Double Murder convictions rarely safe in New Zealand?

There is enough evidence to say that double murder convictions in New Zealand high profile cases are unsafe, not just because of yesterday's convictions of witness 'C' for eight counts of perjury he committed in the David Tamihere double murder convictions. The bad run started in Arthur Thomas's case from 1970. Arthur was twice convicted before being pardoned. At the Royal Commission which followed, police tried to bring in 2 secret witnesses who claimed Arthur had confessed, such was their obviously manufactured evidence that the Royal Commission showed them the door and commented adversely against their kind.

A relatively at the time, young detective, John Hughes featured in the Thomas case where the primary evidence was a planted cartridge case, said to been fired in the Thomas rifle, but later discovered as not having been manufactured at the time of the deaths of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe. The country was told after Arthur's pardon that the Thomas case was a one off and couldn't happen again. But from that garden where the planted shell case was found something else grew, a police propensity by some officers to plant evidence. There were other cases, one being Ngamu where Hughes made a false confession attributed to Ngamu confirming his part in an armed robbery. When Hughes left the room Ngamu took the false confession out of the rubbish bin and managed to pass to his lawyer Barry Hart. Nothing happened by way of police discipline against Hughes, as nothing had happened with the planted Thomas shell case. Already, for those so inclined in the police, administrators would turn a blind eye to planted evidence and the Courts would be equally ambivalent.

Hughes was in charge of the disappearance of a young Swedish couple Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen, soon attention was drawn to David Tamihere, who would admit having stolen the couple's car. Quite quickly it would later emerge, 3 prison snitches would be helping out Hughes, one of them, 'C', would eventually say that his testimony was fabricated by yes, John Hughes. For this observer that was the signature of the 1970s corruption that began in the Thomas case. There may have been prison snitches before that time, but after the Thomas Royal Commission they became more prevalent like a disease inflicted on Justice in this country which the Courts were willing to ignore, and for which police would never be held responsible. By this time time snitches had 'handlers' who went into prison to gain help to fabricate false evidence. Snitches had become an extension of 'policing' in NZ.

One of the familiar characteristics of 'snitches' testimony was the lack of imagination, there appeared only one tactic, outlandish and sick 'confessions' by accused in cases where there was little other evidence, in which the 'snitches' would hold the weak case together with their reported confessions, often given by seasoned criminals who happened to be 'sickened' by the confessions to the point they contacted police. Most often the snitches would be particularly brutal criminals themselves, in at least 1 case, a snitch blaming a life long friend for the murder of a young Auckland housewife would go onto being convicted of a similar crime after the man he falsely accused of murder suicided in prison before he went to trial, that case has never been resolved - and the false accuser now serves life imprisonment for an identical crime to that he blamed long term friend for.

It was no surprise for this observer that when Scott Watson was eventually arrested for the 'Sounds murders' that secret witness were involved, 2 prison inmates and an anonymous couple who after changing their stories several times would accuse Scott of revealing that he was a violent women hater prepared to kill. The 2 prison witnesses for their part would reveal yes, of course, sordid details they alleged Watson revealed to them and for which they were overcome by outrage and reported it to 'police snitch handlers'. That their confessions were dissimilar never caused a batted eye lid in the Court system, as it had not in Tamihere. The only proceedings where such witnesses were tossed out was from the fiercely independent Thomas Royal Commission who had no truck with such bottom dwelling liars.

A few more years and we advance to the Mark Lundy retrial and find, with the case somewhat in trouble, a good old 'snitch' who claimed Mark Lundy confessed to him in a prison yard where Mark had never been held. So the idea that planted evidence and stoolies was moved on from in the 1970s was proved to be false once again. The Teina Pora case also had snitches as prime witnesses, showing that it doesn't require double homicides but rather high profile cases which police struggle to solve.

The reality is that 'snitches' don't solve cases, they become an obvious part of miscarriages of Justice that Courts and Governments continue to ignore. Justice does not benefit from lying prisoners or secret witnesses, a high majority of controversial cases show that plainly no more that the reminder given by the eight guilty counts in the private prosecution brought by Arthur Taylor which police refused to do themselves.

As a matter of interest, the Lundy appeal is next month and the highly suspect 'novel science' is going to be scrutinised as it has never before been. The key evidence against Mark Lundy is highly suspect and has no authenticated forensic basis, there is no other evidence against him that would result in a conviction and the story to be revealed, I am told, is a shocking revelation that brings no credit to the New Zealand Courts and prosecuting authorities.

I am also told that the Watson case is to be re-visited, not just because 1 of the secreted witnesses there 'recanted', 'reaffirmed' and then disappeared, well at least Kirsty McDonald QC couldn't find him after 4 years of searching around her office, and never asking police for help finding their 'contact.' But also because highly suspect forensic evidence in the case, upon which the Watson convictions barely hang is no longer strong enough in the modern forensic context to solely uphold the Watson convictions as Ms McDonald claimed in 2013 after mulling over the papers for 4 years and being paid over $400,000.

Justice as we know it in controversial cases in NZ, corrupt and sinking by the minute.

Will the Lundy case finally crack this time?

I am aware that the final submissions are to be filed in the long running saga which is the Lundy case today. This case generally remains the most poorly understood convictions in New Zealand history. Most people have formed an opinion on the case despite all the concrete facts being unknown.

Rather than starting with the 'Lundy shirt' and all its controversy I'll start with the hidden and neglected parts of the case. As I've written before there is evidence of at least 2 strangers being in the home contemporaneously with the deaths of Christine and her 7 year old daughter Amber. This is known because the DNA of 2 unknown males was found under their nails. DNA in this location can more probably than not be attributed to scratching or grabbing at the clothing of an attacker. DNA of this type lasts a relatively short time if innocently picked up by contact with another person or DNA source, 6 hours is the maximum time until around only 5% of the DNA will remain as a person goes about normal tasks including, eating, dressing and washing the hands.

There were signs of a break in of the Lundy home while Mark Lundy was in Wellington and his wife and daughter home in bed when they were attacked. The police blamed that break in on Lundy, saying it was staged to cover his tracks. It's quite normal unfortunately that someone being framed is blamed for anything unexplained. In the eyes of the Jury it can easily make sense that a guilty person would hide their trail. The problem in Lundy however, as it has emerged years later, is that unknown fingerprints and footprints were also found in the house. Now Mark Lundy, in fact nobody, can leave unknown footprints and particularly fingerprints at a crime scene unless they are the perpetrators. Moreover, nobody can put unknown male DNA and fabric fibres under the nails of a deceased person. So while Lundy was blamed for a mock break in, evidence was hidden that points to it have been a real break in by 2 offenders who left DNA, finger and footprints at the scene along with fibres from their clothing. Of course the paint found on the victims in the area of their wounds, that was said to have come from Mark Lundy's tools, has since also been disproved

This unexplained evidence is actually the key to Mark Lundy's innocence and as I write above it was hidden, eventually emerging piece by piece over time. Not everyone knows it was hidden and obscured in an argument over novel science that remains highly controversial and more than a little suspect. The 'science' took over, was reported on at length, conveniently helping obscure evidence that over time would emerge as far less obscure in understanding the Lundy case. It's time for that evidence to be dealt with. Police have never explained the fingernail DNA and fibres, the finger and footprints, the paint, they got away from doing so by hiding or masking the evidence and shouts of a prosecutor that 'no man has the right to have his wife's brain on his shirt.' That phrase appears to become destined as the most inappropriate part of a prosecutor's closing ever in a New Zealand case. The reason for that being that the validity of the novel science is under siege and no longer can have any support from a crime scene that indicates that Mark Lundy did not kill his wife and daughter.

I also suspect that the appeal submissions will question the validity of the Crown being given 2 bites at the cherry and effectively changing their own case dramatically when it was in deep trouble, given the chance to say 'forget that story, we have a new one.' However, the real story is not the 'new one' they dreamed up to try and salvage their case, but rather the one they hid from the public and Jury that relates to two men, their DNA, foot and fingerprints, paint from a weapon, that were never found. At the same time as our Courts were duped into accepting 'novel science' while the prosecution secreted away critical evidence alarm grew in the established forensic science community that IHC testing was being used in manner where it was not only unaccredited to be employed, but that it was being used far outside the clinical standards where its use was established to test for disease on known samples, not on random poorly degraded gunk that would be blasted with high doses of dilution until it displayed a 'colour' that the testers wanted. Yes, negative tests were ignored, dilution rates increased until the required colour showed, mix the cake with any colours until the right colour was found - not in the least forensic science, but going after a result to fit a theory.

I think now the Court will demand answers, that the public needs, forget about the cake mix and explain how the finger, footprints, fibres and stranger DNA found its way into the Lundy household after a break in and how it could possibly not be connected to the murders of Christine and Amber.