Saxtons 'had right to mine greenstone'

A Haast helicopter pilot had the customary right to mine greenstone (pounamu) from South Westland's Cascade Plateau, the Court of Appeal was told today.

Morgan Saxton, 30, is appealing his conviction for greenstone theft from beyond the grave, after he was killed in a chopper crash last year.

Saxton and his father David Saxton, 62, were found guilty in 2007 of the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of pounamu from Ngai Tahu.

Morgan Saxton was sentenced to two years and six months jail and his father to an extra three months.

They were also required to pay reparations of $300,000. They launched an appeal against the convictions and sentence last year.

However, Morgan Saxton was killed when his helicopter crashed in Lake Wanaka in November.

He died without a will and his mother was granted control of his estate.

The Court of Appeal in March granted permission for her to continue the appeal, which began today in Wellington today.

Today the defence told the court the pair had transferred customary rights to mine the pounamu.

Defence counsel Gerard McCoy,QC , said Morgan Saxton had been adopted through the Maori process of whangai at the age of two and lived with his father and his father's wife, Debbie Cain.

Miss Cain was the daughter of Cyril Cain, a direct descendant of Te Koeti Turanga, kaumatua of South Westland at the time of the 19th century census.

Dr McCoy argued the whangai process transferred Mr Cain's customary rights to the pounamu to Morgan Saxton.

Morgan Saxton mined for pounamu with Mr Cain from when he was a child and believed the right to take the stone had passed to him when he joined the family, Dr McCoy said.

During the trial, the jury was told the process of whangai did not include the transfer of rights.

However, Dr McCoy said the rules for whangai varied between tribes, and in Ngai Tahu's case, Morgan Saxton had inherited the rights to the pounamu.

In the case of David Saxton, Dr McCoy said Mr Cain had taught him how to find pounamu, and to cut it, and later conferred his rights to take pounamu to him.

Despite the Ngai Tahu Vesting Act 1997, which gave the tribe the rights to the pounamu, Dr McCoy said the individual descendants maintained the rights to mine for the stone.

"It had effectively found a collectivity to manage the assets, but the beneficiaries were still the individual descendants of Ngai Tahu tribe," Dr McCoy said.

"The question is can you steal from yourself?"

The appeal was set down for three days.

- NZPA