Exorcism preacher's manslaughter conviction overturned

A Korean preacher found guilty of the manslaughter of a parishioner during an exorcism has had his conviction overturned by the Court of Appeal.

In its decision on the appeal of Yong Bum Lee, the court acknowledged its findings would have an impact much wider than just on the participants in the ceremony that resulted in the death of Keum Ok Lee, also known as Joanna Lee.

Ms Lee - no relation to Yong Bum Lee, also known as Luke Lee - was a member of Lee's Lord Of All's church. The 37-year-old woman died after being strangled during a "deliverance" service on December 10, 2000, in Lee's Mt Roskill home. Parishioners spent six days awaiting Ms Lee's resurrection.

After a High Court trial in Auckland in which Lee defended himself, he was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six years in prison. He was removed from New Zealand in January 2005.

The Court of Appeal's decision rested heavily on Joanna Lee's consent to the ritual, a possible defence which the jury should have been allowed to consider.

The judges said there should be an ability to consent to the intentional infliction of harm, short of death, unless there were good public policy reasons to forbid it, and that "a high value should be placed on personal autonomy".

"Consent to the intentional infliction of harm (and especially grievous bodily harm) is likely, however, to be relatively rare," the judgment said. "It will be much more common for people to consent to activities carrying the risk of harm. The risk can be relatively low, such as in a social game of badminton doubles, or of a higher order, such as in professional ice hockey or contact sports such as rugby."

Lee enlisted a team of lawyers for his appeal. One, Robert Lithgow, said the finding that adults could consent to things that might hurt them was an important one.

"The case has huge ramifications for a whole range of people," Lithgow said.

"Provided it is not illegal ... then you're allowed to do it. You can't just go round saying that we've got to protect people from themselves all the time."

Lead counsel Nicolette Levy said she had not yet been able to tell Lee of the outcome of the appeal.

The court found that trial judge Justice Barry Paterson was wrong to tell the jury that if they found the pastor had strangled Joanna Lee during the ritual, the fact she consented to the exorcism was irrelevant.

"Consent was available in this case as a matter of law, subject to a possible exclusion on public policy grounds if Mr Lee was reckless or intended to cause Joanna grievous bodily harm. There was an ample evidential basis ... for the defence to have been left with the jury. The failure to do so was clearly an error in law."

The judgment said any retrial would be difficult because many witnesses and Lee himself no longer lived in New Zealand, but would not be impossible. There was also precedent for Lee to be retried in his absence.

Aaron Perkins, the original prosecutor, said Crown representatives would now consider whether to press ahead with a retrial.