By CATHERINE MASTERS
Foreign Minister Phil Goff has stepped in to help New Zealand woman Suezanne Hayman, wrongly convicted in Australia of conspiracy to import heroin.
She has been blocked from re-entering Australia, where her adult children live, despite the conviction being overturned after a police officer told a royal commission
into police corruption that he made up her confession.
A spokesman for Mr Goff said the minister had contacted his counterpart in Australia and the Immigration Minister.
"Because she is a convicted felon they're not going to let her in, which is all very bizarre even though she has been cleared," the spokesman said.
The Consulate-General in Sydney agreed to contact the New South Wales Legal Aid Commission to find out about Ms Hayman's case.
"My understanding of what the Australians are saying is, 'Well, look, Suezanne Hayman's just one of a heap of people who were done basically by these crooked cops'," the spokesman said.
Mr Goff told Ms Hayman, who lives in Northland, she had been through an "awful experience" and he would help where he could.
The saga began in Australia in 1986 when Ms Hayman went on holiday to Hong Kong with a friend.
Two years later, New South Wales detectives told her the friend said Ms Hayman had been involved in a plan to import heroin and she was arrested.
She told Radio New Zealand that at a bail hearing police produced a statement and said she had changed her mind and refused to sign it. Ms Hayman was released on two years' bail then convicted and jailed for six years, and deported to New Zealand.
