Crown admits it has no case against convicted murderer Gail Maney

• August 1989: Tyre-fitter Deane Fuller-Sandys is presumed to have drowned after failing to return from a fishing trip at Whatipu on Auckland’s west coast. Five days later sex worker Leah Stephens disappeared and her body was found three years later near Muriwai Golf Course.
• March 1999: Gail Maney and Stephen Stone were jointly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for Fuller-Sandys’ murder. Stone is also convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for Leah Stephen’s rape and murder which was allegedly connected to Fuller-Sandys’ killing. Colin Maney and Mark Henriksen are found guilty of being accessories to Fuller-Sandy’s murder.
• Yesterday the Court of Appeal heard two of the four critical witnesses in the case have recanted their evidence and another wants nothing more to do with the case. Today it heard the Crown hasn’t ruled out a retrial.

The Crown admits it has no murder case against convicted killer Gail Maney, but maintains there is sufficient evidence to retry her co-accused Stephen Stone.

But it wants the final decision about any retrial to rest with the Auckland crown solicitor, Alysha McClintock.

Maney and Stone were jointly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for Deane Fuller-Sandys’ murder following a trial in 1999. Stone was also convicted of raping and murdering Leah Stephens. Mark Henrikson and Gail’s brother Colin were convicted of being accessories to Fuller-Sandy’s murder.

They have been fighting to clear their names ever since, with the Court of Appeal hearing this case again this week.

Gail Maney and her brother Colin arriving at the Court of Appeal in Wellington for their hearing over their convictions connected to the murder of Deane Fuller-Sandys. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The appeal follows last month’s startling admission by the Crown that a miscarriage of justice had taken place after two key pieces of evidence weren’t turned over to the defence in the 1999 trial and a subsequent retrial in 2000.

The Crown is now seeking for all the convictions to be quashed but want the court to order a retrial.

At today’s hearing the Crown conceded it had no case against Maney for Fuller-Sandys’ murder, after it emerged the only witness who implicated her had recanted her statements to the police and died last year.

Mark Lillico representing the Crown told the court there was now only a case for assault, “and the Crown’s not going to retry her for that,” he said.

Maney said the Crown’s admission came as a surprise and while it was overwhelming, it was clear there wasn’t a case against her or the others.

Deane Fuller-Sandys went fishing one night in 1989 and disappeared, presumed drowned. Eight years later police said it was in fact murder. Photo / RNZ

Leah Stephens went missing in 1989. Her body was found in Woodhill Forest in 1992.

At trial the Crown’s case was that Maney ordered Stone to kill Fuller-Sandys because he burgled her Larnoch Road flat in West Auckland, stealing drugs, money and leather goods. They claimed Fuller-Sandys’ was shot by Stone and others in the flat’s garage before his body, which has never been found, was disposed of at Woodhill Forest.

Fearing one of those present - young sex worker Stephens - would talk, Stone raped and killed her five days later.

Lillico told the court the Crown maintained a retrial on the murder charges was necessary because of the seriousness of those charges. There was also an interest in pursuing a trial not only for the public but it was also in the interests of the two victims’ families.

He said there was sufficient evidence against Stone.

“The prosecution in this case as much as it has affected and blighted Mr Stone’s and Ms Maney’s lives it also affected the lives of Ms Stephens’ and Mr Fuller-Sandys’ family,” he said.

However, Lillico also suggested the Crown would be making further inquiries and investigations before deciding whether to proceed with any retrial.

But Justice David Collins was unhappy with that, suggesting the court was being asked to decide whether to enter an acquittal or a retrial and in order to do that it needed to consider all relevant matters.

He said he found the suggestion that there might be something else out there, without there being any indication of what that was to be “quite unsatisfactory”.

“You’re asking the court to allow another person, albeit a very responsible constitutional officer, you’re asking this court to have another person make this decision, the circumstances which you are not prepared to share with the court, which is required in order for it to order a retrial” he said.

But Lillico said without a warrant for a retrial the Crown had been unable to conduct a new investigation.

Justice Collins also raised the fact that in Stone’s trial in 1999, the jury weren’t told that the two key witnesses had shared evidence before giving their statements to the police and police had provided information to witnesses.

At that trial the judge told the jury the four witnesses had scant opportunity to compare notes, he said.

Justice Collins said that raised another issue, whether the Solicitor General would have granted immunity for prosecution for the four key witnesses - whose evidence was crucial to the prosecution case - if they had known the tactics that police had employed to gather that evidence.

The Crown is expected to make submissions on these points. Lawyers for Maney and Stone oppose the Crown’s request for a retrial and are asking the court for an acquittal or a stay of proceedings.

The Court reserved its decision with Justice Christine French telling the court that although some aspects of the case were straightforward, others were not and that is why they would not be releasing a decision today. She said they would release a decision as soon as possible.

Outside court Maney said she would have liked to have had a decision today, “but I understand the position the court is in”. She said she hoped during the two-day hearing the judges could see that she and the others were innocent.

“We have to give the judges a chance to compare the information and make a fair decision,” she said.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media advisor at the Ministry of Justice.