Frankie Edwards pictured in the Waitakere District Court in 2006. Photo / Kenny Rodger
Almost 20 years ago, a woman was getting into her car when a man wielding a knife jumped into her passenger seat and ordered her to drive, or her family would be killed.
Petrified, she followed his instructions but managed to escape when stopped at a traffic light.
The woman’s kidnapper was described as having “dense hair” on his arms, a tattoo on his stomach and no distinguishing marks on his hands or arms.
Frankie Te Uira Edwards had many tattoos on his hands and arms, but none on his stomach, and “had very little body hair”.
Yet, he pleaded guilty to the April 2006 knifepoint kidnapping, which began outside a badminton hall in Epsom.
While a court has said no one could explain why he pleaded guilty, Edwards had simultaneously admitted responsibility for a string of other crimes, including multiple rapes, he committed in similar circumstances around the same time.
Once he realised the mistake, Edwards tried to set the record straight but his pleas were ignored.
Now, 18 years later, that claim has been upheld by the Court of Appeal after the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) referred the case back to the courts.
According to the court’s recent judgment, Edwards pleaded guilty to 34 charges in July 2006, including kidnapping, threatening to kill and converting a motor vehicle relating to the Epsom kidnap.
The rest of the charges related to four separate incidents in April, May and June of that same year in various Auckland suburbs.
Earlier court documents detail the harrowing crime spree, which Edwards does admit.
The day before the woman was kidnapped in Epsom, Edwards jumped out of a bush at the Accident and Emergency Clinic in Henderson and used a spanner to smash the window of a car a woman had just got into.
He wrestled with the woman, putting his hands around her throat, before running off with her handbag.
The following month, he accosted a young woman who was returning to her car in Māngere. He threatened her with a screwdriver, said he had a gun, and made her drive to various ATMs to withdraw money. He then raped her and stole her jewellery and phone.
In June of that year, Edwards saw two girls, aged 17 and 12, returning to their car in the carpark of the Westfield Shopping Centre in Manukau City. He jumped into their vehicle and threatened them with a screwdriver.
Edwards took the older girl’s phone and money and tied the hands of the younger girl behind her back before driving to an industrial area in Māngere, where he assaulted and raped the older girl.
After that, he drove the girls around Māngere and West Auckland in an effort to obtain money and petrol. Edwards later parked in a secluded area in Rānui and again raped the older girl.
The following day, he hid in a bush, armed with a screwdriver, near Auckland Hospital. When he saw a woman getting into her car, he opened the passenger door and held a piece of sharpened metal to her throat.
Edwards drove to several locations in an effort to get money and cigarettes before stopping in Massey, where he raped the woman.
He was arrested the following day and charged over the four incidents, as well as the Epsom kidnap.
Edwards, then 30 and a heavy user of methamphetamine, pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced in the High Court in December 2006 to 16 years’ imprisonment with a minimum period of imprisonment of 10 years.
It was not until he was being sentenced that Edwards realised he had not committed the Epsom kidnap, but his pleas were brushed aside.
The following year, the Solicitor-General successfully appealed Edwards’ sentence, and the more severe sentence of preventive detention was imposed.
This meant his time in prison would be of an indefinite duration, and if released on parole, he would remain managed by Corrections for the rest of his life and could be recalled to prison at any time. Edwards did not challenge his convictions or sentence at this point.
He remains in prison and is scheduled to appear before the Parole Board in December this year.
Meanwhile, Edwards later applied to the CCRC in relation to his three convictions stemming from the Epsom incident.
The commission investigated and referred the case to the Court of Appeal in November last year.
In the court’s judgment, released last week, it stated it was impossible to determine why Edwards pleaded guilty to the Epsom offending.
“He was represented by a lawyer at the time, but neither that lawyer nor the police officer in charge of the case can shed any light on why Mr Edwards pleaded guilty,” the judgment read.
“The victim’s description of the offender cannot be reconciled with Mr Edwards’ appearance in 2006.
“In particular, the victim said the offender was ‘half caste Caucasian/dark skinned’ and that he had ‘[n]o distinguishing marks on [his] hands or arms [and] had dense hair on his arms’.
“She also said the offender had a distinctive tattoo across his stomach. Mr Edwards, who is Māori, had very little body hair in 2006 and numerous tattoos on his arms and hands. He had no tattoo on his stomach.”
The judgment also stated police records wrongly claimed the victim’s car was recovered from outside the house of Edwards’ sister, and that Edwards had been interviewed about all the incidents that led to the charges, except for the Epsom incident.
According to the judgment, the Crown accepted there was no admissible evidence to support the convictions of Edwards relating to the Epsom incident, aside from his guilty pleas and potentially propensity evidence concerning similarities between that offending and offending on other occasions by Edwards.
The Court of Appeal was satisfied it was in the interests of justice to quash Edwards’ convictions in relation to the Epsom incident. A retrial was not ordered.
A hearing has been set down for February 2026 to consider Edwards’ sentence of preventive detention.
NZME has sought comment from KC Marie Dyhrberg, who represented Edwards in the appeal court.
Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 and is currently an assistant editor and reporter for the Open Justice team. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.