Sunday, May 1, 2016

Lundy case: the biggest con yet?

That would be a big call against some big cases from the past and recent past. Let's look at a few of those.

Arthur Thomas: allegedly killed Jeanette and Harvey Crewe because before she was married he sent her a present that she never opened. I'm not sure how many years intervened before the young farmer gave the young single woman a present but by the time of her death both she and Arthur were married and living happy lives with their respective partners. He was eventually pardoned. A shell casing that had not even been manufactured at the time of the shootings of Harvey and Jeanette was planted by police in garden bed and was claimed to have been fired in from Arthur's rifle. No police where ever charged over the false imprisonment of Arthur Thomas who was awarded a 1 million dollars in compensation.

Allan Hall: I don't remember that there was any alleged motive in the this case. But Allan, a short middle aged european man, attacked and killed a man at his home in South Auckland. The dead man's sons fought off Alan Hall who had somehow become a tall young Polynesian not only seen by the 2 sons but also witnesses who had seen the tall young man running away. It may be among the most saddest of these cases because Allan was a man with learning difficulties who lived with his mother. I have blogged about this case in more detail earlier on this blog. It is a case that has flown under the radar which makes it even more tragic. An Innocence Project based in Wellington took up Allan's case but I've heard or read nothing more about it for years.


David Bain: acquitted after a retrial for allegedly killing 5 members of his family. Evidence was hidden from the Jury by Milton Weir a former Dunedin Detective, another former Detective and 'fingerprint' expert Jones admitted 'misleading' the first Jury to help them understand the case. To this point neither man has been charged. Having blogged about this case for years, with many blogs herein, I single out that since his acquittal 3 scientists having applied a test to all the known facts about the death of Robin Bain, David's father, have concluded that the Bain father was 98% more likely to have suicided than been murdered. A figure that backs up the successful defence of David Bain  that he was not the killer of his mother, 2 sisters and younger brother but that Robin Bain had killed them before committing suicide. This case still continues on as most NZers and a number people from overseas know. The result of the compensation outcome, what ever it may be, will deliver a benefit of bringing the Law into the fiefdom of political Executive Power.

Teina Pora: started out life disadvantaged by having suffered fetal alcohol syndrome that made him an easy mark for now retired cop Rutherford to charge with a murder  which even the Crown now admit he didn't commit. Whereas Thomas and Bain co-operated with police at their peril, exercising an effort to help police solve crimes that both men would eventually be charged with, Pora, in his mid teens, at the time was after a reward. A reward that resulted in him being kept in prison for over 20 years but emerging, despite that, as being a very open and understanding man with no apparent bitterness. He said in an interview that he had forgiven Rutherford, leaving in my opinion Rutherford unable to forgive himself.

Mark Lundy: Convicted twice. Once for allegedly killing his wife and daughter around 7pm in the family home having returned to do so from Wellington, he was 'seen' running away dressed as a woman, he slept with a prostitute on his return to Wellington and was brought undone by a 'miracle' speck on his shirt of central nervous tissue that had allegedly been there for over 6 months and which had not deteriorated. When he was retried, suddenly he had no longer been seen running away from the house dressed as a woman in the early evening. In fact his wife and daughter had no longer been killed around 7 pm as attested by an expert pathologist, they could have in fact died, according to the same pathologist, who was becoming increasingly vague, at 3am the following morning. The overseas expert, who wasn't a forensic pathologist, had overcome criticism of his work in a field in which he was not qualified to identify the shirt speck, by using a donor brain to experiment upon and found it to be yes, a brain. I kid you not. Watch this case unfold, literally. It's going to shake the foundations of not only the NZ Justice system but forensic science world wide. Mark Lundy will no doubt be seen to have been treated in an abhorrent way by the NZ Criminal Justice system in a big con. A big con that saw the officer in charge of the case that resulted in a Miscarriage of Justice 'allowed' to remain in charge of the case only to see a worse Miscarriage of Justice perpetuated on Mark Lundy. The public will eventually hear about missing brain samples autopsy photos, along with evidence admitted by our Court of Appeal that didn't even have originating paperwork supplied with it and attested under oath by a man not authorised to give expert forensic evidence in his own country. That's the truth and it's going to bust out as an enormous con of the NZ public.

5 comments:

  1. The same key names are appearing more than once in these judicial hoaxes. Sue Schwalger led her underlings on a merry dance after Ewen MacDonald, when they must have all known that it was a car, two men and a semiautomatic shotgun that did the deed. Collateral damage takes out individuals like MacDonald's 8 year old son and parents, who the police are effectively telling have a cold blooded killer for financial benefit as son and father. Shame on you Sue, but you were promoted for this, and were soon to declare that as Central District Police Commander Superintendent, the police always strived to provide value for money when investigating crimes.
    "The cost of bringing matters before the courts is a routine part of doing business," she said.
    "However, Police do not put a price on holding offenders to account and achieving justice for victims."
    The costs of the Lundy re-trial reflected the complex nature of the investigation and the thoroughness of the police work done to ensure an extremely strong case was presented to the court, Schwalger said.

    "Learnings from this case will also add value to future inquiries of this type."

    So far so bad.

    Earlier, as the new millenium gets into gear Susan Glazebrooke and Andrew Tipping successively deny appeals by Mark Lundy and David Bain.

    Juries were entitled to believe that Mark Lundy could average 120kmph between Palmerston North and Petone at 7 30 pm, and that a cartridge standing on edge proved that David Bain killed his father. I will always be curious what conversation the jury imagined as David held the silencer to Robin's temple.

    Susan may be rehearsing with a hair brush in the bathroom. As supreme court judge she has a vision of Lundy

    We'll meet again, don't know where don't know when....

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  2. What do you mean by originating paperwork in the Lundy case?

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  3. There's no record in the COA Judgement that what Miller used for his parallel test in the USA was what he actually claimed. He said it was fresh brain delivered to him in a bucket. It wouldn't happen in NZ that a donor's fresh brain was released to an unaccredited person, particularly without first confirming a known purpose that was approved, if at all. In normal circumstances they are treated for preservation on removal. In a case where evidence has been hidden from the defence previously, every item presented as evidence by the Crown should have been authenticated, along with the controlled and monitored trail of forensic items. Not a single Judge on the COA panel inquired why the Crown with all it's resources had not commissioned a certified test by a forensic scientist to do the work Miller did in his 'parallel test, and at the same time to test the shirt again in an accredited Lab. Remember a NZ forensic Pathologist had said that the shirt samples were too down graded for testing before the shirt left for America. Miller should never have been given the work in the beginning and after the Privy Council Judgement the Crown, if not abandoning the case, should have used a accredited Lab to test both the shirt and known and unknown samples for results accidentally air dried, not Miller.

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  4. You don't mention that Pora tried to sell down 2 other people to false imprisonment.

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  5. Maybe he will speak out on that one day, if he already hasn't. Pora wasn't perfect when he was set up by the cops, I don't think anybody has ever said that he was.

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