1. Why bother with jury trials?
2. Trials can be rigged true or false?
3. Police can do no wrong...yeah right.
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| Mike Bush , Judge, Jury and executionor? |
1. Are the days of jury trials a thing
of the past? Police Commissioner Mike
Bush, who at times acts more like Mike
Hosking…or Constable Plod has decided that he knows who murdered and raped Susan Burdett
in 1992. And that person was Malcolm Rewa who just happens to be in jail serving
time for raping various woman.
Now it is normal for police to get the
evidence of a crime and put that before a jury and gain a convection, that’s normal
police practice…at least in most cases.
But it would appear that this system
of open and visible justice is just not fashionable these days.
For what seems now-days is common
police practice of rigging trials via evidence manipulation and planting, as in
the case of Allen Arthur Thomas, and the
confession manipulation actions regarding Teina Pora, where the police were
found to be guilty in both cases of corrupt behaviour. [Can anyone name what happened to the guilty police in both those cases, were they demoted or promoted?]
I heard that the Detective who planted the shell casing in the Allen Arthur Thomas case was praised as being a model detective...is that really true or simply a rumour?
The country's top policeman [Mike Bush] has
recognised Teina Pora's innocence and has named the man he believes did it.
Mr Pora has been awarded $2.5 million
for the 21 years he spent in prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering
Susan Burdett, who was raped and killed in 1992 in Auckland. Police accepted
Mr
Pora was innocent of those crimes, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said.
Serial rapist Malcolm Rewa was found guilty
of raping Ms Burdett, but two High Court juries could not decide if he murdered
her and the Solicitor-General stayed proceedings.
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| Teina Pora. |
But today, speaking outside the Law
and Order Select Committee, Mr Bush told reporters he believed he was guilty.
Asked if he accepted that Rewa acted
alone in the rape and murder of Ms Burdett, Mr Bush replied: "I believe
so, we believe so, yes."
Police sought a legal opinion on
whether they could re-open the case against Rewa but were told Mr Pora's
innocence didn't constitute the necessary "exceptional
circumstances".
"If we could revisit again, we
would, but as you know there is a stay in terms of that prosecution, and we
have no new evidence in order to put that before the court again," Mr Bush
said.
Long wait for police acknowledgement
The Privy Council quashed Mr Pora's
convictions in March 2015, and the government this month offered him
compensation following a report by a retired High Court judge, Rodney Hansen
QC.
Mr
Bush's comments confirmed Mr Pora was also innocent in the police's eyes.
"We
accept the report in its entirety. We accept Mr Pora is innocent. There is no
investigation against Mr Pora," he said.
That news has been a long time coming
for Mr Pora. He found out about it from a petrol station attendant when he was
filling up his car this morning.
Tim McKinnel, a private investigator
who tirelessly fought to clear Mr Pora's name, welcomed Mr Bush's
acknowledgement.
"It's
been a long time coming. I think Mr Bush has to be commended for saying it.
It's taken far too long and I know Teina and his family will be absolutely
thrilled that the statement of innocence from the police has been made and it
means a lot to Teina, it really does."
Mr Pora's camp had always maintained
his innocence was an exceptional circumstance, and he'd like to see the legal
opinion stopping police re-opening the case against Rewa, he said.
"I'd hasten to add that the
police, it seems to me, have spared no expense and no resource in trying to
gather evidence against Teina Pora over the last seven years. It's been pretty
extensive and pretty exhaustive.
"What we're keen to find out is
exactly what efforts have been gone to, to properly review the whole case and
gather evidence against other people, other than Teina."
Mr McKinnel didn't want to comment on
the statements from the commissioner about Rewa, apart from saying they were
powerful.
Rewa's
lawyer, Nigel Cooke, however, condemned them.
"It's an outrageous statement to
make in my view ... There's no basis for Commissioner Bush to make that
statement. Unless there's something I don't know about or Mr Rewa doesn't know
about, he should shut up and accept the fact the case against Malcolm Rewa has
been stayed."
Mr Cooke wasn't aware of the comments
until RNZ phoned him this afternoon, and he called his client inside prison
before responding.
"In
my view, it sort of leads to the breakdown of the process of getting matters
determined Judicially. I mean, it just takes over. You might as well not have
juries and just leave it up to the police."
He planned to visit Rewa inside prison
to talk further about Mr Bush's comments and find out what his client wanted to
do, he said.
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