Justice' should feel that finally a project to aid the innocent finds flight from within our universities and not from within our Courts or Governments.