NOT GUILTY - ONLY GUILTY IN THE POLICES VIEW POINT!

IT IS A COMMON KNOWN FACT, BY N.Z. LAW ASSOCIATIONS THAT MANY CONVICTIONS ARE A RESULT IN POOR NEW ZEALAND POLICE WORK OR FRAME UPS.

Why were three girls jailed for a crime they did not commit? NAOMI LARKIN explains how a police investigation went badly wrong.

The yellow, fleecy, hooded sweatshirts had "USA" written in black on the back. The Mt Roskill girls bought them because they were "the latest thing out - those USA hoods".

McCushla (Krishla) Priscilla Fuataha, then aged 14, had one. Tania Mayze Vini, 14, bought two, lending one to her childhood friend Teangarua (Lucy) Akatere, 15.

The girls were not wearing their sweatshirts on Friday, August 12, 1999, a day that was to change their lives forever.

But just owning them turned out to be bad enough.

At 8.25 am that day, a 16-year-old sixth-form student was having a soft drink at Three Kings Plaza, Auckland, on her way to school when five girls set upon her.

She was thumped and kicked and her head banged against a tree stump. She was dragged to a toilet block and robbed of $10.

Each time the girl said she had no more money to give, she was sliced with a pair of scissors. She suffered a cut to her eyebrow, four slashes to her thigh and one to her stomach.

Four of her attackers, she told police, were wearing a "yellow, fleecy hooded top with 'USA' written in black on the back".

The sweatshirts became significant items of circumstantial evidence that were used to tie Vini, Fuataha and Akatere to the crime and ultimately help to jail them.

The teenagers were sent to prison last year for what a judge described as a sadistic slashing and they spent seven months in Mt Eden Women's Prison.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal, sitting in Auckland, quashed the joint conviction of Akatere, now 17, Vini, 17, and Fuataha, 16, for aggravated robbery.

Justices Bruce Robertson, Thomas Gault and Peter Salmon overturned the conviction - a move the police did not oppose - and told the three that they had the court's sympathy for the injustice that had wrongly sent them to prison.

Justice Gault said the "investigation and trial system failed in this case". The wrongful conviction "raises questions of conduct by the police which is a serious matter and must be properly investigated".

The girls' appeal owed much to the painstaking work of private investigator Bryan Rowe and the efforts of their Court of Appeal lawyer, Gary Gotlieb, he said.

So how could the whole system fail, leaving three innocent girls in prison?

It began one week after the attack when two schoolgirls said they saw the three girls and another girl, Witness X (her name is suppressed), at the Plaza on the morning of the crime.

The two were sure it was that morning because they had gone to school early to work on a special art project.

From this information Balmoral police, led by the officer in charge of the case, former New Zealand test cricket opening batsman Detective Constable Trevor Franklin, separately interviewed the three girls and Witness X. All denied their involvement.

But Witness X, who at 13 was too young to be charged, later confessed her involvement and said the other girls were also involved.

Searches of their homes uncovered the sweatshirts along with a backpack, fitting the description given by the victim, which contained a pair of scissors.

The girls were arrested and, following a depositions hearing and a jury trial in the High Court at Auckland, were sentenced by Justice Tony Randerson last September.

The youngest of the trio, Fuataha, who had just turned 15 and was said to have wielded the weapon, received two years' jail, the other two 18 months.

Vini's father, Vini Kavi, knew his daughter was innocent. He was unable to work for three months because he was too distraught and the family had to rely on the income of his wife, Tania's mother Kaiei Timi, a part-time cleaner.

"I was so upset I didn't know what to do. I knew my girl never committed that crime," Mr Kavi said.

He engaged a private investigator, who discovered nothing of significance and charged him $4000, but eventually put him on to Mr Gotlieb.

"I took one look at the case and I called in Bryan Rowe," Mr Gotlieb said.

As Mr Rowe, a former police superintendent, pored over the evidence he uncovered a series of police blunders and basic oversights that he describes as bordering on criminal offences.

"There are things I have seen in this file that cause me to believe that at least the police should be making inquiries to see if criminal offences have been committed by any police officer."

The complainant, whose identity is covered by a court suppression order, said she had been attacked by five girls. Witness X told the police, and gave evidence twice in court, that it was only four attackers - herself and the three girls.

One of the more damning examples of police failure came via what should have been their trump card - the detailed descriptions given by the victim.

She described the yellow sweatshirts but also gave detailed descriptions of her attackers and the other clothes and accessories they were wearing.

She described five Polynesian girls, aged 16 to 18, between 1.68m (5ft 6in) and 1.83m (6ft) tall and ranging in build from "fat" to "skinny". But Witness X is short - 1.5m (4ft 11in) - and Fuataha, the tallest, is only 1.62m (5ft 4in). The victim also said one of her attackers had a nose stud, yet none of the arrested girls did.

In their statements of denial both Akatere and Vini told the police about a telephone call Akatere made to Vini at 7.43 am on the day of the offence. The police did not check Telecom records, which proved that the call did take place. Mr Rowe, who did obtain confirmation from Telecom, said the call proved the pair could not have physically made it to the Plaza by 8.25 am.

Likewise, the police failed to investigate Fuataha's account that she was at home at the time of the offence. If they had questioned family members they would have found she was telling the truth.

The two schoolgirl witnesses who said they saw the four girls at the Plaza that morning were never called to give evidence, nor were statements of their evidence shown or supplied to the defence.

Evidence emerged that they were mistaken. The group of four were together at the Plaza but not on the day of the attack - it was the previous Friday.

There was more conflicting evidence over Vini's backpack, which was identified by the victim. In his job sheet dated August 23, 1999, Detective Constable Franklin said the victim came into Balmoral station and identified a bag. She said she knew it was the bag one of the girls was carrying because "I remember the adidas logo and the graffiti written on it".

But when she was shown the scissors and sunglasses from the bag, she said they were not the scissors used in the attack.

Although the bag became a court exhibit the scissors were not referred to again.

The day after Witness X made her statement to police she admitted in the presence of her church youth group leader, Malcolm Peak, that she had lied to the police about her involvement and that of the girls.

Mr Peak went to Balmoral station and told Detective Constable Franklin what Witness X had said.

For his troubles Mr Peak was warned not to speak to police witnesses and told he could face up to seven years in prison for interfering with a police witness.

One of the saddest ironies of the case was that both Akatere and the victim knew each other by sight, because they went to the same church.

In her statement to police, made just after the attack, the victim said: "I don't know the girls who assaulted me and I have never seen them before."

Because the victim did not give evidence at the depositions hearing she was unaware that Akatere was one of the accused.

When she saw Akatere at the High Court trial she recognised her from church but, as the Crown Law's memorandum stated, "she did not think the appellants were her attackers. She did not say this at trial because she was not asked".

Supporting testimony for the Crown came from Billy Junior Lukupa, 19, a contract labourer from Glen Innes, who said he had seen Witness X, Vini and Fuataha at the Plaza on the morning of the attack.

Mr Rowe said Lukupa had never met the three. In his statement to police Lukupa said Fuataha had a nose ring. Yet none of the girls or Witness X have had their noses pierced - a fact that Mr Rowe said the police must have known. In Lukupa's brief a nose ring was never mentioned.

Mr Rowe said it was Detective Constable Franklin's legal duty to ensure that Lukupa was a safe witness and the discrepancies that emerged in his evidence indicated this was not the case.

Justice Gault said much of this evidence was not fresh "in that it could have been obtained with reasonable diligence prior to trial" but the main reason the conviction was unsafe was the retraction by Witness X, the Crown's principal witness, and Lukupa.

Early this year Mr Rowe interviewed Witness X, who formally admitted for the first time that she had lied. She told him she was pressured by police into confessing.

On April 2, he took her to Mt Eden Women's Prison where she made a tearful apology to the girls.

Armed with her affidavit, Mr Gotlieb lodged an appeal on April 10 and Auckland City district commander Superintendent Howard Broad agreed to a reinvestigation.

The girls were freed on bail on April 12.

A second investigation into police handling of the case is being carried out by Inspector Rob Marshall at Auckland Central police station. He refused to comment until the investigation is completed.

Detective Constable Trevor Franklin, now stationed at Ponsonby, said he could not comment.

04.11.2000

Scott Watson leaving a depositions hearing in 1998. A secret witness says statements he made about Watson were not true.

EXCLUSIVE - A star secret witness who told the Marlborough Sounds double murder trial that Scott Watson confessed to the killings now says his evidence was a lie.

The former Addington Prison inmate alleges police pressured him into giving false testimony about Watson's involvement in the murder of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart.

Witness A, whose name and identifying details were suppressed, shocked the jury when he said Watson demonstrated on him the way he forced Olivia into submission and strangled her.

It will never be known what, if any, part witness A's testimony played in the jury's guilty verdict.

But 13 months after Watson, a Picton boat builder, was convicted of the murders, the witness contacted the Weekend Herald to say those details given under oath were nothing more than an act.

He said he spoke up this week to clear his conscience.

"It's been playing with my head and I just want the truth out."

After making his dramatic confession during a five-hour interview with Herald reporters, the man broke down and spoke of wanting to end his life.

That night, he swallowed several bottles of pills. He is now recovering with the help of professionals and family members.

The man was one of 490 witnesses called during the $5 million 13 week trial in the High Court at Wellington last year.

His evidence, along with that of a second jailmate, was described in a police-authorised book on the murders as the bombshell of the Crown case.

Olivia, aged 17, and Ben, 21, were last seen boarding a yacht in the early hours of New Year's Day, 1998, after partying New Year's Eve away at Furneaux Lodge, Endeavour Inlet. Their bodies have never been found.

Witness A says that despite the evidence he gave on August 20 last year, Watson did not confess to any involvement in the disappearance.

The two shared a cell at Christchurch's Addington Prison for several weeks shortly after Watson's arrest in June, 1998.

Witness A was on remand for driving charges, though in court he admitted to a history of violence and 10 years of psychiatric problems.

They befriended each other after Witness A stood up for Watson during a stand-off with a gang.

After being sentenced, Witness A was moved to Paparua Prison and began receiving visits from police demanding to know what Watson had told him.

Over a 12 month period leading up to the trial, police visited him at least 10 times in prison and at the Christchurch drug rehabilitation centre, Odyssey House.

He revealed certain details to police including that Watson would wake at night screaming.

Watson had also told how he wiped down tapes on his boat after a storm.

But Witness A alleges that when he came to read his statement just before the trial, it contained several crucial inaccuracies.

Elements in the statement which he claims did not come from him were:

Watson's demonstration to him of how he forced Olivia's legs apart and strangled her.

A conversation in which Watson was alleged to have said: "The bitch kept fighting back."

A claim that Watson was "freaked out"by the discovery of blond hairs on his boat, Blade.

Witness A also says that when he read his statement, he found that his version of the conversations had been distorted to imply Watson said his night-time screaming was because he was haunted by the couple.

The reference to the tapes was also changed, he claims, so that Watson's explanation about the storm was deleted.

Part of the Crown case was that Blade's interior was extensively cleaned to remove forensic evidence.

"Yeah, I made statements, I don't know how many, but that final statement, there was a lot of shit in there I didn't say," Witness A told the Weekend Herald.

"I discussed [with the police] what we talked about, how Scott said 'They've got nothing on me,' those tapes, the wiping of the tapes and that.

"He did wake up screaming and that scared the shit out of me. I said 'Did you kill them, are they haunting you or something? Did you kill them?' He didn't say anything.

"That demonstration - that didn't even happen."

He claims when he first read the statement, he told police parts of it were not true.

"I said, 'I didn't say that shit,' and they said 'Yes you did. Look, you even signed it too.'

"When they took a statement from me, I signed papers ... I didn't even get a chance to read them."

The witness says he was put under pressure by police to testify.

"I was getting paroled and they were determined to [affect] my parole. They said I would spend a long time in jail, just threats, eh."

At the same time, he was receiving death threats from a gang which suspected he was a "nark."

Eventually, he chose to help the police in the hope they would be able to save him.

"I sort of looked at it like a protection sort of thing.

"I agreed on the basis that my life was getting threatened."

In the weeks before the trial, he was transferred from Christchurch to a special cell at Wellington police station where he prepared for his day in court.

"It was like I had to get ready for a play, you know perform something that wasn't real.

"I had to make myself believe what was in that statement so I had to train myself to believe that something that wasn't real was real."

Witness A's day in court was one of the most dramatic moments of the trial. Justice Richard Heron gave strict warnings to the media that identifying either of the secret witnesses could endanger their lives.

The public gallery was cleared, except for the families of Olivia, Ben and Watson, and windows at the courthouse were blacked out. TV cameras were banned.

In the book Silent Evidence, author John Goulter described the evidence of Witnesses A and B as a "bombshell."

"As [inquiry head] Pope put it, their appearance in the courtroom created an 'atmosphere you could cut with a knife,"'wrote Goulter.

Witness A says he asked Mr Pope if he could assume a new identity overseas, but was rejected on the basis no country would take him because of his criminal history.

He received no payment from police in return for testifying, but was taken to a small town to resume a new life following the trial.

He fled when the gang tracked him down.

With the pressure of keeping his secret taking its toll on his mental health, he approached the Herald. He said he did not have faith in the justice system.

"I've done my part and that's all I want to do," he said.

The head of the Watson murder inquiry, Detective Inspector Rob Pope was unable to be contacted yesterday but a spokeswoman for the Office of the Police Commissioner said. "The Office of the Police Commissioner indicates that if any witness had given false evidence to the court this would be regarded as a matter of very real seriousness.

Police, however, are unable to comment until such matters are fully placed before us."

Meanwhile, two lawyers confirmed that Witness A also told them that he had given false evidence but they could not take it any further because he refused to sign documents.

A woman who acted for him between January and March this year said she met Witness A several times in a district court and while he was on remand in a North Island prison.

She said he told her his testimony of Watson's confession was not true, and he had come under pressure from the police.

After hearing Witness A's revelations, she asked him to sign two documents.

The first was an acknowledgment that she had warned him of his legal rights, including the risk of perjury. She also wanted him to sign an affidavit outlining exactly what parts of his evidence had been false.

She discussed several options with him, including forwarding the information through Watson's defence team to the Court of Appeal which was due to hear the case in April. (Three judges dismissed an appeal against conviction.)

The woman contacted Watson's lawyers, but the man he would not sign any documents.

She said he was a credible person but had a "general mistrust of anyone and anything of authority."

Before the Court of Appeal hearing, one of Watson's lawyers, Bruce Davidson, and a private investigator met Witness A.

At that meeting, Witness A "indicated the evidence he gave at the Scott Watson trial was untrue", another Watson lawyer, Mike Antunovic, said yesterday.

But it wasn't possible to get sufficient detail at that time, or a retraction or recantation in writing.

Mr Antunovic would not comment further other than to say Watson's legal team had not given up hope of securing a re-trial.

By TONY STICKLEY and TONY WALL

Police and the justice system have been infiltrated by Mongrel Mob spies, says a former senior member of the gang who fled the country after becoming a police informer.

The man, aged in his mid-30s and described as a former "heavy hitter" in the feared ethnic gang, is suing police for $220,000, claiming they broke a promise to organise a new life and witness protection for him.

He is now living in Australia on a visa. His civil case was due to be heard in the High Court at Auckland this week, but has been adjourned until early next year.

He is expected to give the court rarely heard details of the gang's operations and dealings with police.

Some of the evidence will be suppressed when the case comes to trial, and it is not known at what levels the alleged moles were operating.

The supergrass was at the heart of Mongrel Mob operations, and was privy to all its national meetings.

Information he provided is said to have helped identify people associated with the gang working within the police and the justice system.

The man's lawyer, Paul Dale, said yesterday that some of the information his client gave the police would "knock your socks off."

"They know so much about the police and they have people in places that they should not have ... They are incredibly well informed."

The president of the Police Association, Greg O'Connor, said yesterday: "We're well aware that organised crime has got sources within police.

"The Police Association has been warning about this for some time - New Zealanders should not be surprised. We have seen organised crime become more and more entrenched."

The officer in charge of the Drug Intelligence Bureau, Detective Inspector Cam Ronald, who is being sued personally in the man's civil action, said no one from police would comment on the allegations.

"We have never before, and I don't believe we ever would, declare what an informer may or may not have told the police.

"If that person wishes to make some allegations in a court case, that's something we wouldn't confirm or deny."

Although he would not be drawn on the claims that the Mongrel Mob had infiltrated police, Mr Ronald confirmed that an analysis of organised crime in New Zealand released about a year ago had uncovered cases of confidential information falling into the wrong hands.

"There were instances where some Government departments, including police, may have had instances of not infiltration, but ... misdemeanours committed within the departments which may have caused information to be leaked."

Mr Dale said his client gave police valuable information about Mongrel Mob illegal activity, including its involvement with drugs and guns.

"It was huge. This guy was big time. This is as good as they [the police] could get in terms of gangs," said Mr Dale.

The man is suing the police for breach of contract, claiming he was promised enough money to start a new life.

He also wants a declaration that the police or the Government should have provided him with a new identity in Australia.

"Part of the claim is to obtain the full benefits of witness protection - this case isn't really about money," said Mr Dale. "It's really about getting protection and enabling him to stay in Australia."

He received $6300 for the information he supplied, but claims the police promised him enough to set himself up in Australia.

The man expected New Zealand authorities to help organise his moveto Australia. Instead, he is living in Australia on a visa rather than as a permanent resident.

Unless he wins an order justifying the Australians letting him into their witness protection scheme, he will be forced to return to New Zealand, where there are fears that the Mongrel Mob will murder him for his indiscretions.

Mr Dale said the police claimed the man did not qualify for the witness protection scheme because he never gave evidence in court - he was merely an informer. But that was splitting hairs "in a big way."

"Having informant and witness protection is an incredibly important part of police business, and if the scheme and the integrity of what the police can do is undermined, then you won't have informants," he said.

The former Mongrel Mob gang man is so fearful for his life that a video link with Australia has been organised, so he will not have to return to New Zealand for the hearing.

Ross Burns, the lawyer representing the police, said it was a most unusual case.

"He was an informant.

We paid him a sum of money for information, and we fulfilled our side of the bargain."