Mark Lundy's case is due back in the Supreme Court later this year. The submissions by Jonathan Eaton QC and his team are a masterclass. From carefully reading them it is apparent how poorly the NZ courts have understood the case.
From the outset some of the public believe that Mark had his wife Christine's brain or spinal matter on his search. However it has never been proven that what was on the shirt sleeve was brain or spinal matter, let alone being human. No need to repeat the dodgy science used in the case which remains mired in controversy despite the Courts apparently apprehending otherwise.
What is less well known is that of the 2 marks, on the shirt Mark had voluntarily told the police he had worn earlier in the day on the night of the murders, all that was left for testing was a dab slide taken from the shirt sleeve. Internationally that dab slide was said to hold material that could not be tested. Consequently it was sent to an American who did not test the slide material because of its condition but instead tested 2 pieces of material cut out from the area around the small stains which were about the size of a pinhead.
That wasn't the reason for the trip of course and it has taken many years for it to become known that the area tested was already said to have been 'consumed' in unsuccessful earlier testing in NZ. I think everyone accepts that an empty glass contains no liquid - the empty glass in this case somehow became full again, something never heard by either of the Lundy Jury's.
What was said to have been taken from the empty shirt spots was material later fixed in paraffin which under 'testing,' not designed or approved for that purpose, was said to have located brain material. In a test 14 years later that material would be found to be from the animal food chain, cow, beef or pork. To overcome that somehow the Crown found a 'expert' who was able to say the material was human by the margin of 58% to 42% with an unknown success or failure rate. That evidence, heard by the Jury at Mark's retrial, allowed the prosecutor to say 'no man should have his wife's brain on his shirt.' Post trial that evidence was ruled inadmissible.
However the Court of Appeal said that didn't matter and they exercised the proviso which the Law says can be done so when guilt is inevitable. Unfortunately that test was changed by the COA to one of beyond reasonable doubt - a world first in British, Australia and New Zealand Courts, It is difficult to understand how the Court could make such a mistake and first look, that might have been deliberate to keep the controversial case under a lid.
Later it can be seen why that decision is important, and to do that we have to again go back to the paraffin blocks said to contain material which NZ scientists said had been consumed. Those paraffin blocks were tested for Christine's DNA but it was not found. However the NZ COA, not deterred by that made another major 'mistake', because elsewhere on the shirt was found Christine's DNA, just as would happen with any male's shirt from his partner and vice versa. However it needed to have been within the spot where the animal DNA was found, to have been directly associated with Christine as being her own - within the biological material not near it.
So let's go over that again, 2 small spots completely inconsistent with blood splash that left the silhouette of Christine's killer on the wall. A silhouette for which there is precious little information. I have not heard of any reconstruction of that silhouette for which it might have been determined the size of the offender, a relatively easy process but not something it is known that investigators looked into. Nevertheless the 2 small spots were consumed in testing by NZ scientists who found nothing incriminating within them, however the spots go along with the shirt to America and hello there is something there again, and the slide taken from those spots also in America is not tested despite that the material on it is visible upon it under microscope.
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