Case against Crewe cops 'too weak'

Arthur Allan Thomas was jailed for the Crewe murders. Photo / Supplied

Police accused of framing Arthur Allan Thomas for the Crewe murders in 1970 were never charged because the Government's top legal adviser said there was not enough evidence to justify a prosecution.

A previously secret report obtained by the Herald shows the Solicitor-General, Paul Neazor, found witness statements were not strong enough to mount a case that two police officers planted a shellcase from Mr Thomas' rifle in the Crewes' garden to link him to the crime.

The accusation that police planted evidence to get a conviction has been at the centre of controversy over the case for the past 40 years.

A royal commission in 1980 said two police officers, Detective Inspector Bruce Hutton and Detective Len Johnston, buried the shellcase to implicate Mr Thomas in the double murder of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe at their farmhouse in Pukekawa, south of Auckland, on June 17, 1970.

It said their decision to fabricate evidence was "an unspeakable outrage", which put an innocent man in jail for nine years.

Mr Thomas was eventually pardoned in 1979 after two trials, a series of unsuccessful appeals and a wave of public protest that led to the personal intervention of then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.

His National Government set up the commission, led by outspoken Australian judge Justice Robert Taylor.

After several months of often bitter hearings, marked by angry exchanges between the judge and police lawyers and witnesses, the commission's report laid the blame squarely with the police.

But no officers were charged with planting the shellcase, to the anger of Mr Thomas and his supporters.

A year later, Mr Neazor recommended no action be taken but until now his reasons have remained secret.

In his report to police in December 1981, Mr Neazor recommended against prosecution for two main reasons, both related to what he saw as weaknesses in witnesses' evidence.

He says the commission concluded the shellcase had been planted by the detectives just before its discovery in October, because police had combed the garden in August.

If Mr Thomas had dropped the case on the night of the murder, the commission ruled, police would have found it by the August search at the latest.

Mr Neazor said a prosecution would struggle to prove this claim as it was based on the evidence of one witness, Graeme Hewson, who helped police in their search. Four police officers said the garden was not thoroughly searched in August, and another said it could not have been.

Mr Neazor said the only evidence directly suggesting Mr Hutton and Mr Johnston went to the farmhouse and buried the used shellcase in the garden on a particular day was the recollections of the Crewes' neighbours, Owen and Julie Priest.

They told the commission they heard rifle shots from the farm in early October and spoke to the two men after they pulled over in their police car.

Mr Priest said when he asked Mr Hutton why he had fired two shots at the house, the detective said, "How do you know?" and he replied, "We heard you."

Mr Neazor said both Mr and Mrs Priest were unsure about the date of this conversation and Mr Priest was not even sure if the second person in the car was Mr Johnston.

He said the conversation amounted to "no more than evidence of opportunity" for Mr Hutton to have buried the shellcase in the garden in the days between the police taking the Thomas rifle on October 20 and the shellcase's discovery on October 27.

"Looked at objectively, I do not think it can be said that this evidence reaches the standard required for a prosecution to place Mr Hutton and Mr Johnston on the Crewe property with a rifle (let alone the Thomas rifle) between 20 October and 26 October."

Mr Hutton, now 81, retired and living in South Auckland, said he felt vindicated by the report but had always expected the commission's accusations to be rejected.

"I certainly think it clears my name. As I saw it, there was no evidence heard by the commission where they could bring in such a finding."

Mr Johnston died in 1978.

Mr Thomas could not be contacted for comment, but he has repeatedly accused the police of trying to undermine his pardon by protesting their innocence.

"The police have never admitted that they fabricated evidence," he told the Herald in 1990.

"They are trying to cover up and by doing it they're saying I am still involved in the Crewe murders."

Lawyer Peter Williams, QC, who represented Mr Thomas at the commission, said he could not say why police were never prosecuted but its findings were straightforward.

"It was clear in the end that Thomas was innocent, it was clear in the end that police had planted the shellcase. It's a classic case of police malpractice and I think it will go down in history for that reason."