Pora's compensation for Judicial Review?

Looks like a Judicial Review is in the water for Teina Pora. I just wonder where all the advocates that argued Executive Powers couldn’t be reviewed are hiding. It was unusual to watch John Key today maintaining that Executive Powers and guide lines as to compensation are a Law unto themselves and something which might be changed in the future by Cabinet, that is for inflation and other factors to be included. That’s not correct, because any Executive Power used which has direct influence over a particular citizen or group of citizens must set as to its purpose fore-most consideration of The Bill of Rights Act, to which those affected by Executive decisions have redress in the Courts. We all know of another case where that was properly recognised where David Bain sought a review of the process of his compensation claim. In that particular case the 'rules' where changed at the drop of a hat and without notice.

If an action goes ahead will the Government make the payment it has offered pending the result of any Review, or will they look to be seen as punishing him – just like the police and Crown did for more than 20 years?

For those that mentioned Peter Ellis, the same avenue is open to him but he might just be too beat down by what he went through to be able consider doing so.

In the meantime, all power to those supporting and guiding Teina Pora.

Teina Pora: There comes a time.

As with all things there comes a time for definition, a declaration or settlement of some kind. For Teina Pora that time to me has long been passed. I need only think of now retired Detective Sergeant Keith Rutherford, a man of countenance seemingly cast from stone. Could you fool Rutherford, consider that he came down in the last shower, was gullible?

If you believed Teina Pora was guilty before knowing that when he confessed to being present at the time of the killing of Susan Burdett, or being on watch as she was raped and bashed to death,  you may not have known that he was a local in the district in which she died, but couldn't find the house where it happened or even properly describe her. Not knowing what she looked like or where she lived would make it hard to believe his story. Add to that that he was looking to be rewarded for giving information on the murder but didn't know those primary details, where the house was, her physical description - hardly small oversights on such a serious crime.

Different things about the arrest, conviction, 20 years imprisonment before the conviction being thrown out will have stuck with observers of this case. The fact that another man was convicted of raping Susan Burdett on the night she died must register high as a concern. The assumption that Christine was raped by one offender, then later murdered by another who had not raped her and didn't know her or where she lived is difficult to reconcile and is no doubt the reason some 21 years later that Pora is free and no person stands guilty as having killed her - although one is convicted of raping her makes this case extremely bizarre, possibly a world first of it's kind.

So where does the public look for such an implausible scenario to have taken flight? How could the situation be so confused that a rapist, in fact a serial rapist who used violence to the head, had raped Susan Burdett that night, and before she, still apparently alive according to the rapist in his own evidence, and to Steve Rutherford who brought the case to the Courts - hadn't rung the police, a friend or neighbour or simply run from the house to seek help before she was killed by another random stranger?

Well of course the situation was never that confused because the rapist Malcom Rewa killed Susan Burdett. What Pora did was get picked up for another alleged petty crime and decided to buy his way out of it and gain the reward posted for Susan's death. The minute Pora, a boy at the time by definition of the Law, couldn't point out the details of the crime scene or details of the victim his opportunity was spent, at least to any reasonable person with an average ability in deduction. It was over - Pora was a bull crapper, opportunist and time waster. The problem was, the vastly experienced Rutherford, although he clearly knew crap when he smelt it, was so willing to imbibe Pora's lies. He had the opportunity, manufactured by him many would say, to solve a high interest murder case. One can only imagine how he may have reconciled such clear ambiguities other than having been desperate for an arrest.

If that was the case with Steve Rutherford, and there is little evidence to suggest otherwise, it becomes very interesting as to what he may have been thinking, if at all, about the consequences for the illiterate boy of subdued intelligence he would inevitably be sending to prison.

That's what many will find stunning about this case. How an experienced detective sergeant could turn off his bull crap sensor, his deduction powers, but mostly his humanity and be willing to see a young boy go to prison for a crime he clearly did not commit. This is the mystery that surrounds those falsely imprisoned, the justification or plain lack of concern of those police who plant evidence against the falsely accused, hide evidence tending to exculpate them over a period of time, even come to hate them. Why Rutherford didn't simply give the young Pora a cuff around the ear because he was clearly lying is something only Rutherford knows. Observers will have their own ideas or observations as to what makes a heart grow so cold, if in fact it was not already cold, that allows men, and sometimes women, to forget their moral code and sworn duty, to become so distant from what is right and charge others for a crime they at best can only 'think' the person may have committed.

But there is clearly another part to this phenomena, not only the compliance of those with oversight of the case, but how clear headedness is substituted with hate by the framer for he or she they target. Human characteristic is the need to justify what is plainly wrong as being right in some circumstances. Did Rutherford or others in his situation simply see the opportunity to solve a murder and let nothing else get in the way? It might well be that, but there is also another common factor: the justification in the framer's mind, he or she must dispose of contemporary belief of right or wrong and convince themselves with justification that time will eventually desert. It seems to me that must be driven by hate or something very similar to it, if the framer can bring themselves to hate their target, or hate what they represent, or what class or type they appear to be then they have extracted noble cause. If Rutherford thought that Pora was a no hoper, thieving bastard from a bad family, he could for instance have considered that it was better that Pora was in prison even if his recall of the murder and its details would set alarm bells ringing for any person, let alone an experienced homicide detective. If that is indeed the streets of thought that Rutherford entered, then he did so with confidence. Could he have known that every Court in NZ that the case was appealed to would act without concern  for the details that are now so stark about the Pora case. Doubtful of course, but is there where the problem lies.

The Courts lost touch with Pora case as they did with that of Watson and Bain, all around the same time, the Court of Appeal in particular. Not one of those grey men or women spoke to the others on the bench on which they served and expressed doubt. Not one said they had misgivings because of the way Pora was questioned, denied a lawyer, that he was underage or most importantly that he was significantly wrong about specific details of the case in his 'confession.' Even at the Privy Council it was a close run thing and primarily turned on that Court's acceptance of a lifelong medical condition that Pora has from his mother drinking heavily before he was born.

In his recent interview and to my surprise, as possibly it would be also for those that were on the bench of the PC, Pora revealed that he recalls every conversation he had at the time of his video interviews, including which was said to him by police between those interviews. The public of NZ have a right to know what was said to Pora at that time in order that there may be some further understanding as to what happened to him, how and why. That time has come. Perhaps we will finally hear after his 'application' for compensation is decided, the laborious and visionless probe by those that falsely imprisoned him into his guilt. That story deserves its place in history alongside how a man was imprisoned for a false confession and then refused parole for not admitting his guilt.

Teina Pora - back from the abyss.

I watched TV3 tonight to watch the half hour show on the now free Teina Pora. After 22 years of false imprisonment he exposed what few people would have considered. That after his 22 years inside for a crime he didn't commit his keepers (the state) simply walked away from him. No apparent concern about how the 22 years might have affected him, how he would adjust to his new found freedom, find employment, re-establish himself, according to him nothing, zilch. He is to find his own way, the state pays him no regard, does not automatically compensate him but instead places hurdles before him which he must jump to hold them accountable. He is persona non grata, an unwelcome stranger to a system that took from him 22 years of his life. Now the country will speculate on whether he should be compensated for being falsely imprisoned, weigh whether his now broadly accepted false confession as a child held in police custody without legal help justified his false imprisonment. Pora's case is an example of why compensation should be automatic, to show that a just system recognises its failures and does not expect a falsely imprisoned person to come back pleading a case for help. If what happened to Teina is disgusting enough, then the process by which he is expected to prove he should be compensated is equally or even more cruel.

But the man, to at least my surprise, rises above the system that seeks now to ignore him. He spoke of where his priorities lie - his daughter and grandson, of forgiveness, of wanting an apology and to ensure the futures of those closest to him. He shows how surprising life can be, that a public portrait painted by snippets of information, contempt and concern can at times be completely wrong, because Teina has not emerged a bitter man but as someone content within himself. He has a difficult road ahead of him with some hoping that he fails and reveals that the police in some way were right all the way along - that even if Teina didn't kill Susan Burdett he is a bad bugger and should have been in prison anyway.

New Zealand should be indebted to Teina Pora not only because of the way the Justice System stole 22 years of his life and now chooses to ignore him apart from some cumbersome process to which he must submit cap in hand, but because of his dignity that the system could never rob from him but which he kept intact and build upon as a lesson of right over wrong.

Teina Pora, too easily fallen through the cracks again?

With news that Teina Pora has had his conviction for murder set aside it's easy to forget the identity of a man who spent 22 years in prison for a crime he may not have committed, in fact in my opinion couldn't possibly have committed. It's the nature of the concept of Justice that many in society who commit crimes and who are imprisoned are expected either to reform or to fail to reform in a conscious and most deliberate way. Teina Pora obviously does not have the cognizance of other prisoners or ex prisoners to make informed and reasoned decisions. He appears not to even understand that he is more vulnerable to brain damage than most, because he suffers Fetal Alochol Spectrum Diesease, something that a sufferer doesn't just recover from to the point of becoming a functioning person with a keen sense of what is right or wrong. Boxing is not a place for a brain damaged individual such as Pora.

Why Martin Snedden of Duco Promotions would defend Duco for entertaining an apparent request by Pora to engage in a televised boxing match is a mystery of the modern understanding of brain damage. Pora is already suffering underdeveloped brain function, with no apparent hope of being the same person he would have been for his mother not having drunk alcohol in excess during her pregnancy with Teina. Having him the ring is absurd. Perhaps Duco, like many others, rate Pora as a person capable of having matured from a youth who confessed to a crime that he had not committed, in a house he had never visited. That confession was the product of a mind in short circuit, having never had the capacity to open the vast array of corridors shut closed by the alcohol that the gestating baby Teina was fed. If you watched Duco's event last night in which Joseph Parker had top billing you will have noticed a man in Parkers entourage with Downs Syndrome near the front. I guess we can suppose he is part of the Parker family, someone no doubt appreciated and loved.

That man too, was Pora.

Pora Privy Council ruling, a close run decision?

https://www.jcpc.uk/decided-cases/index.html

The decision favoring Pora's conviction being quashed may not be as fragile as it seems. On the face of it what was expected by me at least to be a resounding favorable decision for Pora. However, the reality is that the appeal got home on the basis that the point which the Privy Council gave credence, and importantly so, to a question any Juror would have, why did he confess.  The PC accepted that he may have confessed due the effects of his mother drinking heavily during the pregnancy leaving him with identifiable problems, some of which, a Jury might consider as an explanation for his confession to a crime a large portion of NZ believe he did not commit.

Underlying that single point, which I don't know how was dealt with on earlier appeals, is the fact that while Pora had an apparently strong case for appeal, much of it based on common sense, the doubts that he undertook the crime with an older, more worldy gang member and convicted lone wolf serial rapist, and as fragile as that made this conviction look - it remains that Pora would still stand convicted today if not for potential answer being given to the basic question - why did he confess?

Of the few PC decisions I have read this one had no summary of facts and circumstances that took a reader through a lengthy tour of the case toward a decision. To my mind it simply established that there was an answer to a question that a jury were likely to have in their minds. That is what I mean by the appearance of a close run decision, no doubt because the PC considered, obviously rightly, that any Jury would make up its mind as to the credibility of paid witnesses, the likelihood or otherwise of Pora 'teaming up' as a teenager with a man, from a different gang over 20 older than he and so on.

Again I am struck by what NZ loses with the right to the Privy Council gone. In a few short years, three lots of murder convictions have been set aside in cases our own Courts were not able to remedy. While we now have a new superior Court, the fact is that it still sources Judges from the same pool which has resulted in a number of serious Miscarriages of Justice not being put right. The argument traditionally was that NZ needed to chart its own legal waters, while time has shown we can and do chart our own legal waters we can and still would benefit by an association with the Privy Council. We can have our own Supreme Court and still allow petitions to the Privy Council for leave to appeal, and continue with our Judges sitting on the PC from time to time which has happened for many years. It seems the Pora case and others show that our relatively young legal system too soon wanted to 'grow up' and be independent, when the argument should never have been about legal independence at all, rather about drawing from the deep and living history of the Law many centuries older than ours.

But as to the re-trial or potential re-trial of Pora. I believe there has never been such a dilemma facing The Crown with what appears on the face of it, trying Pora again and still being left with the natural conclusion that highly probably the gang member twice tried for the same murder, Malcom Rewa, will never be convicted. Alternatively to that, not trying Pora and leaving the country with the dissatisfaction that Rewa escaped conviction. Or thirdly possibly trying Pora again, having first sought evidence confirming the diagnosis accepted by the PC of Pora having perhaps suffered from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and calling such evidence at the outset of the trial, then after cross examination and assuming that the opinion is consistent with that which the PC based its decision on -  seeking leave of the Court to withdraw the charge. In this manner, or in some way to the same affect, Pora would be entitled to claim for compensation and an possibly an apology but probably more importantly in terms of the public interest Rewa could be retried in such a manner that there were no distractions for the Jury that someone else, according to the Crown, was also involved. Rewa would present as having admitted having 'sex' with the deceased and need to prove a defence that someone else was responsible for her death. 99% of the public it could be safely said wouldn't  believe that defence for a second.

John Key on Teina Pora - does he get it?

POLITICAL REACTION
Prime Minister John Key said the Privy Council decision showed the strength of the justice system.
"Somebody who believes there's been a miscarriage of justice can continue to test their rights and this is a very historical case, it's complex."
Key said some "interesting things" had been raised.
"But all I can say is everybody has the right to continue to test whether they are innocent or guilty.
"If they believe they are innocent they can put up a genuine case which is certainly the situation here where the Privy Council has given leave for Teina Pora to take his case back, and let's see what the Privy Council says."
Justice Minister Judith Collins said the decision showed the justice system was working.
"What it shows is the matter is still before the courts and the system actually works very well," she said.
"The decision from the Privy Council is simply that Mr Pora has been granted leave to appeal and so we now will go through the process and see what the decision is from that."
She said she could "not possibly" comment on why the Privy Council made its decision.
"I think it suggests that the Privy Council has found enough for them to be interested in looking further and that's quite a right thing to do if that's what they decide."
Pora did have an application in with the minister to consider granting a pardon.

A spokeperson from Collins' office said that application had been placed on hold at the request of Pora's lawyers, while they pursued a Privy Council hearing.

John Key is quoted above from Stuff that the Privy Council decision (in the Pora case to grant leave to Appeal) shows the strength of the Justice System. On the contrary it shows the weakness of the Justice System. It's only by virtue of the age of the Pora case that the man has been able to have his case heard at the Privy Council which is no longer available to New Zealanders as the highest Court. That right has long been swept away by a previous Government. John key says that this is a historical case, yet all the cases that emerge, as shown to be Miscarriages of Justice in New Zealand, particularly murder convictions resulting in life sentences, are historical casesThey become 'historical' because of the length of time it takes for such cases to be remedied. In other words using the word 'old' or 'historical' doesn't displace the urgency of resolving such cases it simply shows New Zealand's abysmal ability to correct injustice delivered through the Justice System.

John Key also notes that the case is 'complex,' again I disagree. The only complexity in the Pora case is that the police held a young man incommunicado under the pretence of helping him gain a reward, that he gone to solicit from them, but ultimately showed him the crime scene and used the teenagers below average intelligence as a weapon against him to extract a confession. When it was later revealed that the victim Susan Burdett's body revealed the dna of serial rapist Malcom Rewa, the police tried Rewa for rape and murder arguing for the first time the older man had been an accomplice of the teenager. He was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of rape. In a separate re-trial Pora was again found guilty. The only people ever able to place Pora and Rewa together were paid informants. There was no dna or physical evidence linking Pora to the murder, all the 'evidence' resulted from the information given to him by the police and stitched together in the first instance without the name Rewa ever being mentioned. All of this is now for the Privy Council to deliberate. However the decision of Pora's appeal is highly likely to join 2 other recent cases, Bain and Lundy where the PC found injustice had occurred that New Zealands Appeal Court had 'overlooked' for what were analysed as the Court placing themselves in the seat of a Jury and second guessing what they 'might' have decided.

So the word 'complex' used by Key is clearly linked to 'historical,' that is the amount of time that a case might take to wind its way through the system. However, that also reveals another reason why cases become 'historical.' Defendants are not funded to appeal. An inmate perhaps in maximum security, no income, no means is expected to pay their own way in order, as Key puts it,  to 'show(ed) the strength of the justice system.' Although in the Lundy case costs toward the hearing at the PC were granted by way of Legal Aid, that wasn't the case with Bain or to this point with Pora. Moreover, the Lundy 'costs' didn't include the work done by his counsel for years before being able to have the case heard in London. So another way the 'justice system' shows its 'strength' is by inhibiting appeals, shutting the door on them unless a convicted person is fortunate enough to have help offered at no cost - yet even then the hurdles will remain in place. I say that because there is none of the current controversial cases where the police or prosecuting authorities have taken a 'fresh' look at the ambiguities of the Miscarriages of Justice and not contested them at appeal or at Trial. In fact in Lundy it took prosecutors some 12 years, or so, to have over information from it's own file and experts which stated that Lundy should not be convicted on the basis of degenerated dna. 14 years, adds a long time to history, or making the case 'historical' as our Prime Minister comfortably describes in his 'health report,' that neither mentions lack of funding, and indeed a Superior Commonwealth Court that New Zealanders are now denied by their own Government.

Turning to the comments of the Minister of Justice above, in particular this ,,,,,,"The decision from the Privy Council is simply that Mr Pora has been granted leave to appeal and so we now will go through the process and see what the decision is from that."
She said she could "not possibly" comment on why the Privy Council made its decision.
"I think it suggests that the Privy Council has found enough for them to be interested in looking further and that's quite a right thing to do if that's what they decide."  

We are treated to a version that is 'simply' that Pora has been granted leave to appeal. That 'simply' has been the highest possible hurdle for a convicted person, with no money, no lawyer, possibly no public interest in the case and a Minister that seems unable to comprehend is not in anyway the constitution of the word 'just.'

The worst feature of the Pora case will be that 'historically' it will be revealed that the police and Crown were in bed with the real killer Rewa, and essentially let him go to 'cover' their framing of Pora.

Correction added 2/2/14: It appears that Mark Lundy also did not receive Legal Aid to take his case to the Privy Council. This adds further emphasis as to how wrong the Prime Minister is with his claims that the 'justice system' is working unless one considers 'working' as meaning imprisoning the falsely convicted and leaving them to their own devices or the help of others to find their freedom.

Teina Pora, an imperfect man caught in an imperfect system.

One thing for certain about Teina Pora is that he knows how to talk himself into trouble. It was his attempts to frame somebody else for the murder of Susan Burdett to claim the reward that saw him being framed for her murder. I used the word imperfect for both the man and the 'system.' The officer in charge of the Burdett inquiry knew that he had an imperfect and pliable youth on his hands when he began to 'assist' Pora to confess to a crime that there is plenty of evidence he didn't commit. One of the former detectives on the Pora case now advocating for Pora's freedom recognised the imperfection and said that rather than being charged with murder Pora should have been charged with wasting police time. How could two men have such opposing views? The answer is easy, one man saw the imperfection, naivety and cunning of a 17 year old with the intellect of a young child as a pliable tool to 'solve' a murder that had been on 'the books' for some time, the other man was a thinker who worked toward the truth and not toward relieving pressure.

20 years of prison later and who is Pora? Well, no doubt there is a public expectation for some that he is 'matured,' of reasonable intelligence, someone willing to work and so on. But how can it be that a person of impaired intellect, street 'cunning' and poorly educated is somehow 'improved' by 20 years prison for a crime he didn't commit. It's hard, very hard to imagine how a 'street kid,' probably once a solvent sniffer with no education should some how be improved on the mere basis that it generally recognised that he is in prison for another man's crime. Thinking about that is important. Pora is on struggle street, just as Dougherty was before him because they have a background of neglect and crime - they are not somehow 'remedied' into good citizens just because the system finally acknowledges that they're are or were falsely imprisoned - their problems remain, in fact are deepened. These aren't good luck stories with a nice ending, they're bad luck stories with uncertain endings because the product (the men) have not suddenly been made good, rather they've been let out of a cell for a crime they didn't commit but which cell they may have entered for other reasons. These men are not the David Bain, Arthur Thomas or Allan Halls of this world, they're are refugees from a troubled life.

Looking at that imperfection of human kind brings into focus the imperfection of the 'system.' People like Pora don't generally get let go unless they acknowledge their crimes - even though they may have not committed the crime for which they are imprisoned. Follow this, 'even though you didn't do it, you must say you did or we won't let you go.' A type of 'doctrine' that is hardly of assistance in helping Pora, for instance, in developing a sense of what is right and what is wrong when viewing the system that has stolen 20 years from him. Get a little closer on that. The system demands a lie to let an innocent man go, whilst at the same time demanding the 'truth' as the Parole Board did in questioning Pora about a recent home leave. On the one hand they expect a lie, on the other the truth. Hard to keep up with, imagine then the difficulty for someone with the intellect of a pre-teenager.

Pora apparently had his parole denied for using the services of a prostitute whilst on home leave, and for meeting or spending time with an ex prisoner. When questioned about both he apparently wasn't 'truthful.' Well, not of  the expected standard. That is lying by admitting a crime he didn't commit, but being truthful for spending some time with an ex prisoner. How terrible, after all he's only spent the last 20 years every day with prisoners. The following is from the Board in respect of them denying Pora parole.

'This information was not given to the board by Mr Pora until he faced extreme questioning," the board said.
"Significantly, we find as a fact that he endeavoured to hide, deflect or evade explaining how and why he breached his conditions, and only revealed this as a consequence of careful questioning from the panel."

I written a blog earlier about Pora being in prison for 20 years for being a liar - the same reason it appears as to why he can't get out.

If you'd like to help Teina Pora win his freedom you can sign here....

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitions/support-an-urgent-independent-inquiry-into-the-conviction-of-teina-pora#share



Only takes a couple of minutes and may help provide a blue print for the removal from the tangle of the legal straight jacket which the wrongfully imprisoned face. As well of course as giving Teina his life back.

Cheers

Teina Pora what's going on?

I've written about this case a few times, knowing the bones of why it is a Miscarriage of Justice but seeing the interviews recorded on video as shown on TV3 last night was surreal. It may not be the first time in NZ history that an 'offender' when showing police a crime scene was unable to find it, but it would be a struggle to find another case where the 'offender' actually had to be shown the scene by the police. Retired Detective Sergeant Rutherford showed in that moment that he had lost perspective of being an investigator and simply wanted to wrap up a case that had been dragging on for 12 months. Anybody suspect would do, in fact Teina Pora must have appeared like a dream come true because he was fully co-operating in his own demise, totally unaware that rather than outsmarting police to get a reward he was preparing himself for decades in prison for a crime he hadn't committed.

Would a reasonable conclusion have been to Rutherford, or anybody, that Pora was simply lying and that because of his youth he needed to speak to a lawyer? Or is it the case that Rutherford was willing to over look all and simply lay a charge against the compliant teen who was already freely admitting (although not realising doing so) that he had been a party to rape and murder. Why did Rutherford break the rules and hold Pora without charge and without seeing a lawyer. Indications are that what Pora didn't know about the crime he had 'committed' that Rutherford would tell him. Rutherford didn't hear alarm bells ringing when Pora couldn't find his way back to the crime scene, was implicating others, didn't have a good description of Susan Burdett, was clearly 'slow, unaware that he was talking himself into a life sentence when in fact he thought there was going to be a reward for him in return for the convincing story he had invented. He didn't hear them because he didn't want to hear them.

I don't know the details but it seems that anything Pora  had offered was said with an inducement (the reward)  in mind and therefore was unreliable against himself or anyone else, another reason to insist he took legal advice. There was something exposed about Rutherford from the first minute of the interview, he claimed to be just 'sitting in' on the interview or  similar, but it soon became clear that he wanted Pora to know that he was the 'boss' in charge of the whole investigation. Clearly, that was setting the tone. However, Pora had been involved with Mongrel Mob he would have known there is a boss and what he says goes or some 'trouble' is going to happen. Rutherford would know the style and one opinion could be that he was impressing on the boy, that he Rutherford was the boss, others did what he told them, it was his turf and Pora would do the same - when dealing with 'natives' talk the same language, make them understand nobody walks out the door alive or gets a reward unless the 'boss' says so.

I hate to use a cliche but would any child/teenager from a leafy Auckland suburb be held incommunicado for 5 days, his freedom taken and not be allowed to speak to a lawyer. He needed to speak to a lawyer then to give this case credibility. It has none because it is a complete and utter frame up of a black, not so bright boy, from the mean streets of South Auckland - Rutherford knows that and the Minister of Justice and Commissioner of Police must also know that. They all know correct procedure attending any investigation and in particular one featuring a child/youth. The minute Rutherford diverted from correct procedure and the law the case against Pora was over, yet here we see that he has been imprison for over 2 decades, so the Courts have brought into it. I know there might circumstances where minor infractions of 'due process' could possibly be overlooked because of features of clear guilt, intention or lack of intention by investigating staff and so on, but this case there was a clear and sustained attack against due process from which the Crown ought to have been allowed no recovery.

That point is of course just relating to those many days when Pora was denied his rights, a time far earlier than when it became clear that Malcom Rewa was the killer and rapist of Ms Burdett. This case didn't go from bad to worse when Rewa's dna was identified as being on the body of Susan, it went to catastrophe and my mind boggles how anybody could be convinced by the defence that the lone rapist Rewa was having a relationship with Susan. Somebody needs to get real, she was one of his 28 or so victims and was convicted of her rape. He may have denied her murder and in fact been found not guilty on it but I ask why Rutherford, the police or The Crown simply didn't withdraw the charge against Pora, making it clear to the Jury that the Crown conceded that Rewa had acted alone, just as he had done in all his other rapes. Getting murky? Consider then that not only did The Crown not accept that Rutherford had railroaded Pora but they were prepared to accept the evidence of stool pigeons who were paid to give evidence that put Pora and Rewa together. When they did that, they were effectively co-operating in the commission of Rewa's false alibi, that he'd had consensual sex with his victim and that somebody 'else' had killed her.

I didn't know that the TV3 show was coming up until told yesterday about it. Recently however I had been thinking about Malcolm Rewa, or 'hammer' as he was known in his 'gang days.' Thinking about what a gutless wonder he was and still is. He knows that Pora didn't commit the murder, he knows he could tell the truth and it would make little difference to the fact that he will probably never get released from prison, but that it might help him in some way to have been seen to having admitted his offending and having at least the guts to help a man who has suffered for 20 years over a crime he didn't commit. Shouldn't Crown Law be speaking to him? Of course it should, but by the decision to keep Pora locked up when it became clear that Rewa was not only the rapist of Susan but that there was enough evidence to charge him with murder placed Rewa and The Crown in the same boat, one now that somebody must take the lead and get The Crown out of that boat.

Make no mistake, Rewa might have been the killer of Burdett - and without a doubt if charges against Teina had of been dropped when that DNA was found Rewa had a far greater chance of being convicted in the clearer waters that would have existed had The Crown not started paying for evidence. Where does that leave Rutherford, well if Rewa not only raped Burdett but also killed her, as evidence shows, then Rutherford effectively killed Rewa when he denied the boy due process and didn't have the guts to admit it when it became clear as day who the killer was.

I've got more to say about this case and the way it has been dealt with, and the way it is being dealt with now. I'll leave that for another time.

Teina Pora: Police let the real murderer go..

Some things don't fit, because something is missing in the translation, the description, continuity - even common sense. The unease with which the conviction for murder against Teina Pora doesn't fit is extraordinary, not so much flawed logic that supposes that a lone serial rapist one night changes his modus operandi to work with someone else who doesn't rape the victim but instead kills her and blames 2 innocent men - conceptually rare by any account.

In this case apart from the 'confession' type statement of Teina himself, the 'supporting' independent evidence comes from prisoners who sang for their supper. The police needed to somehow put the two men together at some time and as far as I know they used the prisoners to supply not direct evidence but indirect evidence of what they claimed Teina told them. Now Teina told a lot of people a lot of things, and that started with the police when he decided he was going to drop a couple of mob members in it and collect the reward offered for information leading to a conviction of the rape and murder of Auckland women Susan Burdett. As is fairly well known the big flaw in Teina case showed up straight away when he couldn't identify the street where the house was situated and once 'assisted' with that couldn't identify the right house. That Teina would identify members of the mob, of which he was a prospect of some sort, would also be a flaw because the mob was surely going to get to know who had 'fingered' them. But once a story doesn't fit why not keep going because that's what the police did along with charging Teina himself. So much for his reward.

Of course when the trial took place the two mob members were acquitted because they had a alibi, though Teina was found guilty on what must have been 'where there's smoke there must be fire' basis. So the boy that had wrongly fingered the mob for a reward was suddenly doing a life sentence even though he didn't even know where the crime scene was or  where the victim lived until the police 'helped' him by saying 'we know you are really a good boy Teina trying to help us solve this crime that we can't solve, and because you're such a good boy we'll show you the house and charge you for the crime anyway.' Who knows what the first Jury were thinking when they found Teina guilty, I'm not sure that they knew that Teina had been unable to identify the right house but if they did it apparently didn't bother them, just like it hadn't bothered the police. By then it appears no one at all was bothered because Teina had been found guilty and the crime was solved to everyone's apparent satisfaction apart from sceptics and sceptics are always sceptical about things anyway.

Malcom Rewa was a serial rapist who acted alone. He was also a long term gang member of a different gang to the mob. In fact the gang of which he was a member didn't get on with the mob, they were enemies, shot and bashed each other from time to time, things like that. From what is known from the record Malcom Rewa raped alone, apparently even raping under disguise women he knew or who were friends or relations of others in his gang. In the investigation which resulted from the arrest of Rewa for his campaign, that had extended over decades, his semen was matched to the DNA recovered from the body of Susan Burdett. As it would seem quite remarkably this led to a retrial for Teina and two murder trials for Rewa resulting from Susan's death. This was despite that Rewa had never fitted into the picture previously but was now suddenly the prime suspect. He claimed having had consensual sex with Susan and after two trials was found not guilty of murder but guilty of her rape. Meanwhile Teina, against whom there was absolutely no evidence that he even knew Rewa, apart from two highly reliable crooks desperate police had found and who claimed Teina had told them the 'real story,' was found guilty of murder again. The doubts raised by the fact he was unable to find the home of Susan Burdett as he anticipated being rewarded, and that his story accusing 2 others of her murder was rejected because the men had alibis, was overcome by a couple of gaol house squealers. Two men who told the story as incredible as any Teina himself had ever imagined, they put the gang boss of the Highway 61 a man in his forties together with a 'trusted' youth from a rival gang in South Auckland. Well, I guess bizarre be-gets bizarre.

In the circumstances it was important to have some link to the murder scene of Teina Pora, who couldn't even find it a few months later, some direct evidence, some persons or person who could attest to seeing the 2 together were needed - a normal enough find if it was true and impossible if it wasn't. Imagining for a moment that Rewa suddenly acted out of type and found an accomplice, put aside that the 'trusted' one was a youth who presented as thick, who was unsophisticated, had no car, no money, nothing - then surely there must have been a tangible link between the two, being seen together but no the 'link' came  apart from that from a prison. This, courtesy of men paid in some way for their information and breaking the 'code of silence.' Quite why Teina would ever have confided in them anyway clearly was not a subject of intense interest to the police who instead of accepting they had the wrong man in Teina and the right man in Rewa, with physical evidence to prove the case, clearly decided to 'kill two birds with one stone.' The first bird being the embarrassment of police officers willing to even arrest Teina in the first place, taken that he even needed police 'assistance' with his confession, the second bird being Rewa - probably unlikely to ever get out of prison but a murder conviction would take care of that. Remember they could not give evidence of seeing the 2 together, probably because they'd been in prison at the time, they could only give evidence that Teina had told them they'd been together.

I get the impression that there was some disappointment among investigating staff that Rewa's dna was located because it undermined their credibility, although not to the extent it has now. Looking at it from another way, without the bullshit evidence of the 2 prison inmates, and the evidence 'against' Teina himself, being able to be rendered as obsolete, if not by the common sense that should have always prevailed, we see that Police effectively got the real murderer off. Even though Rewa was already in prison for attacks on 27 other women beside Susan Burdett, and would return there despite being found not guilty of the murder, he was effectively let go because a man who there was no direct evidence against, a proven opportunist and an unfortunate liar, was charged. If Teina had been let go as he should have been there seems little doubt that Rewa would have been found guilty of murder because there was no alternative offender. With Teina charged there was, given to the Jury, an alternative offender, without him then Rewa stood alone, as he should have, as both  rapist and killer.

Just going back for a minute. The only evidence against Teina was that apparently offered from his own mouth. So the Jury, indeed the Court allowed the Jury to pick among his lies for the truth despite in the incredibility of his tale. Looking a little deeper, they were asked to accept that some of his lies weren't lies at all but the truth, and that what he allegedly told those desperate inmates was the truth - how can anyone believe it. I'm sure the investigating police themselves didn't believe it but it was better than being outed as being principals in a Miscarriage of Justice. I'm sure they didn't believe it to the point that they'd would still however let a unsophisticated young man be tried for a murder he obviously hadn't committed.

What of Susan, or her family? Her brother Jim for example, who was quoted just this weekend last, of stating he didn't believe that Teina was guilty but that he thought Rewa was guilty of the murder. I can only wonder how they must have felt when Rewa claimed to have had consensual sex with Susan. They've been let down in a big way and continue to be let down - why? For the reputations of corrupt or inept police that were allowed to take this nonsense through our Courts. At some point the Judiciary take the blame, they've watched patiently for 20 something odd years as police have attempted to put a round peg in a square hole. If this disastrous case made any sense to any of the Judges that oversaw the trial or appeals, if there was no common sense that prevailed as to the weakness and unlikelihood of Pora being guilty before Rewa's dna was located what greater explosion did they need than that when it was. What greater cause than to see clearly that Teina Pora didn't know the victim, didn't know the street in which she lived, didn't know her house and was no where near her on the night Rewa killed her.

Updated 4/9/12:

Having earlier watched the TV3 60 Minutes show I must correct that there were witnesses who claimed to have seen Rewa and Teina together, but no mention was made of the  inmate witnesses who claimed that Teina told them of knowing Rewa. Those that did claim to have seen the two together had no corroboration of the fact. I still understand that there were 'witnesses' brought from the prisons to relate what they claim Teina told them and the 60 Minute show could only cover so much. The police have never disclosed whether the witnesses were paid or 'assisted' for their efforts and a fair assumption is that if they hadn't been the police would say.

I didn't know until watching the show that Teina turned down going home a decade ago in return for pleading  guilty to manslaughter. A fact which has resonated with me as to the dignity the man has found in his life. I also didn't know that Teina essentially turned down $50,000 in return for dropping somebody in it. Of course Rewa would have been the perfect person but that would have relied on Teina knowing at that time that Rewa was the killer, which of course he didn't because he'd never met the man and never been to Susan's home.

I note the efforts of ex policeman Tim Mckinnell (sp?) in fighting for Teina's freedom. I was shocked that so many of the files that he'd been given by the police were blacked out - we could call that The Justice of Darkness.

Teina Pora: liar liar, pants on fire.

I've written about Teina Pora before here under 'Teina Pora 20 years for being a liar'. He was the 17 year old that tried to collect a reward for the Susan Burdett murder by dropping senior Mongrel Mob members in it as the culprits. He was a junior or associate of the Mob but not bright enough to connect that he would not only need substantial proof but that if he was successful and gained the $20,000 prize his life and that of his family would forever be changed. Indeed, he probably brought significant trouble to his family and friends in the gangland depths of South Auckland. Not to forget that he has now served 20 years of a life sentence, in the backyard of the Mob - prison. So he ran 2 risks, that of trouble brought to himself or family for 'narking' on the mob, being stupid enough to 'assist' the police in a manner which ultimately saw him convicted of a crime in partnership with a known rapist whom I have no known reliable confirmation ever met the youth. - then having to be placed in prisons with high population of mob members, being the 3rd and added risk which resulted from his dim-wittedness. You could call that his 3rd strike.

We have to look past the fact that Pora couldn't even find the right street when showing police where he attended the rape and murder as some kind of look out. Then when shown the street he couldn't find the right house. Any problems emerging? Anything to say hold on this can't be right? But placing himself there, both eyes on the reward, and none on common sense changing his story in order to 'help' the detectives, and in order to get the reward. At subsequent Court hearings and at Pora's 2nd trial the focus was not only on his reliability as witness even against himself but getting him placed with the serial rapist Rewa whose semen had been located on the body of Susan Burdett, evidence which emerged 2 years after Pora's first conviction of the murder. Evidence, which was alone strong enough to have an a retrial ordered, and more rightly has time has shown to have the charge thrown out completely. The Court was critical of the police 'selection' from the many statements of Pora of what was correct and which wasn't, obviously anything that self-incriminated Pora was acceptable to the police and that which did not was a lie. Game set and match and own goal for Judicial reasoning to let any of the evidence go ahead, when the semen was from a 'lone wolf' rapist with no history of operating with others? Has to be. But no Rewa denied murder but claimed a 'relationship' with Burdett, still he was found guilty of the rape but not the murder. He was believed and not believed by the jury, he didn't kill her he 'merely' raped Susan. I think if you wonder why that could be was because the Jury might not have understandably been unable to differentiate between the truth of what Pora had said and that which was lies, in my book too dangerous to go ahead with without strong supporting evidence. That is even before seeing how the police 'linked' the 40 year old serial rapist and the 17 year old dysfunctional kid - yes, prison informants. Any worry there?

I can think of a couple, inducements for one. Also that in a city of 1 million people the man and the boy were never placed together by witnesses who might have nothing to gain, or by forensic proof, even Pora didn't say that he was with Rewa. He instead chose to say he was with the senior mob members, his bros. So on this occasion Pora was lying, covering up for a gang member from a rival gang. A little disturbing to anyone? Well, think about those prison informers, put aside that they might not simply be liars, or wanting to get out of prison early or any other inducement, but why Pora would be telling them the 'truth' when the 'truth' he told in the beginning was not, in his beleaguered mind, to incriminate himself but to incriminate mob members.

So there are a lot of variables and a few constants: the later being no forensic proof linking Pora to the murder scene, no plausible explanation why he would be out 'raping' with a 40 year old serial rapist who was profiled as always working alone, no reason why he wouldn't have known the house in his own neighbourhood or even the street. All bad enough before Dr Gudjonsson, a world leading expert of false confession says: 'I have no confidence in the self-incriminating admissions he (Pora) made about his alleged witnessing and participation in the rape and murder of Ms Burdett.' This disclosed in an 80 page report forming part of an application by Pora for an exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. This adds to concerns raised by 2 former detectives about the case, one of whom profiled and helped find the lone rapist Rewa.

But over20 years has gone since the day Pora couldn't find the correct street or house where alleged witnessing the crime for which he had applied for the reward. 20 years and now he is nearing 40 years old and still in prison because of, on the arguments of many, not only a false conviction but because he presents a difficult case for parole. How do these things happen. How does a Court overlook the danger of dealing with Walter Mitty like characters, if not in the beginning but when the case becomes farce,  the real rapist and killer identified, the alleged rapists and killers exonerated, the 17 year old fantasist identified as being a 'plausible' liar when it suits the Crown with an implausible murder scenario and at all other times just a straight out liar.

Teina Pora - 20 years prison for being a liar?

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10806944

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/assault-and-homicide/news/article.cfm?c_id=124&objectid=10806923

Nobody deserves to be falsely imprisoned for 20 years even if they were once a neighbourhood lout, a wise-arse strutting his stuff and casing the hood. Even if that person demonstrated a propensity to tell lies to such an extent you got the totally unbelievable with the maybes. Where do you get off believing a guy like that, we all probably know somebody like that. Somebody where you finally reach the point you don't believe anything they say, without checking or being absolutely sure they're telling the truth.

Such people are a menace particularly in situations where people must rely on each others honesty to survive, where critical information must be able to be relied on straight away and not need an assessment of the truthfulness of the person offering the information. They're not the guys you want in the Army where your life might be put at risk, nor in security situations where a number of steps need to be taken to ensure safety of a machine shut down or start up, the freshness of food, the reliability of a water source and so the lists go on. Fantasists and liars are a danger, not only to themselves but to others.

Teina Pora from all reports was all of those things when he was a teenager and may still be now. But if you were a gang member, armed forces personnel, police officer then Teina Pora's danger to you increases because Teina Paora is also somebody that would drop you in it for money. He wouldn't care for example that you hadn't done anything but would accuse you anyway if there was something in it for him and if he could get away with it. That's Teina Pora, once a street slouch, leaning on the not so bright side, brown and down and out talking in a police station in response to offers of rewards for information leading to the conviction of person responsible for the murder of Susan Burdett featured in the Herald links above.

By then police were 12 months down the track with an unsolved murder, one with no apparent direction and clues. They were soon able to stitch up the fantasist to the point they could charge him with the Burdett murder and a load of pressure was off them thanks to the various stories a co-operative Teina gave not realising he was dropping himself in it. By 1994 Paora was serving life for the crime and 2 years later semen linked to Susan Burdett's was identified as that of serial, lone acting rapist Malcom Rewa. Rewa was twice acquitted of the murder, but remains convicted of her rape. Police still stuck with 'their' man Paora as being guilty and he was convicted a second time at a retrial in 2000.

So we have Rewa raping Susan Burdett but not killing her, while we have Pora linked to the scene only by his own inconsistent statements and no supporting evidence but 'killing her.' Time to have a closer look at Rewa. At the time of Susan Burdett's death he was a 40 year old 'senior' member of the Highway 61 motor cycle gang, this was the reason police said that he hadn't been fingered by Paora because he was scared to do so. Apparently, the Mongrel Mob of which Paora was once a youthful associate held no similar fears for Poara and he named at least 3 Mongrel Mob members in his early efforts to gain the rewards. Worth considering here that the Mongrel Mob often have young members and associates, some of whom 'take the rap' for older members to get their gangcolours and that type of thing - but mainly because they're stood over, threatened or have their family threatened. South Auckland could be described as the turf of the mob. And by the same token an unsophisticated liar looking for $20,000 would settle on the mob as an appealing, and persuasive group to fit the criteria of public opinion of South Auckland rapists. I recall that this may have been about the time of an infamous rap at Ambury Park at a mob 'convention.'

It should be recalled that when Pora 'showed' police where the crime had happened he couldn't find the right street in the first instance and then later when 'assisted' with directions couldn't identify the right house. Take a look at Rewa, going under the nickname of hammer, fit and fairly physical as a younger man but no enduring physical presence under pressure, tough except for when the chips were down or real tough guys about. Highway 61 may have been around from the sixties but their heyday was passed by the early seventies when the characteristics I've described of Rewa saw them ridiculed for being informants and renamed the Hideaways in many circles because of lack of courage in many street fights that featured earlier on before gangs settled down to their 'own business' and largely avoided feuding. Of course the mob, much bigger, and less sophisticated took longer to 'settle down' and probably could really be described as out of the public eye even now - largely because of lack of discipline and unity while using soft options such as kids like Paora once was to commit crime or nod the head to it. That was their power, coming back at individuals or their families who broke the already 'broken code' that operated among many of them.

So a brighter spark than Pora wouldn't have fingered the mob for a crime that Pora had no idea who had committed, if only for safety reasons and understanding how the streets work. But as the links point out Paora isn't blessed with brains. So it's a mess, a bloody big mess because the cops took an easy route to solve a crime, got their 'man' only to find out it was somebody else. True to this type of situation, they didn't shut down and have a think about it, perhaps have the evidence reviewed by an independent senior officer from another district see that there must have been a mistake, realise they'd pick from Pora's lies that which suited them for a conviction and discarded that which didn't. Instead they linked a 40 year old gang serial rapist who always worked alone, who in fact raped within his own gang 'community' to a 17 year old fantasist with connections to another 'rival' gang.

Bizarre enough? When the Pora case got to be reconsidered in the Appeal Court for the very good reason that evidence emerged that was at odds with every different thing that Paora had said when selling himself, and some people he falsely named a guilty, down the river The Chief Justice observed that the Crown had appeared to be 'selective' in saying that Pora 'told a pack of lies' about almost everything except his involvement. I note here that when Pora was convicted the second time the police had found 2  good old reliable 'gaol house informants' but still no direct evidence that he was ever at the Burdett home  before the day he needed to be shown where it was.

So we have the often routine miscarriage of justice tools at work, no direct evidence, reliance of prisoners singing their heads off out of tune and most of all the selective words of a psychopathic liar, the defendant himself. There are problems everywhere but a foremost one seems to have been the Appeal Court, when the Chief Justice pointed out the police 'selection' of facts to suit themselves how could it have resulted in a retrial where the only 'real' evidence were informers that took years to surface? Sometimes witnesses are not allowed to give evidence because of their unreliability, some times confessions are ruled inadmissible because they were bribed from a suspect in some way. In the Pora case we had a 'confession' that was totally unreliable from start to finish, undermined not only for that reason but because none of the detail could be  sustained by other evidence. In many cases a confession proven a total fabrication - in fairness it was too unreliable to go to a second jury. Once the remaining 'case' against Pora was examined it had one significant reason not to go to a jury - the rape of Susan Burdett by Rewa. The secret witnesses are an absolute joke. All they can possibly tell is there own versions of what Pora might have been saying, and more than likely of what he didn't say but which might help them out of prison.

The head of the inquiry Andy Lovelock now relies on the 2 convictions as proof of something, when there must be abroad opinion that the 2 convictions are proof of a 'conveniently' solved crime by a liar of convenience who has been rewarded with 20 years in the slammer. This is a case that would be pulled apart by the Privy Council, particularly where there has already been judicial note of the 'safety' of the 'confession' but allowed to circulate through police files, police prison deals and back to the High Court. What makes the police position even weaker is that they are now criticised for not releasing material to Pora's defence team, while at the same time a noted 'crime profiler' and recently retired officer Dave Henwood has given his opinion that Rewa, like the time of a clock, always acted alone. Henwood said that 'it's one that has stuck in the craw.' One it now remains clear that the police couldn't let go and which even our Chief Justice was unable to recognise it was a case to be thrown out along with all the other lies of Teina Pora.