$3m compensation claim turned down

A man wanting $3 million for what he claimed was a wrong legal aid decision leading to him being jailed for 17 months has lost his fight for compensation.

The Supreme Court has dismissed Edwin Christopher Brown's leave to appeal against a Court of Appeal decision that knocked out his claim. Brown had claimed the legal aid refusal breached the Bill of Rights' guarantee of a fair trial.

But Chief Justice Sian Elias and Justice Thomas Gault said it was no basis for claiming any possible substantial miscarriage of justice. "Nor are we persuaded that the essential factual conclusions reached in the lower courts were wrong and raise any miscarriage of justice."
In February 1996, Brown was sentenced to nine years' jail on charges of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and aggravated robbery after a service station attendant on Auckland's North Shore was robbed and stabbed.

A sweaty, bloodstained T-shirt was found at the flat Brown shared with two others. His lawyer tried to get legal aid for the T-shirt to be tested in Australia. A district legal services sub-committee of senior criminal defence lawyers repeatedly refused funding.

By the time Brown's appeal against his convictions was heard, the scientific tests were able to be done in New Zealand. Brown's DNA was not on the T-shirt so it could not be confirmed or ruled out that he had worn it. A person can wear a garment but leave no detectable perspiration.

Another expert gave a statement about a "facial mapping" technique the defence said supported Brown's claim he was not one of the robbers.

The Crown accepted that the DNA evidence and the facial mapping evidence had not been available at Brown's trial, so he should have a retrial. His convictions were quashed and a new trial ordered. He was released on bail in June 1997.

One of Brown's flatmates was later considered a possible source of the DNA on the T-shirt, but other unidentified DNA was also present.

The Crown did not oppose Brown's application to be discharged on the two charges, but in Brown's later civil claim the Crown did not agree that the result meant he was innocent.

The Supreme Court said the expert evidence in the compensation claim made it clear that the absence of Brown's DNA on the T-shirt did not exclude him as having worn it.

Also, the "denial of funding for the Australian testing was not shown to be causative of any actual disadvantage to the applicant which affected the fairness of his trial".

- NZPA