Silent victims in Watson?

It takes some consuming, it's an outright horror. Imagine yourself ringing police in an emergency, or in the event of responding to a police plea to members the public for support to find or report sightings when the young couple Ben Smart and Olivia Hope went missing, only to be ignored because it was claimed to have be sorted out. Even sure that you had sighted them, or photographed them or the ketch it is believed they were taken captive upon the Antares. That's where the following 3 part video takes a viewer, real life under the microscope, a vessel and people tracked across the sea by a formidable team of people with experience unable to be matched by NZ Police placed under restrictions by the officer in charge, the now retired Rob Pope.

If like me your geographical absorption of the Nelson and the sounds area is not strong then these videos take you to the ketch entering and departing waters and anchored out from the Furneaux Lodge in the early evening before the couple would go missing along with a man and the distinctive ketch. The sense for me was that I was seeing the possible abduction that was part of Ben and Olivia's disappearance in clear focus but could not do anything to help. If I got such a  feeling from the well contructed videos shorn of any emotion and very little speculation, such were the repetitive nature of the ketch sightings, then it's hard to imagine the effect on those original witnesses who never had their day in Court to tell their truth, and not one manufactured for them and the public at large.

What's more the ketch you would see was massive in size, around 50 feet long, twin masts and unmistakable because of a blue stripe running through brass portholes. A vessel that was a sight to behold, which would first draw attention because it was a beauty to embrace. It was only with later sightings when a couple were seen on the ketch still in the same waters that some witnesses expressed surprise or concern at the awkward way the couple sat in the stern of the ketch, how they never stood and appeared not to move their arms that the beauty of the ketch would have begun to look like a quivering nightmare, bold, but dark, emerging from the facile deceptive beauty.

The video, titled "The Mystery Ketch", early on shows the identikit picture of the mystery man someone with longish hair unlike the short hair style of Scott Watson now in prison for 2 decades after the ketch was allowed to slip away. The almost drone of the narrator, no voice inflections, no voice projections just dull with no measure of horror as he explains as the production shows a mug shot of one Mike Wallace, sex offender and longtime criminal, the striking resemblance between the identikit picture and Wallace, a man who crewed on boats and who was an experienced sailor.

The narrator has the name of the ketch, The Anatres, his team, Maritime Research Group NZ, tracked when it likely came into NZ waters and where it was seen heading toward Furneaux lodge and when it left. They knew of it's then recent sale for cash. They knew of it's temporary Kiwi skipper (whose name spelling was not clear to this listener) when it was in NZ waters, a friend of Wallace, both unsavoury types according to the investigators.

"The Mystery Ketch" is in 3 parts and whatever views one may hold on the Watson case the videos are a must see. 2 years of research went into the making of them. I have no idea how many individuals formed the Maritime Research Group NZ but their work is clearly thorough and challenging. It demands a Governmental response. Perhaps for the first time, and I say this not forgetting for a second Keith Hunter's well known research and work on the Watson, that the video achieves something unique it takes Scott Watson and his wee boat right out of the picture. It places what could have been Ben and Olivia on the high seas in troubling and surreal circumstances. It potentially places the couple in the company/control of gang members entering the Federal Hotel in the days after their disappearance with Olivia calling out to a friend to help her. It traces a kombi very likely linked to The Antares.

I've written about the boating community before, their inherent eye for detail of other vessels, their interest in all things nautical. They have been effectively shut out from the case, disregarded by police and not fully appreciated or known by Watson's defence. Yet "The Mystery Ketch" shows how reliable these witnesses are, how fine the detail of their reports are, how they are backed up with photos and a continuity of events. Not random sightings, but sightings in sequence of The Antares being seen.

For me, I doubted the inherent horror that the couple may have become victims of members of a possible crime group who kept them alive for some days, sometimes in public view. That stuck out as critical to me and I retain doubts about that. The type of doubt that could have influenced a Jury one way or the other. That is the point. These sightings weren't for police note books or record sheets, they were for the Jury. Though more than that they were for the peace of mind of at least 3 families forever changed, The Watson's, Hope's and Smart's. In a larger way they were for the idea of community, watching for one another on the 1 hand and the right to a fair trial and truth on the other.

Police have told the public that the mystery ketch does not exist. That may be correct, but if the public are told the ketch does not exist then they are due an explanation of a ketch people did see and did identify who they say was a couple on board who looked like the missing pair. A large part of the mystery Ketch theory can be easily proved or disproved by listening to the witnesses that saw it, a Jury could then decide on all the evidence not the evidence the police chose to present and which in many aspects has since fallen apart, but also the evidence police chose to ignore because 'they had their man' as they told many of the concerned witnesses.

Of course it not the job of police to decide who 'their man' is, that is the job of the Jury hearing all the relevant evidence including that which points to Watson's potential innocence. I mention here witnesses referred to in the videos, they took photos of what most likely was The Antares  supplied them to the police who lost them. Yes, lost them. If they weren't ignoring evidence they didn't like they were helpfully losing it, or hiding it from counsel and the public. There is a photo that survived and which the Maritime Research Group NZ were able to get some kind of copy of, they duly magnified this port quality reproduction of a photo of a small boat that was tied to a wharf with a woman sitting in the stern which well have been Olivia Hope after her disappearance.

While the war police have waged against Watson and his family a war has been waged also against honest and trustworthy Kiwis who did the right thing but were ignored. It's a little too easy just to suggest that was tough and police were doing their job. But in fact police were not doing their job, they were restrained from doing so by the orders of the Rob Pope who didn't want to know about any other possibilities than what he had decided. That is not fair or just in anyway. It's also a downright dangerous precedent where police do not respond to murder or abduction claims, the very least police needed to do was a complete and thorough investigation of the alibi that was being presented by 100s of people completely un-associated with the case apart from having the misfortune of being ignored when many thought they could be possibly helping save Olivia and Ben, or indeed had information as to what happened to them. Those people will not just have gotten over that, many of them will regret the helplessness which befell them, in some cases the outright lies which were spread against them for being enemies of the noble corruption 'cause.'

While the following link is not directed specifically to "The Mystery Ketch" scrolling down will find the 3 links in the right hand column. It is eye opening and disturbing on the one hand and on the other a major disappointment that the Justice system has been firmly arraigned for breaching the standards expected in a democracy with respect for the Law. Something must be done about this because it is fundamental to not only the rights of the Watsons, the Hopes and Smarts - but all New Zealanders, including that special group who answered a call for help but who were scorned and remained scorned in their disillusionment of being ignored in a most telling way. People who are not enemies of the police, undesirables or trouble makers but the very people that come to the rescue of others and do not turn away from evil.

I suggest any readers should send the links to their MPs along with a note of their feeling about this whatever they may be. Some will feel that this evidence should have been heard 20 years ago but must be heard now for the sake of a whole lot of people including you and I.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwLVo_lFzHA&t=1170s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAGdHJpSmGk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJoW6qhHmn8

Gerald Hope 'unconvinced' by Scott Watson.

A North and South magazine article by Mike White in which he reports the meeting between Gerald Hope and the man imprisoned for killing his daughter Olivia and her friend Ben Smart, Scott Watson, is now released.

I hope to put some perspective on both the article and comments today by Gerald Hope that he was unconvinced by an 'elusive' Watson that he not convinced is innocent. First of all it is interesting to examine the possible motives of both men agreeing to the interview and what they may really have expected as an outcome. The interview was hazardous for Watson and his chances of parole, if he somehow convinced Hope that he was indeed innocent Hope had said he would back him in his claims of innocence. It's difficult on the basis of such ingredients that the outcome was going to be positive. One man is undoubtedly a grieving father, the other may or may not be innocent of the charges which have kept him prison for 2 decades. Realistically, with or without Hope's backing Watson has the Justice system sitting unfairly on his back whether he is backed by Gerald or not.

On the other hand whether Gerald decided he believed Watson or not, he was no further ahead - the mystery surrounding his daughter's disappearance is not solved, and hasn't been solved by Watson's imprisonment. I'm sure Gerald Hope understood that before he overturned the stone and spoke to Watson. As much as he may have wanted to be dispassionate, critical, the task appeared too great for any man who lost a daughter in such a terrible way. Having read the article and the Stuff news reports of Gerald's feelings about his chance to speak with Watson one thing is plain, he still doesn't know what happened to his daughter or indeed if Watson is guilty or innocent. But plenty was revealed anyway.

Those that read the article will understand perhaps for the first time, as it was for me, that Scott Watson is an intelligent man, that he is also justifiably bitter about his imprisonment and the circumstances which led to his convictions for murder. What followers of the case will have learnt is that Hope confirmed to Watson the assembly of the case against himself, the media manipulation by which police ensured they got their man, not necessarily the right man, but certainly the man they targeted in a very public way. Gerald Hope confirmed some of the manipulation by police including that of his older daughter Amelia, who over a period of time changed her witness statement to include the possibility that Watson was aboard a water taxi at the same time she was. This was proof of witness manipulation that Hope readily revealed - hinted at his own manipulation by police. Amelia Hope now joins a number of other witnesses in a catagory of those that were convinced that their evidence wasn't entirely accurate and accepted helpful suggestions that would get the bad bugger Watson inside. Most interestingly from Hope's admissions to this was his use of the concept of the ends justifying the means, he spoke of the trial being the most expensive of any to that time, his misgivings about the quality of the police work and his real disappointment that a mystery ketch was never ruled out or indeed ruled in which may have resulted at least in part of the mystery being solved. Gerald in his honesty told the public what many suspect about the Watson case, that essentially only 1 man was targeted and that therefore consequently it may never be known if the police in fact ever arrested the right man.

To a direct question from Watson, Hope revealed that it was police who raised with him a lot of information to convince him not of Watson's guilt,  but his likelihood of being guilty for reasons nothing to do with the murders of the missing couple. One of those, though how it could possibly be significant to deciding evidence or lack of evidence against Watson, was the unsubstantiated claim that Watson and his sister slept together. Watson, with some energy, wanted to know who had told Hope that story but Hope would not say although he generally agreed that it was all part of the landscape prevailing where evidence of guilt was sparse. In the subtext Hope was perhaps inadvertently revealing his deepest thoughts and misgivings - his doubt about Watson's guilt. That doubt of course folks is the reasonable doubt a Jury must consider, and one thing the interview revealed that since the trial there are more reasons to add to that doubt on critical evidence the Jury never got to here. At this juncture 2 points cross, Hope was inadvertently perhaps acknowledging the weaknesses in the case, and to my mind why it still remains a travesty that Watson's petition for Exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy was turned down, a result which since has never been appealed by Watson through Judicial Review.

Some questions from Hope to Watson perhaps showed the strain that Hope has endured all the years since losing his youngest child.

GH "Did you as some suggested, put all your clothes into a plastic bag and swim ashore?
SW "Seriously?"
GH "I'm not serious but I am asking you."
SW "No."

To be fair nobody would have expected a sudden confession of this type from Watson, again underlying the elements of futility expected from this meeting. One cannot help but think that Gerald knew that Watson certainly was not, about admitting, something he has denied for 2 decades. Watson, at least in part, knew he had the chance to get some information he needed, or at least have it confirmed that Hope, in his position, as a leading figure in the search for his daughter and Ben, was also a leading figure in spreading some of the myths arisen in this case. Though Hope did admit frankly anyway, that the missing ketch, the recanted witness testimony, the discovery of the 2 critical hairs from Olivia's genetic line in the forensic lab where a blanket from Watson's boat was being examined, was only part of his disquiet about whether or not police had got the right man. Disquiet which at the very least remains. It's clear by his own statements that Gerald Hope does not know if Watson is guilty or not and that it was unlikely that the meeting would have ever resulted in that.

In the paper Hope says that Watson's responses to some of his questions were rehearsed and absolutely silent on the more circumstantial elements of the prosecution case such as the disposal of the bodies in a sleeping bag. He said he was mute, unemotional, disconnected without considering that Watson was hardly likely to animated in rejecting assertions that he had rejected for 2 decades. It seems Gerald could not accept that the muteness and lack of emotion may have been from offence at being asked such questions when he was being truthful, or that Watson was simply bewildered by them or the lack of Gerald being able to appreciate he didn't know. It also appears that Gerald could not discern that events going over perhaps millions of times in the mind of Watson in the last 20 years would be in a monotone, almost a resigned defeat, that the truth of his innocence is obvious. Gerald I think fell into what would be a ready mistake, that Watson would know the answers to things he couldn't possibly know if he was innocent, and that not having those answers certainly did not mean guilt.

All of this it now appears turns on 'art work' taken from Watson's cell while on remand which Hope somehow getting a copy from police - no doubt to convince of Watson's guilt. Hope is quoted as saying that looking at the drawings he sees (in Watson) a disturbed person, even undertones of death and retribution. I think that more than anything else those comments reveal the position he has held for 20 years, that he doesn't know if Watson is guilty but that his interpretation of the drawings (which certainly are bleak and dark - like other art drawn before and since by 1000s of others) have convinced Gerald that Watson is disturbed and evil. Exactly what police could have anticipated when giving a copy to Gerald.

It's a little surprising on that point that Gerald who acknowledged the manipulation by police (and himself) of the media and the pubic at the time of the arrest and trials, holds such aloft as reasons for being convinced not by hard evidence, not by the finding of the mystery yacht or a credible explanation that it never existed, by the disclosure that the hairs found in the lab that were or were not those of his daughter, that identifications were no longer in question, that evidence had not been recanted, that it was accepted that evidence had been changed by witnesses in response to pressure or convincing by police and so on - had it's answer in a drawing stolen taken from a prison cell.

Gerald Hope plainly didn't get what he imagined he might, but which he no doubt realised would not be forthcoming anyway. Those with doubts about this case got no further ahead though they now have the admission from someone very close and involved that there was indeed witness and evidence manipulation by the police in this case - the signature of all recent NZ Miscarriages of Justice.

Thanks to Gerald Hope for that concession of the truth from the other side.

Controversial NZ criminal cases as 2016 closes..

Here is a list of the status of particular high profile cases, many going back decades which have featured prominently this year.

In no particular order, and only my opinions of course.

Scott Watson: This has been a interesting though another frustrating year in the Watson case. I had the chance to learn more about the case and in particular about the Watson family courtesy of a book published by Ian Wishart titled 'Elementary.' Ian, possibly inadvertently, gave weight to Watson's innocence and wasn't happy when I put the case for that in this blog:

Ian amply pointed out enough facts which showed Watson's innocence in a remarkable way even though as the title of his book suggests that wasn't his purpose. I 'got' Ian's facts but not his interpretation of them.

Aside from that I remain frustrated that the Watson case is back in the Courts for the wrong reasons, the right to be interviewed and to meet Gerald Hope the father of Amelia Hope. His Court cases should be challenges to the bull crap reasons his application for The Royal Prerogative of Mercy was dismissed. He's fought the wrong fights as far as I can see.

Teina Pora; This case has been important for many reasons, yet like other miscarriages of Justice the Government of the day have not been able to settle all the matters fairly and dispassionately. It isn't only that there is now a Judicial Review lodged over the Government failing to pay, without good and equitable cause, inflation for the years during which Teina was falsely imprisoned.

There is also the fact that the probable killer of Susan Burdett was not only a gang member but an active police informant, one who was let go at a time when he should have been being investigated for the murder of Susan Burdett. Malcom Rewa is imprisoned for charges that occured after he allegedly killed Susan Burdett, there is evidence that police that police let Rewa off the suspect list after which he went on to commit rapes for which he is now convicted. That lies open to be observed by the Government for the women involved, they should not be left to fight for compensation and apology - they should instead by reached out to by this Government and their agencies. It is known, and shouldn't need to wait until one, some, or all of the women succeed in some legal action against the system that let them down by error, perhaps deliberate error.

Arthur Thomas: Support of Watson, adds to his support of Bain and adds to his public statement some years ago that he understood what a tough time his imprisonment was for his late first wife, Vivian. For a man to endure what he had to suffer and able to put a true perspective to his lost first marriage takes remarkable character, and Arthur has that in spades.

Mark Lundy: A case which I have deliberately left to last for a particular reason. Namely, it's fairly accepted that retrials are often less than fair. But Lundy got the worse retrial in living history in my opinion. The Crown not only dropped aspects of the original prosecution because they were disproved but changed aspects to diagrammatically opposite claims made in the first trial and held onto bitterly for 15 years. But most of all despite international forensics having entered a phase of accepting that samples submitted with from a known or suspect known source revealed to testers, no longer being acceptable, the Crown used exactly the same unapproved for forensic testing and giving the evidence to the same in America Doctor Miller. When for all intents and purposes the retrial evidence had to be right they went back to the same pathetic tester and not one of thousand of approved labs in the world where origins of samples were not known to first testers, or indeed 2nd or 3rd parallel testers.s

I was fortunate to have the co-operation of a leading and many times published forensic scientist on this matter and his opinion, from his in depth and up to date knowledge of the Lundy case, was that ML is proven innocent by scene evidence.

I understand much is happening in the Lundy case and I am very supportive of it's chances to be corrected and ML freed. If ever a case needed a crystal clear narrative to put it in order this one case cries out for shape.

David Bain: What happened in the Bain case was plain to see this year for anybody with either 2 eyes or 1. The culmination was simple, what Binnie found by using Bayesian testing was DB's innocence on the balance of probabilities. What the Aussie retired Judge, Callinan, found by totally ignoring Bayes testing was a $400,000 pay cheque. The Government then paid off Bain to go away. Justice? Who knows, but at least it was Bain's prerogative to walk away on his own terms - found innocent by a Jury.

Allan Hall: Under the radar as always, just the way the Justice Department like it. A  middle aged white man of modest intelligence and size fitted up for a murder said to have been committed by witnesses who fought the attacker and said he was polynesian, youthful and large.

David Tamihere: Somewhat a late arrival in cases of interest to me. I always appreciated that Tamihere had been framed, of course that doesn't he was not guilty. I felt for his son and the hand that had been cruelly dealt to him when the late Detective John Hughes, who features poorly in a number of case of wrongful imprisonment, planted the watch in the young Tamihere's bedroom. In recent months I was able to watch an old video of DT's wife and late(?) father which was revealing of what his family was put through. DT's wife is a terrific woman, not in the least the way police tried to portray the Tamihere family.

The whole case has taken on a new perspective with my old mate, the formidable legal beagle, Arthur Taylor on the case. It's hard to think of anyone more capable of showing how Tamihere was stitched up by Hughes and his paid informers. Whether that can result, as it should in a retrial at least, is going to be a watching point for 2017.

3 Strike legislation misses the mark?

Possibly the most controversial Criminal Justice System Laws of the past decade have been the knee jerk reaction to the Weatherston  case in Christchurch where the Law was changed to close a 'loop hole' that was seen by Law makers regarding the defence of Weatherston in using provocation. A defence that the Jury rejected after finding Clayton Weatherston guilty anyway of the murder of one of his ex students Sophie Elliot.

The second would be the 3 Strikes Legislation, a improvised Law taken from the States and applied here in NZ. It was ostensibly going to punish the worst of the worst. It went onto became a hot political subject and would never be far from controversy and historically may be remembered for the most unusual reason that it's patron David Garrett, was forced to resign from Parliament for not having come clean about a checkered past. That past has never deterred him from voicing opinions of others, primarily anyone that doesn't agree with his often one-eyed opinions and apparent lack of insight. Somehow he thought Parliamentary Law did not apply to him by reason that he was a soldier of Law and order. He has written publicly about his desire as a youth to track down and kill gang members a statement which undermines his claim that he stole the identity of a deceased child as a 'joke.' He said he got the idea from reading the book 'The Jackal' about an assassin such are the contradictions of the man, he has never been able to explain what the joke was and certainly nobody else has. In the past  has also written about his admiration for Britain's hangman Pierrepoint in a manner that shows more of his vindictive nature that his apparent care for the Law. He is indeed a Lawyer who was stopped from practising for a time, has had unsuccessful marriages, neighbours speak out against him and his manner. He claims to have fallen on hard times and if there is any affection for anything in his life other than himself, and booze, then in must be 'his law' the 3 Strikes Legislation.

It's clear that the seldom used defence of provocation soon settled in the public mind as a non event although the legislation to ban it remains an awkward outpost in the fairness of a defendant not having available to them the opportunity to prove they were suffering enduring abuse, or physical harm and finally cracked - something that at least has the tone of reality of real life situations attending its cause. Many will, in my opinion, sympathise with those driven to striking out against physical abuse in a marriage, partnership or some other form of partnership that has gone wrong. Of course such situations will seldom result in death or serious harm to the perpetrator but there may be rare exceptions. Weatherston was not married to his victim, nor had they been in a long term relationship. She was simply moving on with her life and after killing her he claimed that she had provoked him, a claim that was rejected by a Jury.

In the following link there is a blog by Andrew Geddis which sets out his views on 3 Strikes and the predictions of Auckland Law Professor Warren Brookbanks who contemplated that the Law would actually throw up ambiguities and not capture the anticipated big fish Garrett promised. The Law Professor looks to be right as the first person to be 'captured' by the new Law was not the violent and dangerous type of offender that the public were told would be incarcerated for serious offences, and on their third strike serve the maximum sentence the law allowed without parole subject to the discretion of the sentencing Judge.

I have no intention to attempt to downplay that the man involved in fact frightened his victim, a female prison officer who he touched on the bottom for 1 to 2 seconds. But I think by any account it would never have made the newspapers, and also hasn't  struck satisfaction to the public who brought the idea that dangerous criminals were about to be thrown in prison and have the key thrown away. Instead it was a Clayton's moment, the bottom fondler received 7 years (with the chance of parole) for an inappropriate touch. After 6 or so years in the making, potentially millions of dollars spent and the public get a fizzer no matter how much die hards say 'good job.' The result is not the resounding triumph predicted. How much they must have hoped for a 'big name' a trophy instead they got a 25 year old who some would call a kid without any record of any type of sexual offence. One who according to the sentencing notes not only admitted the offence, but apologised, Even the prison officer, who was unnamed was reported, as saying that a long sentence was not warranted.

Where these points meet is a interesting place, a defendant who acknowledges guilt for a crime that he may not have been convicted of had he not pleaded guilty, a man who speaks apparently honestly of his remorse, a victim who doesn't want the door closed on the convicted man and a Judge who acknowledges that he had no alternative but to impose the maximum sentence which to his mind may have only attracted a maximum sentence of 12 months. In other words 3 parties reasonably in agreement about an out of kilter sentence that had to be imposed anyway because it is the Law. It's important to reflect that this man was not a 3 time robber or violent offender, he also was not a serial sex offender. As written above he had no convictions of a sexual nature. There could be other more appropriate situations where a 3 Striker might be shown to at least be fitting into the concept on which it became Law. Regardless, this one does not, and the 3S legislation (as Garrett fondly calls the Law when he speaks about it at every chance) has been years in the making only to prove it didn't fly. The prisoner was a teen at the times of the campaigning for this Law, blissfully unaware that one day he would have the less than enviable distinction to be the first 3 striker sentenced. However, what we don't know from the Judgement, as I recall, is if the prisoner even knew he was committing a 3rd strike offence when he touched the prison officer's butt. If he didn't, the labyrinth of understanding required of the Law would not appear to be reside in the very group the law targets.

I don't think that is the only short coming the first 3S sentence has revealed. Frankly not knowing all the details of the Law which does appear fairly complex, arguably far too complex for those intended to absorb the possible consequences of falling foul of the Law - I am left with the impression of another flaw, that a person on 2 strikes for offences of the same type can actually be dealing with that type of offending only to be tripped up for some other type of offence on the 3S calendar not committed before by he or she, even of a type which is arguably minor compared to potential more serious assaults.

If, as it appears, the Law is itself in fact an ass, only time will tell. 6 years or so on some will feel it is, others will not. This will take many more years before that becomes clear and opponents will always have the opportunity to point out its failure here. In the meantime perhaps the message has resonated not to touch the bottoms of other people. The Sensible Sentencing Trust, who pushed for the Law in a deal with the Act party have been silent about the small fish their net harvested. The Act Party leader on the other hand has said that it was a good job (the third strike sentence). David Garrett, the adopter of the idea from America who presented the Law to the NZ Parliament during his time as an MP has understandably defended the Law and marked it in someway as a credit to himself. It appears David Garrett may have possibly found favour among some groups who formerly opposed him for his manner, there were many speaking out with horror as to what bottom touching represents in the modern world. Who knows it may represent a chance to become a spokesperson for women in the future, after all there must be other crazy Laws somewhere out there looking for a new home.

http://thespinoff.co.nz/society/25-11-2016/that-judge-translated-this-three-strikes-law-is-batshit-crazy/

Arthur Taylor asks why me?

I don't know if that was exactly verbatim. But I have been told Arthur Taylor's most forceful question to the Court in his recent appearance to lift the name of secret witness 'C' was to ask why it was him, and not police, bringing charges against witness C, who I shall refer to as the hipster, so not to confuse him with other letters of the alphabet used to hide the names of other such witnesses relevant to the proceedings as they will unfold in the Hipster's forthcoming trial

What a poignant question that reveals how much the Justice System is upside down when it comes to secret witnesses. They can absolutely appear to lie and never be charged. Never has a secret witness been charged in NZ before over any matter relating to their evidence or the deal they did with police for money, favours or freedom. The Hipster would not have been the exception if not for Taylor so I believe his question should be answered.

How is that Hipster gave evidence in such a convincing way that some Jury's members in the Tamihere double murder trial were reduced to tears? Justice Fogarty had to deal with that results of that question which arose from the Hipster giving convincing evidence that was all lies. He told of Tamihere confessing to raping and killing the couple before dumping them at sea, he gave sordid details that understandably upset some Jurors in their shocking detail. Later one of the bodies would be recovered on land with different injuries from that which the Hipster had explained in detail, also the bodies were found miles away from where police and Hipster said the assaults and murders took place.

The story of the Hipster began almost 20 years earlier, or at least the police practice of planting evidence as recorded as generally becoming first noted in the Thomas case. A case which was also a double murder for which Thomas was eventually pardoned. Later, in the report from a Royal Commission that followed the pardon, it was concluded that evidence had been planted in order to convict Thomas, and that police had brought secret witnesses to the Royal Commission to 'prove' Thomas was in fact guilty. That didn't work because the Commission decided the witnesses, both prison inmates at some time, were lying - just as Taylor says the Hipster lied. Those were definitely not the first 2 prison inmates that had sung for their supper but from simple deduction in time it could be seen that police were willing to enlist the help of lying inmates.

So there would be little surprise that one of the younger detectives working on the Thomas case would some 20 or so years later, when in charge of the Tamihere inquiry, find not 2, but 3 inmates, lining up to say that Tamihere confessed a double murder to them, such was the reward for lying appreciated by prison narks and their enablers like John Hughes. It appears that Hughes helped the Hipster get early parole from a life sentence for 2 murders which he had pleaded guilty to, although he reoffended and continues to serve a life sentence. It was Hughes that found a watch in the family home of David Tamihere. He was also responsible for what was obviously harassment of Tamihere's wife and children. That watch linked Tamihere to the murders, was identified as being the same or similar to that of the missing Urban Hoglin by his family. It was around about then, I suspect, that many NZers paying attention to the trial became convinced of Tamihere's guilt. Around 2 years later when Urban's body was found in bush some 64ks from where the Hipster said he had been sexually assaulted and buried, not only did the body revealed different injuries that the Hipster had so gruesomely detailed but also the missing watch was still attached to the body.

What was revealed then were not only the lies of the Hipster but the total callousness in which the Hughes led inquiry treated David Tamihere's family. It struck me then as cruel and was brought home exactly how much the mistreatment had extended when I recently watched a video where David Tamihere's father, wife and son were interviewed. As far as I know they have never been apologised to, which sits just the same as Arthur Thomas, his family and his late ex wife Vivian who was accused of feeding the baby Rochelle after the totally fictitious claim that Arthur had killed her parents because her mother Jeanette had never opened a gift from Arthur when they were younger. How Arthur would know that gift was never opened has never been clear, what was clear is that the Thomas family were falsely besmirched by the same police who planted evidence against Arthur.

At the hearing for the application to lift the name supression of the Hipster there was a case mentioned as precedent, that of Travis Burns who was paid $30,000 to provide evidence against a long term friend of his, Chris Lewis, for the murder of Tania Furlan. Lewis committed suicide and Burns went onto kill Joanne McCartney in what many commentators have said was an identical crime to that Burns alleged of Lewis who had maintained his innocence before killing himself. If that is correct then that was another double murder in this deepening quagmire, but in the Burn/Lewis case around 2 years apart between the deaths. One man rewarded and going on to be convicted of a second murder of the same type he laid blame against Lewis for. Following Burns conviction police responded with an internal inquiry  from which they concluded that although the crimes were similar they were not both committed by 'their man' Burns. Arthur Taylor may have been busy robbing banks around that time, however I wonder what he would have made of the similarities in the 2 files police said didn't match.

Of course the progression of these double murder links with secret witness were not of concern to Fogarty J hearing the application to lift name suppression of the Hipster. So he would presumably not have been mindful of a fourth such case, that of Scott Watson. Watson was also convicted, in part, by the testimony of 3 secret witnesses. Or the fifth that happened just last year in the case of Mark Lundy who was retried following a decree by the Privy Council that he had suffered a Miscarriage of Justice and had his conviction from the early 2000s quashed. When he was retried last year suddenly a secret witness emerged claiming, as in Watson, Tamihere, Lewis and Thomas - yes a confession. There seem to be so many confessions being given to secret witnesses from prison that authorities could be considering confessionals.

So the depth of Arthur's question as to why it should be him bringing alleged perjurers to the Court and not police is evidenced in not 1 case but at least 5 is revealed. That's because police didn't charge the perjurers whose evidence was rejected by the Thomas Royal Commission,  they didn't charge the Hipster, didn't charge Burns, didn't charge any of the witnesses in Watson - despite one recanting, something which the police chose to ignore to keep their convictions against Watson safe, and didn't charge the witness in Lundy who heard 'his' confession from Lundy in the sentenced prisoners yard before Lundy was even sentenced. Why would police bat an eyelid, afterall they have been allowing their special witnesses to get away with perjury for years, since the 1960s if a starting point begins with the Thomas false convictions.

Justice Fogarty wrestled with this tiger and decided, most would agree rightly, that he would continue the suppression of the Hipster's name and that if the Hipster was convicted, as Burns was for another murder, that he couldn't blame on his own mate Lewis, then the Hipsters name might well be revealed just as Burn's name was. I say rightly because it is a tool for police to use informers whether I or others like it or not. But with that tool has come corruption of the highest order, not least that police have never once charged a lying secret witness. They don't want to charge them for fear others may not provide evidence in the future. In fact, in practice, police provide lying secret witnesses with immunity even though they don't have the power to do so, they do this by omission of their duty to uphold the Law. In ignore their sworn duty in such way is breaking the integrity of the Law in another. The message is out and has been for 40 years, do a deal with the cops, lie if necessary, even be encouraged to lie and nothing but good will happen for you if you have no conscience.

How far Taylor maybe able to lift the lid on this dark world where the good and bad guys play each other's roles is debatable. However, from some inference and information discussed in the Auckland High Court 2 weeks ago, the lid could blow right off the pot under it's own pressure. Maybe then Arthur will have his answer and the public for the first time have the opportunity to look into a very dark world kept secret by police, Courts and special witnesses.

I am of course am interested in what impact this may have on the administration of Justice in NZ, it cries out to be remedied. In the 1990s and early 2000s our Court of Appeal whitewashed the Tamihere case when the Hipster's lies were revealed. They said that his evidence not being truthful (or perhaps accurate) didn't matter. That isn't the function of a COA  that is the function of a Jury. No Judge or Judges are able to tell what impact was, or is, made on Juries by witnesses so persuasive, as in Tamihere and Watson, at least, capable of being able to make a Jury cry with absolute lies. The pattern of the lies began in Tamihere as far as I know where police feed details, or the witnesses pick them up from the news media and provide compelling testimony garnered with despicable gross acts difficult for any Juror, any person, to divorce from their mind. Particularly a Juror, how can a Court measure the depth of false testimony - it is an Injustice that they deem even to be able to do so.

In conclusion I will answer at least part of Arthur's question of 'why is  it me that has to bring the prosecution' - with the answer that it is because it is he (Taylor) who has taught himself respect of the Law and the sanctity of the truth before it. The same person taken away from his family for wagging school over 4 decades ago when Arthur Thomas was first put into the dungeons of Mt Eden based on lies.

Scott Watson innocent in Kiwi language.

The biggest surprise for me watching the TV1 show Doubt on Scott Watson last night were the yachties. Like everyone with  an interest in the case I had heard all the controversy about the Ketch that Guy Wallace dropped Olivia Hope and Ben Smart off  for the night. I had heard about the 'stepping up' rather than 'stepping down' across as it would have been had the group been alighting to Scott Watson's yacht The Blade.

But I had never heard Guy Wallace give his account with all the small detail which gave him credibility, nor had I understood fully the police attitude to him for not 'changing his story.' Nor heard from Scott's father and sister as to their experiences during the inquiry but mostly the explanations about the alleged cleaning of The Blade allegedly after Olivia and Ben's disappearance where it was revealed Scott and his sister had cleaned The Blade before the night the couple went missing. I had read about the claims that Scott had painted his boat after the disappearances but not that it was painted the with a stripe, the same or similar colour to that of the mystery ketch - both important facts that Ian Wishart omitted in his recent book Elementary.

Suddenly Guy Wallace and Roz McNally became real people with a measure of their personalities, honesty and indeed decency being displayed - the very same 2 witnesses used and coerced by police before they spoke out after the trial and said there identifications of SW had been incorrect, that they had either been misled or duped by police causing them to be mistaken. Both honest people whom it would be possibly easier for them to lie now rather than be tormented by something out of their control - but that is the people they are, average Kiwis with a sense of right and telling the truth.

However the TV1 show Doubt introduced by Chris Gallivan had more cats to let out of the bag which to me were an even more shocking than the character attacks against Guy and Roz if only by sheer size of the numbers from the New Zealand yachting fraternity. New Zealand is a group of isolated islands populated for less than a 1000 years, everything about New Zealand relates to the sea it bought our first inhabitants, it was and remains our passage to the world of commerce and livelihoods. New Zealanders are water people possibly second to none. New Zealand is a leading yachting nation, if not the leading yachting nation. New Zealanders excel in all sports related to boats, kayaks, yachts, etc designing and building. Generations of New Zealanders grow up with associations with the water, love to look at boats or any activity on the water as though doing so releases something inside of them, something like an affinity not just to the water and boats but the passage of the water and the sea that leads to a sense 'of community in isolation.'

When on the water New Zealanders change, it almost as though a clock turns back, respect for the water and it's dangers are foremost, secondly, would surely be for others sharing the water - New Zealanders naturally look out for one another when it comes to water. On the water there is no distinction, a person one meets might be a freezing worker or a doctor, an observer would be hard pressed to tell. Worker or doctor act or dress no differently to one another, both look out for others on the water and are ready to lend a hand without hesitation - meet an implied duty, watch out, and always wave. There is no hiding on the water or attempts to hide, no chance that help will not be offered or warnings given, all responsibilities are shared, often forcefully if required - each life on the water is precious. Of course there are exceptions and I am waxing lyrical somewhat but the sense of what I am writing about is real.

Just as the shock at hearing the many New Zealanders seen on the show Doubt were real as they were sharply brought into focus. These were people remaining upset 17 years after going to police in response to a call for help to find a double masted ketch. These were people that would, even with fear, help rescue others on the water, people who looked at passing vessels with keen interest, at every detail - they were salt of the earth boaties and yachties, some that wore clothes with paint marks on them and old sandshoes, others that wore the latest style of sunglasses and cut fine figures of fashion all treating one another the same just as the sea treats them with calmness and wild weather equally. Whilst I truly felt sorry for the Watson family, for the witnesses such McNally and Wallace who told the truth, the neighbour of the Watsons who refused to spy on them for police - I felt overwhelmingly sorry for those witnesses who did what was required of them as people who shared the water, who responded in a crisis and who were rubbished, not believed, told that they were either lying or mistaken.

I suppose that got to me as it caused me to remember as a child my father helping an Uncle build a boat, when for the first time I got the feeling of how New Zealanders committed to one another with boats and the water. Recalled how I later saw conversations on the water between boaties about where the fish were, or changes of weather, often talk about details of  a launch or yacht, discovered that it was normal to wave out even to people you didn't know. The same people you would help, or who would help you in a heartbeat despite that you may never see them again or had not seen them before. Those people that saw a Ketch weren't lying and weren't mistaken. How can I know that? Simple, there were too many of them, they were too knowledgeable and they had no reason to be poking their noses above the stockades, they knew too much informed detail - they had seen something they could never forget, they backed up Guy Wallace's critical account as to where he dropped off the couple. They also, most unfortunately, were rubbish by police after having been asked to come forward. After watching Doubt we know this coincided with Rob Pope taking over the inquiry into the missing couple. Many will feel, like me, that as a helmsman for the truth he sucks.

Moving on to the end of the show I was disappointed Chris Gallivan, who had presented the show so well.  who is also a Law Professor, specialising in criminal law - I think I heard him say, was without any ideas where the Watson case might now go. This after he so eloquently described the pre-conditioning the public and potential jurors got from Rob Pope which most certainly appears likely to have influenced the jury even if subconsciously.  When after the show a commentator on a blog site wrote that the Jury would not have been influenced by the secret witnesses who claimed that Watson confessed to them. No one can know that. Explanations that the Jury would have been warned about accepting the evidence also don't cut the mustard, one of them has recanted that is what is important and that a Jury never heard that or had the opportunity to hear what Roz and Guy now say that they never identified Watson, that they were tricked by police or bullied. Scott Watson was never given a fair trial, nor was he given a fair hearing of his Application for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, neither situations stand up under the NZ Bill of Rights, the Watson case is a travesty of Justice - those yachties were never heard from, not one of them (from what I know) because Rob Pope knew they were mistaken,  despite that is actually not his decision to make that is a decision for a Jury to listen and observe from their own experiences.

The programme touched on the critical evidence of the 2 hairs said to have been found on a blanket taken off The Blade by police. There was an admission by the scientist that there was a possibility of contamination, something well known to a lot of New Zealanders and to the Jury, who also heard that the extremely long blond hairs were missed by police searching The Blade and also by the scientist who carefully searched the blanket and who only them found after a subsequent search, just like happened in 2 other cases of Miscarriages of Justice were evidence was found after first searches - Thomas and Bain. The show did not mention that the same day the hairs were 'found' police had brought a hair brush to the science lab which the sisters had used.

Also what the show didn't reveal was that the 2 hairs could have belonged to Olivia's sister as well and been the subject of innocent transfer, or indeed been planted like the Thomas shell case was and like the Bain glass lens was. The show didn't disclose what would have been unknown to the producers and writers - the following:


The document states that “microscopic hair comparison has been demonstrated to be a valid and reliable scientific methodology,” while noting that “microscopic hair comparisons alone cannot lead to personal identification and it is crucial that this limitation be conveyed both in the written report and in testimony.” In support of its conclusion that hair examination is valid and reliable, however, the document discusses only a handful of studies of human hair comparison, from the 1970s and 1980s. The supporting documents fail to note that subsequent studies found substantial flaws in the methodology and results of the key papers. PCAST’s own review of the cited papers finds that these studies do not establish the foundational validity and reliability of hair analysis.
The DOJ’s supporting document also cites a 2002 FBI study that used mitochondrial DNA analysis to re-examine 170 samples from previous cases in which the FBI Laboratory had performed microscopic hair examination. But that study’s key conclusion does not support the conclusion that hair analysis is a “valid and reliable scientific methodology.” The FBI authors actually found that, in 9 of 80 cases (11 percent) the FBI Laboratory had found the hairs to be microscopically indistinguishable, the DNA analysis showed that the hairs actually came from different individuals.

So first of all there is the chance that the 2 hairs might have been transferred accidentally from either sister or a donor they may have come into contact with that busy night. The chances that the hairs arrived on the blanket after the scientist's research are unknown to me statistically at this stage but I shall endeavour to find out. There are questions over the 'validity and reliable scientific methodology' both with the blanket handling and searches, and the 'sampling sources' there is also an '11% chance, possibly higher with other variables confirmed' that the hairs if not accidentally transferred did not belong to either sister. All of this and the 19 or so creditable sightings of a Ketch should have been before a Jury that had never possibly been influenced by Pope's media campaign of  the alleged guilt of Watson before his trial.

.Scott Watson deserves a retrial. This Government has the power to recommend  by way of the Governor General a referral to the Court of Appeal. Let's hear from the voice of science about the probability of those 2 hairs being sufficient for a guilty verdict balanced against the word or McNally and Wallace and all those people out on the water who saw a ketch.

Teina Pora book In Dark Places compelling.

I thought I knew a reasonable amount about the dynamics of the Pora case however some of the detail from Michael Bennett's important to read book 'In Dark Places' were still shocking. Having finished the book I realise that there were always gaps in what the public knew of the fine detail in the Pora case. It was plainly obvious to this reader that Pora's second trial was as unfair as his first, that he was actually framed a second time. I had drawn a wide brush over this because it was clear police set Pora up a second time by having witnesses lie that Pora and the serial rapist Rewa, who undoubtedly to most people was the killer of Susan Burdett, wittingly put the 2 together in a complete and utter fabrication.

There was nothing different in paying witnesses who lied in order to put Pora and Rewa together than for the Officer in Charge of this case, the now retired Rutherford, to have genuinely ever been able to believe Pora did not remember which home he had allegedly taken part in Susan Burdette's murder even when taken to the street and been spoken to right outside the house. Rutherford had to tell Pora which has it was, and reflect that Pora was unable to even describe the late Susan Burdett. As Michael Bennett wrote In Dark Places Rutherford should have pointed out the wrong house, and when, as he surely would have, Pora agreed then the lie would have been in plain sight. But Rutherford didn't want that outcome, the pressure was on him for an arrest. The youth Pora, who had already been cleared on being involved, would do and he was on a string, a promise, a corrupt lie, and illegal inducement that Rutherford knew would never be honoured - immunity from prosecution and a reward that would help Pora establish something for his baby daughter.

I pause here to write that I have been disdainful of publicity surrounding Pora, his daughter and now grandchild. Well perhaps not disdainful but sceptical. Bennett's book put that scepticism aside in a way that now makes me feel uncomfortable about rushing to a judgement. The boy who lost his mother at the age of 4 is in fact a very loving parent something that is hard not to admire. There is possibly a reason for this, his endeavours to make something for his own family having suffered the loss of his own mother and a dad that walked out. His life was bleak, he watched out, as much as a child could do for his baby sister but by then he was in a situation of being passed around the family. One Aunt and her husband were very cruel and violent toward Pora and his sister. It would be the same Aunt who would lie for money at his first trial and her daughter who would do the same at his retrial.

Imagine that. Police framing him with the help of his own family, paid to do the job. One would think if he had ever in fact been the violent killer the police alleged then every provocation was made for him to explode in anger - but he never did, such is the poise and mana of the man.

So back to those video interviews which have always interested me for what went on behind the scenes, before the cameras rolled and after. In Dark Places succinctly points out one particular movement in the 'confession' between the camera being switched off then on again. Entirely out of sequence as to what have been said shortly before the video had been turned off, Pora suddenly admits on screen that he held down Susan Burdett whilst she was being raped. The ex police officer Tim McKinnel, who as the book unfolds, becomes clear as being the central figure fighting for Pora, notes later after watching the video he tracked down under the Official Information Act, that Rutherford does not look Pora in the eye. While the young man is smiling and assuming he has said, what was required of him to get both immunity from prosecution and a reward Rutherford knows he has just taken part in successfully duping Pora into a confession for a crime he didn't commit and didn't have the guts to look him in the eye. He has watched Pora dig his own grave for Rutherford himself to push the young teenager into without a blink of the eye.

Also revealed in the book is how the investigation into Rewa was set aside in order that Pora was convicted. Police did not want it known that there was a hunt on for the serial rapist Rewa whose modus operandi fitted the Burdett rape and murder to a t. On the subject of Rewa, previously known a Mike Lewis, the book describes him in a way that I never knew him. According to Bennett Rewa/Lewis, at some point Sergeant of Arms in the motor cycle club Highway 61 was staunch to the bone, the man to sort out any difficulties and not to be crossed. The Mike Lewis I knew was timid and easy to laughter in the hardest company, but no doubt the ex army biker with the name nick name 'hammer' could be the man in surroundings he was sure of. Someone has told me recently that they read that Rewa was an informer, which was unsurprising to me, also that some of the police were 'turning a blind eye' to the rapes for that reason. I think, therefore, that some of his many rape victims, may take a class action against police. Not in the same, but in a similar, way that Susan Couch took a sole action against the Justice Department for not safely controlling the parolee William Bell who killed three friends of  Susan Couch and almost killed her. That action resulted in an unprecedented, if nominal, settlement with the Justice Department, one that may have been more substantial had there been greater awareness at the time of the depth of the NZ Bill of Rights Act acknowledging that the BORA trumps self-protecting laws enacted to divert Government liability.

Returning to In Dark Places, the book lays out the already quite well known fact of the of the second retired police officer 'Chook' Henwood, by all accounts a remarkable criminal profiler, who while working for police as a civilian after his retirement, spoke out publicly as to his belief that Pora was innocent. In the context of the depth of corruption shown by the police hierarchy in not acknowledging miscarriage of Justice and fighting this remains exceptional, not only because of Henwood showing the honest man he is, but because Police top brass reprimanded him for doing so. The same top brass who would some years later apologise to Pora for stealing 20 years of his life from him because he was a willing victim working under inducement. But they never apologised to Henwood or acknowledged the police association president had also spoken out in an unprecedented
way. Where police top brass failure 30 years later to apologise to Arthur Thomas for his false imprisonment so inwardly protective of themselves felt it necessary to rebuke a retired officer who was driven by all the powerful things which make excellent policing - honesty and fairness being foremost on that list.

What Bennett would most captures in his book was for this reader the very special part of the Pora story. And it is a story more significant, or a least as significant, as the death of Susan Burdett. It is a story of salvation of some sort, therapeutic, if but for a moment you may feel the shoes fit you -  cast down orphan, stripped of family and freedom thrown in the dungeons for a crime he obviously never did from which he grows immeasurably strong and at peace. Of all the things that most tell this story to me is that part, overcoming adversity with the absence of hatred.  Consider the recent television interview with Pora and the man afraid to meet him, Rutherford the ex cop in charge of this case. When Pora was asked what he would say to Rutherford should they ever meet and talk as they had for all those days when Rutherford had convinced Pora to trust him, plying him with petty gifts of food and cigarettes to the child like teenager and promises of 1000s of dollars to confess to a murder he had never committed. Pora replied that he would forgive him.

How much that statement constructs who had the mightiest power in the Pora case, the police, the state, successive governments and prime ministers who all turned a blind eye to his false imprisonment, or the man himself Pora, never killed, never bowed by his anonymous enemy called justice, that of a 1000 faces changing in the mist. It was Pora who won with his dignity, his power to forgive and for the love of his family. I wonder what Rutherford thinks of that.

Callinan's report of Bain compensation undefendable.

Minister of Justice Amy Adams told the public that it was a preferred way, in the public interest to go a bob each way on Callinan's opinion that David Bain was not innocent by some magic formula that didn't hold water. That bob each way bet was to deny compensation but pay  close enough to a million dollars anyway by reason that the compensation claim was tardy. Or in other words it had been delayed for years by the Government itself dithering perhaps on how to avoid acting fairly.

By doing this the Government was using an Executive Power. There is no Law that requires a government to make or deny payments to those applying for compensation. What is clear however is the use of executive power, according to NZ Law, and exposed by David Bain having already used Judicial Review (JR) against the application of Executive Power (EP), is a recognition that petitions  for any request under executive Powers are not constrained in scope - but their treatment must adhere to the NZ Bill of Rights (BORA). Since 30 years ago when then Prime Minister Rob Muldoon pardoned Arthur Thomas and awarded him compensation of around a million dollars one could say it has been a long time between drinks from an era when there was no BORA. A long time since EP was used in a forthright way that was understood to have been applied when the legal system was locked into a Miscarriage of Justice. It could be argued that Muldoon was before his time or that he was misusing a Power - although few New Zealanders did not agree with his actions at the time, or his good sense to order a Royal Commission whose determination supported Muldoon's instinctive measure.

Since then unfortunately use of EP has become clouded in political interest and no doubt was before. Another 2 generations of politicians have failed to separate themselves from politics when considering the Royal Prerogative of Mercy in particular. Scott Watson's application took 4 years to be decided and has waited a further 4 years for his decision to seek a review of the decision. Of course such delays favour a Government, time cures all ills, or at least urgency to correct things which may be wrong in the Judicial process - the very reason why EP and JR exist.

So to recap, Muldoon acted where he could plainly see a Miscarriage of Justice. This act was similar to what any Government since could have done in the Peter Ellis case, or could do now. Amy Adams acted where it was obvious that the Government's report commissioned from Callinan was hardly worth the paper it was written on  - putting it another way of course, saying that she had been told that it would be reviewed. Did she do this out of generosity to the principle and heart of what the use of the RP was designed to do? Or was she merely being pragmatic? For all intents and purposes it doesn't matter because others, including politicians, have seen the broadening of scope of Executive Powers on the one hand, and the more sobering reminder on the other, that their decisions must be advanced carefully in respect of the BORA and are not tempered in scope.

With the inevitable advance in the shelter of the BORA Judicial Review is an opportunity, as the Bain case showed, to have a fair application of the concept of Mercy brought before any Government knowing that the Courts are not excluded from the process of that application, or from what the Government considers and how, any matter in fact that might constitute relief to a NZ resident. These are some of the true concepts of what mercy is, a recognition that a system may stall or fail at some point where fairness appears to be gone. It wasn't fair for David Bain to have his application delayed for years because of the conduct of a previous Cabinet, many of whom remain in the current cabinet. It is still not fair that his application was denied the use of forensic science at the cutting edge, however that remains alive for another day and is in fact in print in international, peer reviewed papers being used in Courts, forensic science labs and Universities throughout the world. Time will submerge the resistance to science that was indeed the Callinan report. He may yet be seen as a fool who wore no clothes in the face of reality. He did however, even in his fumblings, preserve some truths that had previously been hidden. He acknowledged that suicide was possible (though it could hardly be denied), he acknowledged that Robin Bain died with blood on his palms - something that can't have got there from his own wounds, he vicariously acknowledged what Martin Van Beynan lied about for over 20 years -  saying that there were no scratches found on David's chest after Van Beynan had claimed there were and that they had arrived there when David had allegedly fought with his younger brother Stephen. History will preserve that the man who died with blood on his palms got that blood there in the commission of murdering his family. A preservation supported by science that Callinan, wrongly, foolishly, perhaps even deliberately excluded to deny David Bain Justice - acts and omissions which were all part of this Government's unprecedented decision to pay an unsuccessful suitor for fairness cash to go away. They were over defending a crock of crap.

A chance to make a point in the Bain case and other injustices.

www.davidbaindonate.nz  


Surprised by the link above sent to me today by Roger Brooking who has started a Give a Little campaign to raise a million dollars for David Bain. But the Bain case has been full of surprises in all the years I have followed it since 2008. I needed to think about aspects of the idea of a campaign to do what any Government should do when a man is released after 13 years of false imprisonment, and after a retrial found not guilty. It shouldn't by any means, convolute itself to avoid that the State had let a single man down for a decade but wished to accept no responsibility.

This game of not guilty but not innocent on the balance of probabilities was thought up by mad men and is exercised by fools to this day. It should be rejected. Rejected on behalf of men such as Arthur Thomas, his late wife Vivian, Allan Hall and his family, along with others such as Peter Ellis who still wait to be treated justly by our Criminal Justice system. In Bain it was rejected by science but the Government chose to ignore that. People are convicted or acquitted on science and have been for at least a century, leading to the conclusion abroad that David Bain while innocent was denied the chance to prove his innocence with science. As earlier posts show his father was over 30 times more likely to have suicided than been murdered, the probability of his suicide was calculated at 97.3% but the Government agreed to let the appointed adjudicator of compensation, retired Judge Callinan to ignore that along with a heap of other stuff. He even got to tell porkies without rebuff.

So this idea of Roger Brooking is a chance to remember that New Zealanders convicted of crimes of which they may be innocent can no longer go to the esteemed, Centuries old Privy Council for an international perspective in the home of our NZ law. It's a chance to remember that Justice in New Zealand is not a fair fight because an accused person is denied equal footing to the Crown if they plead not guilty. Bain's team was small, as was that of Peter Ellis's, Allan Hall seems to virtually have had only his mother, and a brother from memory - even pooled together they were afforded little chance to win.

You may think David is guilty and that is your opinion of which you are completely entitled. But you may not feel the same about one of the others listed, or those imprisoned still in controversial cases such as Watson and Lundy. It doesn't matter, but if you have a view on any of these cases, or others - then see the opportunity to send a message.

A message to people like Pat Booth, Chris Birt right back 40 years and many others since that you heard them, recognised their fight for what they had come to believed in. If you have ever anguished over why men abandoned careers in kindergartens because of the Ellis case then think about this opportunity. Think also of those to come, even someone you might know who could get swallowed by the Justice system for a crime they didn't commit. Think of yourself, how even if desolate and laid waste someone might remember you and take a stand for your rights after they had been trampled on with methodical disregard. Think of that, also of when you helped another or they helped you.

It's worth a dollar or 2, just to remember and remind yourself that Justice should stand for us all.

Cheers.

Why is the Government afraid of Science?

Onlooker, quite naturally asked about the following link on the previous post. So for his or her benefit it is embedded below.

I have a personal interest in this not only because of the Bain case, but also despite it, because of what Bain demonstrates, particularly in the Callinan report, is the rehashing of what people have said in an ongoing analysis that has no definite or logical end. It's no accident that I have primarily only been interested in Robin's death, there is no other story in this case in terms of understanding  what happened. To understand what was going on in Bain I needed to understand what may or may not have happened in the lounge, often I found myself in online conversations about what somebody said months or years after the 5 deaths. Distracting as it was it drew me closer to trying to understand if Robin had suicided, Sure, I asked questions about both men's hands, injuries they might have had but such questions were information about what may have happened in the lounge. Finding out that Robin's blood/dna was in the barrell send me off on a search as to how it could have possibly got there, it goes on from that point of course but I am not intending this to be a rehash of things I have written about before.

This is about friends science and logic. Of course they are not friends at all but rather tools of measurement and assessment, probability. They will destroy a misconception or create a discovery. In Callinan's report they were not even allowed in the door, it's hard not to assume that was because science gives a probability of Robin's suicide at 97.3%, over 30 times more likely to have died from suicide than murder. The public has been sold short. There are 3 other cases at least where Bayesian testing should apply in the category of being able to resolve deep inconsistencies that have not been resolved. One is the Watson case, another is Lundy. I think it would be enlightening to know the probability of Watson going aboard a boat he was rafted to in order to socialise with those on board while he had dead bodies, or at least restrained victims, aboard his yacht. Or for him to wave out to passing vessels while he either had bodies on board or his yacht yet to cleaned of horrific crimes. The likelihood of a man who built his own yacht, and knew how well it was known, could think that painting it a different colour, but still having the same skipper., was unrecognisable in a small harbour. Not forgetting 2 highly visible hairs to be missing one minute and found virtually the next, just when needed. More of course,  including the probability of those things happening both in isolation but also the continuity that the Crown case required to get a conviction.

Then there is Lundy with its mad car trips, slow or fast, depending on which ever story the police really meant in the case that has changed fundamentally but never from the fact that so called brain matter was dark with decay and unrecognisable to  New Zealand scientists who refused to make tests upon the tiny spots. I'd like to know the probability of Glen Weggery or any other of those who entered the house after the murder of Lundy's wife and daughter not having blood on them. Therefore the likelihood that Lundy could have a spot on his shirt said to be spinal matter which left the body of his wife, when her head was cleaved open with an axe or some similar weapon, but not bring any neurons or blood with it, unlike samples found in the house where both blood and neurons were found intact like skin to a corpse. Examples of central nervous tissue separating from spinal fluids having neutrons missing and no signals of blood inputted to a bayesian testing and given a probability level. It goes on every step of the way as to how  alleged spinal cord matter from Christine, that was unrecognisable and untestable not half a day after her death, had expired rapidly in the normal expected fashion having left the body but that a small spot naked to the eye, and therefore more rapidly probable to deteriorate somehow survived outside the control of the exhibits officer.

There is also the Tamihere case which would benefit from a Bayes testing but which for the moment continues to be litigated and hopefully the NZ Court of Appeal will be finally tasked with accepting that perjury strikes at the heart of a conviction rendering it worthless in Law.

Science is not the enemy of the truth. Binnie's report embraced science, Callinan ignored it and the Government made no objection despite the following being available to them and their own scientific advisors, not a single reference to independent scientists for comment on an internationally peer reviewed paper that is ground breaking in its clarity and logic was sought, not one. Congratulations to those authors and those that peer reviewed the work. Where men dally science moves forward, in a new age of science and development NZ has chosen antiquated pre-Magna Carta Law abandoned nearly 1000 years ago and also excluded a 1000 of years science since. Just? Never.

As the previous posts quotes, and indeed includes the paragraph on the conclusion of the probability of Robin's death as suicide in the region of high 95% plus, the reference to Robin specific test is found in the case note documents.





Homicide or Suicide? Gunshot Wound Interpretation: A Bayesian Approach

David Bain robbed of compensation?

Apart from those that had invested in David's alleged guilt to a point they were blinded, there was likely to have been a feeling for the others that David Bain's compensation claim would settle the case once and for all. David being offered nearly a million dollars to essentially go away was an unsatisfactory conclusion as time is already showing. The public were entitled to a final accurate as possible narrative, one that went step by step through either his guilt or innocence. They got neither. While some ex Dunedin police may have felt satisfied, it would have simply been because of the false hope of relief. The Callinan report made public for less than a week has already been exposed as being stitched together for a purpose. Few people will ever know what drove Callinan to ignore proven evidence but accept alleged evidence discredited years ago. He did not succeed in writing a narrative that connected accepted, and proven scientific facts, together  even in the most basic ways.

A mystery, or a confusing event can be solved and put into some order. The human characteristic of instinct is displayed in the Bain case in a way that will eventually be seen as an example of how to apply critical thought to an event in order to resolve its detail. In Bain there have been 2 distinct lines of thought. Those following 2 lines have generally been widespread across the population, some that might have been expected to have been on one line have surprisingly emerged on the other, however to their credit a majority of people interested in the Bain case have been open minded. My observations have been that one group starts from outside the centre and tries to work to the middle, the other do the opposite. For those that have started in the middle to succeed they have needed to be disciplined and not easily distracted. For those that have started from outside the middle they have been distracted immediately, if they have made a decision before been satisfied about the middle they have failed to understand the case, if they have made a decision but been open minded enough not to be frightened that they might be wrong they very well may still have succeeded in reaching the middle. On their way they may well have seen those going in the other direction - center to periphery, and wondered why they were not taken so much by that which absorbed those coming from the other limits. Not realising of course that those have completed their job in the middle of the case were looking only for supporting or non supporting issues in order to reconcile one way or the other what they had already determined. In other words looked for support for their finding or dealt with converse events in a way that made sense of them and judged their importance to see if it could indeed confirm their opinion or negate it - certainly not closed minded.

Where is the middle and where is the outer line? Clearly the middle is what happened around where Robin's body was found. The outer is in conversations, events that might have many different meanings far away from that lounge scene. If every person who played a role in this tragedy is set aside for the moment, apart from the dead body of Robin there is only one true narrator - science, to observe all the random details and paint a picture of whether Robin suicided or not. After that, all the peripheral information becomes relatively meaningless. Along this trail there have been a few scientists, one in particular who destroyed his own credibility by maintaining he did like Joe Karam's manner when meeting him at a book launch in Dunedin. Thus demonstrating a very un science like attitude which permeated through his views of the case, his centre was his dislike for Joe Karam - in reality the very outer edges of what happened in the lounge. There have been at least 2 others, both becoming friends along the way. The first Rowena Cave who took only a scientific interest, made comments related to that and stuck with logic in an open and friendly way. The second was David Giles, whom I'm still unsure, and I must ask him about it one day, apparently began with the premise that Robin was not guilty.

Rowena is English, David a Kiwi. Others who may have closely followed this case could be aware that Rowena, neutral as she was became a target of the Justice for Robin Bain group, as would eventually David along with unfortunately, the Jury from the retrial. By necessity this entire group, although I can't say for sure that included all the Jury, began with Robin's body and worked from there looking for a resolution of the question was it David or was it Robin. After the retrial David found the gsr marks on photos of Robin's thumbs, something confirmed by Dempster the pathologist as not being present at autopsy but still discarded by the myopic Callinan who rejected all scientific data provided by the defence. Consider that a retired Judge rejects science in favour of what people said before or after the tragedy, some in fact years later as a sure sign of deceit. He was into the gossip not the science. From the way it looks he also rejected the remarkable work of Rowena Cave, Vincent Diamo and D Kimberly Molina who applied Bayesian testing specifically to the evidence found where Robin laid dead and found using that mathematical reasoning that the probability of Robin having committed suicide was 97.3%. Their paper was peer reviewed, published and his now being used throughout the world. A paper of considerable undertaking peer reviewed internationally havng withstood the critical scrutiny of sharp trained minds.

I don't think there can be a clearer example to support starting in the middle rather than working backwards through conversations of what people said who possibly were never in that lounge. So is displayed Callinan's error. However, there is more of interest here, much more that adds to the argument that David was in fact robbed of at the very least an apology. Cabinet were right up to their necks with this decision that further evidences another miscarriage of Justice perpetuated on David Bain by the State. When I read Ian Binnie's report that found David Bain innocent on the balance of probabilities, and which was swiftly thrown out after being subjected to a secret review criticising Binnie for not using a Bayesian approach I was mystified. From what I read Binnie had clearly demonstrated a Bayesian approach it was evident throughout.

Listening last night to an hour long interview with Joe Karam I heard that Ian Binnie, like the defence had never been told that the Binnie report was under review and certainly not the reason. Binnie has since said he had been informed as he should have been it would have simple for him to explain to the reviewer how he, Binnie, had used Bayes, and demonstrate how that was shown throughout the report. Fast forward to the Callinan report where it is revealed immediately that he doesn't use a Bayesian approach, in fact in a supplementary report confirms that. So what did happen in the Binnie report, a Bayes approach, was rejected on the pretence that it had not been used. Callinan on the other hand doesn't use Bayes and his report is acceptable. That he also rejects scientific data is accepted without comment by the Government. His report was written using gossip as its foundation, evidence already discarded because of being found wanting was resurrected by Callinan. He was absolutely silent on Robin's alleged misuse of a firearm to threaten a neighbour in Wellington, Margaret's letter of concern that her husband would shoot the lot of them (the family.)

Amy Adams realised that the Callinan report wouldn't survive a judicial review, but why didn't the cabinet at least turn to Dr Peter Gluckman to review the scientific evidence that Callinan refused to consider. Peter Gluckman is foremostly a scientist whose skill is often employed by the Government. He is well respected as a problem solver, he could have been invited in to look at the scientific evidence that was part of the application, met with the scientists and attempt to establish some consensus to take to Cabinet. Remembering that not only did Callinan reject considering scientific data he also attacked perhaps NZ's leading forensic psychiatrist who dealt with David Bain, Dr Brinded.

What is left? The truth is, David is innocent and part of this Government have rejected that truth with its scientific basis. David has been compensated without the word compensation being used. The Appeal Court of the 1990s remains vilified for it's efforts in the Bain, Watson, Tamihere and Pora cases and that may only be the beginning.

Follows the link to the Karam interview
The Murder/Suicide Paper details, and the paras relating to Robin Bain's death.

Cheers.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/82751626/editorial-bain-decision-good-for-taxpayer

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24781397

Hi,

Here is the paper you are looking for.If you read the case examples section  you will see the following….

"There was a single shot (more likely suicide), at contact range (also more likely suicide), to the left side of the head (more likely homicide). Because the head loca- tion data are not independent, a Bayesian network was developed to produce net probabilities for this combination of factors being suicide or homicide. As Figure 2 shows, each factor is repre- sented by a node. The data in this study provided the probability for each factor. The resulting probabilities of suicide (P = 0.0371) and homicide (P = 0.0010) show that suicide is more probable than homicide, giving an LR = 36.4. That is, a case with this combination of features is more than 36 times more likely to be a result of suicide than of homicide. “

This  example used to illustrate the technique  is Robin Bain.

"LR=36.4  , this means that it is 36.4 x more likely to be suicide than homicide. In percentage terms this means 97.3% probability of suicide and only a 2.7% probability of homicide.You can see why Callinan needed to avoid  consideration of the Bayes evidence."

You have to give credit to the ministry of " justice” for their well orchestrated PR campaign.Their idea to get a fiction writer was just brilliant.

Cheers

Who can be happy with the Bain decision?

David Bain hopefully will be happy with the Callinan decision even if it in parts reads like a comic book for the befuddled.  David has now been found not guilty by a Jury, innocent by one reviewer with a 2nd reviewer sitting on the fence with barb wire stinging his bum in a report that has resulted in a long overdue payout to David Bain.

Each person reading Callinan's report, and his comment in para 64, that he wasn't prepared to say either murder or suicide will find different matters of interest to them.  The overall outcome from my point of view is that David Bain gets paid compensation and more than likely than not

receives other concessions that reconcile with the consistence of him being found, both not guilty by a Jury, and innocent of 5 charges of killing in a review that made the then Minister of Justice puke. Metaphorically, David Bain was asked to pick hot coals from which the outcome would be proof of his guilt or innocence, despite those practices from the middle ages - he showed no scars This is a victory for sanity after a bewildering case that can be classed by 3 things: 'not guilty, innocent, I don't know.'

Even the apparently mortally wounded people who insisted David would not get a cent, still refer to the Binnie report. The report prevails over time and the shabby treatment afforded it from our Government. It will become part of NZ history, this payment if finalised will prevail as one of the largest compo payments in NZ history despite whatever name given to the payment. It will enter folklore that the Crown negotiated their way out of misusing the Binnie report, then protected itself with a settlement offer to avoid having the Callinan report dismembered in the Courts. Pragmatically why would they not want to bail out - should have done so years ago and saved around 50 million that could have been more usefully spent elsewhere rather than vainly trying to bury a Miscarriage of Justice.

The Callinan report is in itself a travesty. Callinan was not empowered to place himself in the role of a Jury. The Privy Council have ruled that it is not the role of Judges or Courts of Appeal to assume the role of a Jury. This report has weakened confidence in the Crown absolutely standing by Juries, but the Jury system will prevail despite Callinan giving himself god like powers to assume what a functioning Jury should have decided. Callinan was getting paid to deliver something that was already tagged as having to satisfy the Government, as Binnie found out - but the Jury were never paid, they took their life experiences into the Jury room and decided in a record time that David was not guilty, 5 times over.

Callinan escaped into the mumbo jumbo of what people said and how people acted. He offered a new and scientifically impossible scenario for Robin's suicide. That it was fluid or moving, no other person has ever suggested this, predictably Callinan himself was never able to transcribe that theory to the known facts of Robin's death - because the theory, much like other matters in his report didn't need to stack up and be defendable in Court because it was to be buried in a financial settlement. He ignored that Cox for the Crown conceded the computer turn on time to have happened when David was seen outside the house. He ignored fresh blood on Robin's trousers and a blood smear found on his hands. No man committing suicide gets blood smeared on his hands in the process, removes his pants away from where he was killed and returns like the walking dead in a zombie show. In fact the Crown's case has been a zombie show for years.

Where Callinan searched into David's past, assuming the role of a Psychiatrist, just as he had assumed the role of  the Jury, he elevated himself above a specialist Psychiatrist who remains a member of the NZ Parole Board, a man who actually met and treated David Bain - something Callinan with his all seeing eye apparently felt as unnecessary. It was also unnecessary for Callinan to investigate an earlier event where Robin was said to have threatened neighbours with a rifle in Wellington, he did not investigate if Robin had ever had a firearms licence and if he did why it was taken off him. Apart from writing disdainfully of Margaret and Laniet Bain in particular he never gave recognition to a letter written by Margaret to an old friend that she was concerned that Robin 'would get a gun and shoot the lot of them (family.) It's doubtful that she wrote that without some reason for doing so. He also treated with disdain evidence that was given under oath of Laniet saying that she her father had an improper sexual relationship with her as a child, noting that the evidence pre-dated the murders by years. But of course he was an expert on all such matters and quite capable of knowing 'best' what he could ignore as he tried to rebuild the Crown case.

Callinan even decided that Weir didn't plant the lens, something Weir was unable to prove in Court himself, and was wholly silent on the fact that Weir hid evidence from the first Jury. Anyone with an open mind could have seen that Weir hid things and found things in a particular order to 'help' a case. Callinan didn't think it was necessary to record that Weir under oath said that he felt hounded before leaving police because other police mocked him as a planter of evidence, poor diddums. Anyone that is except Callinan busy trying to paint over the cracks with long winded observations about what people said concerning matters far beyond the room where Robin shot himself and little of anything observant to the evidence found there. He rehashed evidence to suit his case, something he would never be able to have done in Court under cross examination of the evidence rather than his weak interpretation of what was said. Ultimately however, he did not move the rock of David's innocence, something that the Crown acknowledged with their settlement.

Mount Erebus and Lundy - what do they have in common.

First of all a post from International Skeptics Forum used with permission of the author. It relates to the Erebus Tragedy and the aftermath of a coverup which was also tragic.

Originally Posted by Samson  Well hang on, Mahon attacked Morrie Davies, who blamed the pilot. Pilots say Captain Collins was the prime culprit, sadly. Prime culprit perhaps but not entirely responsible. Partly to blame were 1. The person(s) who changed the INS track without telling the pilots 2. The person(s) who inadvertently programmed even the new track incorrectly The result of these two errors put ZK-NZP on a track 43 km east of where they should have been, so rather than flying straight along the approved track to McMurdo Sound, they were flying straight at Mount Erebus. 3. Whoever scheduled two pilots, neither of whom had ever been to Antarctica, to fly together on their first ever flight there. The Air National Guard (and before them US Navy Squadron VXE-6 would NEVER have sent an aircraft to Antarctica with a pilot on board who had not flown there at least three times before. Flying near the poles is like no other type of flying you are ever likely to do. Furthermore, unlike the ANG and the USN, ANZ did not give their pilots any training whatsoever regarding flying in sector whiteout conditions. This is just madness. The aircrew had no idea what to expect, and so when they were flying along straight at the base of Mr Erebus looking at the white of its snowy slopes rising away, what they thought they saw out of the forward cockpit windows was exactly what they were told they would see; what they expected to see, the white expanse of the Ross Ice Shelf stretching away in front of them. When they arrived at Lake Lewis, right in front of Erebus, they though it was McMurdo Sound. A few minutes later, it was all over. As is usual with any air accident, it is the result of a series of errors, mistakes or oversights, each of which might not have had any consequences, but when they occurred together in the order they did on that day, it resulted in a "perfect storm" of cock-ups and the loss of the aircraft with over 250 lives. ► If the non-notified changes to the track are not made, the accident never happens. ► If the programming error is not made, the accident never happens. ► If Collins and Cassin are properly trained in flying during sector whiteout conditions, or of they have a pilot on board who has experience there, they might have understood what they were looking at, and the accident might never have happened. ► If Collins had not descended to 2,000 feet without authorisation, the accident might have been avoided. however, Flight 901 WAS authorised to 6,000 feet, and Mt Erebus is over 12,000 feet, so they still might have crashed anyway. Justice Mahon coined his famous phrase "an orchestrated littany of lies" because executives in Air New Zealand tried to cover up their mistakes, particularly the first two. The bastards lied through their teeth to the Royal Commission of Inquiry

__________________ ► OCCAMS Razor - 9/11 was a terrorist attack by Islamic extremists organised by Osama Bin Laden; the Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon; JFK was assassinated by a single gunmen, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone. ► "Conspiracism is a shortcut to the illusion of erudition." - JayUtah ► Heisenberg's Law - The weirdness of the Universe is inversely proportional to the scale at which you observe it, or not. Last edited by smartcooky; Yesterday at 06:50 PM. Reason: fix typo

On first reading I thought the post by a New Zealand man who calls himself smartcooky was simple and enlightening essay on how to understand fully the complex Erebus disaster. The piece was taken from a Lundy thread which had wandered from topic. I liked the straight forward detail and the brevity of words. After 1 or 2 more reads, I saw, that whether smarkcooky had intended to do so or not (I suspect he did), that the piece had struck  a note which  could contribute a lot of thought to a revelation that the Erebus disaster, although in an entirely different context, was very similar to the Lundy case and others - false moves followed by deceit.

It's easy to associate the non notified changes to the flight path, and the mistake of entering a programming error into the computer flight path as the complete mishandling of the critical shirt evidence in the Lundy case. The programming glitch for the flight path is mirrored by the Lundy shirt being sent for sampling in the wrong laboratory, one not specific to, or approved, for forensic testing. Earlier in New Zealandf Dr Teoh had already said that the Lundy shirt was not suitable for testing, that the spots were too down graded to be relied upon. Regardless the shirt was sent off to an American Lab for testing with an instruction that it had brain matter present on the breast and sleeve - something no accredited New Zealand scientist could confirm. That was an instruction that came from the officer in charge of the case, Grantham. Ultimately it would be similar to a programing error, one that would send the whole Lundy case off course, deliberately. Grantham had already been turned down in NZ and overseas by approved forensic facilities, so he took a different flight path, programmed the computer with an instruction that would give a desired result for Grantham and a miscarriage of Justice for Lundy.

So the changing of the flight path and not telling the pilots in Erebus, was a blueprint of sorts for a change to Forensic Science in the NZ Lundy case where the Courts were unable to conceive, that Lundy, had evidence against him that had been improperly handled in NZ and illegally tested in the States according to FDA protocols.. Telling the unqualified American Dr Miller, to look for brain matter because Christine and Amber Lundy had been attacked to the head with such ferocity that brain matter had splattered from their skulls indicated to Miller exactly what to look for, or interpreted another way what to find. He did so, using a novel and unapproved in his own country method which still doesn't have approval 15 years later. Why, because no approved authority in the USA, as in New Zealand considered that the results of the testing could be relied upon. Ironically, a test over a decade later found that a single shirt spot was to hold faint traces of animal central nervous tissue devoid of blood and neurons - in other words modified in someway, most likely simply by the cooking or eating of household food.

Miller had no objections to testing a sample that had incubated in a plastic bag for 54 days and which had already been declared unsuitable for testing by Dr Teoh back in Grantham's home town, Palmerston North.  Miller had no concerns that the samples had never been controlled in a forensic pathway to his laboratory, didn't care. His unaccredited and unrecognised forensic skills were omniscient, he could look into the past and see that nothing had gone wrong with the samples he was testing, they hadn't been planted there, they were unaffected by deterioration although allegedly similar samples within the house were deteriorated within hours as is the norm for central nervous system material out of the body, he knew all of this. He knew his laboratory and testing wouldn't produce contaminated results, and he didn't need any certification to tell him so. If he was getting paid everything was fine. He had no objections to being told what to look for, it never occurred to him apparently that was exactly opposite to approved forensic testing in the States and the United Kingdom, or that verification testing was not undertaken by himself to prove himself right. He set the co-ordinates the way he wanted to and the New Zealand Courts accepted it like meek lambs. They had nothing to lose either. Afterall, it wasn't their rights under NZ Bill of Rights Act for citizens not to be experimented  upon with novel science or procedures, indeed it was not them sent off to fly into Erebus in the perfect whiteness of unexpected death.

So to move to point 3 in smartcooky's list of 3 things that went wrong in the Erebus disaster where he points out:

3. Whoever scheduled two pilots, neither of whom had ever been to Antarctica, to fly together on their first ever flight there. The Air National Guard (and before them US Navy Squadron VXE-6 would NEVER have sent an aircraft to Antarctica with a pilot on board who had not flown there at least three times before. Flying near the poles is like no other type of flying you are ever likely to do.

Furthermore, unlike the ANG and the USN, ANZ did not give their pilots any training whatsoever regarding flying in sector whiteout conditions. This is just madness. The aircrew had no idea what to expect, and so when they were flying along straight at the base of Mr Erebus looking at the white of its snowy slopes rising away, what they thought they saw out of the forward cockpit windows was exactly what they were told they would see; what they expected to see, the white expanse of the Ross Ice Shelf stretching away in front of them. When they arrived at Lake Lewis, right in front of Erebus, they though it was McMurdo Sound. A few minutes later, it was all over.

Of course Grantham and Miller had never 'flown' in the world of Forensics, they had no licence to do so. Sadly the Erebus pilots had never flown to Antarctica but they were still sent there. All the protocols of ANG and USN that smartcooky refers, regarding training and participating in flights to Antarctica, were never afforded the NZ pilots - they had no experience in sector whiteout conditions, it was madness according to smartcooky and who could disagree. In context to Lundy, did Miller or Grantham have experience to overlook the advice of the Pathologist Dr Teoh in NZ, overlook textbook handling of quickly deteriorating brain matter by chucking it in a plastic bag and leaving it to incubate more than it already had before entering the bag. It wasn't their lives on the line. Just as it wasn't the Air New Zealand person who changed the flight co-ordinates but didn't tell the pilots, nor the person that inputted the wrong flight path that was inconsistent with the change that sent nearly 300 people to an unforgiving risk. Neither Grantham nor Miller had put themselves at risk when they launched the flight of unapproved testing to exclusively find what they had already decided was on Lundy's shirt.

To use more from smartcooky on Erebus. He says if the non notified changes to the flight plan were never made no accident happens, In Lundy, if the refusal by verified for forensic purposes laboratories is not manipulated by visiting a not verified facility no accident happens, no contamination takes place, imminent scientists do not say that the testing is unreliable, as are the results. Further, if Grantham is trained in safely handling fragile forensic samples, he does not put them in a plastic bag and lock them in a safe away from the exhibits officer for surrender to a authorised laboratory as quickly as possible knowing the short time available to preserve them for testing, would know by what Teoh said that the safe time had already passed. If Miller is trained and certified as a forensic tester, he does what other such personnel from approved facilities do - refuses to test because the passage to him has not been forensically safe or approved. He also contacts the FDA to report the matter because he recognises the danger of the treatment of the samples being tested anywhere in the USA, sends Grantham back to NZ to try and hold the charge against Lundy together with real evidence, or simply do the right thing and withdraw charges against him as advised by Dr Teoh.

In Erebus there was a cover up, there were also mistakes. In Lundy there was the coverup as to what Dr Teoh had said. In the Courts there was the fatal mistake to accept evidence that was not, and is not, acceptable in an American Court. Remember the Americans trained their Antarctica pilots as smartcooky points out. They also train their forensic scientists and won't let them test or give evidence on forensic matters unless they are approved and use an approved test facility. Are NZ Courts somehow wiser than the American Courts of FDA? As wise as Air New Zealand was to send untrained pilots in an hazardous area where they had never flown before and with passengers aboard?

The year Erebus crashed was the year Arthur Thomas was released from prison, pardoned for crimes he didn't commit. But it was also the time when another cover up began by Air New Zealand, one tragedy replacing another with the Crown at the helm. It would follow that a foremost mind of New Zealand history would pick apart the  Erebus tragedy and immortalise the words 'an orchestrated litany of lies.'  The release of Thomas and those famous words of the late Peter Mahon were not, as history has unfortunately shown, appreciated for their full value because both innocent men and women still go to New Zealand prisons accompanied by a litany of lies and courts can still act without the Judicial insight that Peter Mahon contributed against the tide of turning away from or covering over false flight paths.