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.