Red Fox Tavern murder: Pair lose bid to overturn convictions

Mark Hoggart and another man with name suppression were found guilty after a seven-week trial at the Auckland High Court in 2021.

By Lauren Crimp of RNZ

Two men convicted of killing a publican at the Red Fox Tavern in 1987 have lost their appeal to have their convictions overturned.

Chris Bush was shot dead at the Maramarua pub in October 1987 and the offenders fled with more than $30,000.

In 2017, Mark Hoggart and another man, who cannot be named, were arrested after police began reinvestigating the high-profile cold case in 2016.

They were sentenced to life in prison in 2021 with a minimum parole period of 10 years for murder and aggravated robbery.

The men appealed their convictions at the Court of Appeal in Wellington in February, and in May the court dismissed that appeal.

The media was not able to report that decision until now - and it is still not allowed to report the reasons for the judgment.

At the Court of Appeal, Christopher Stevenson - the lawyer for the unnamed defendant - argued the Crown’s evidence fell “way, way short” of the threshold required to prove his client was guilty.

Stevenson said the evidence was not reliable because the trial took place more than 30 years after the murder, describing that as an enormous delay.

“Delay in this case very much undermines at multiple points on the evidential road, the evidence itself, the reliability thereof.”

He said it also meant the defendant was unable to respond fairly to the allegations.

Hoggart’s lawyer, Quentin Duff, also said there was simply “no evidence” against his client, and that two innocent men were convicted of the crimes.

He said the Crown asked the jury to make speculative leaps, rather than delivering concrete evidence.

“There’s no evidence, direct or circumstantial, that was capable of convicting Mr Hoggart as being one of the two people who robbed the Red Fox Tavern.”

But Crown lawyer Charlotte Brook reiterated the Crown’s initial arguments from 2021, detailing what it called “10 strands” of evidence against the pair.

She also said the delay between the murder and the trial enabled the defendants to blame another man, Lester Hamilton, who died before the trial.

“The death of Lester Hamilton enabled [name suppressed] and Mr Hoggart to point the finger at Mr Hamilton without him being available to defend himself.”

Brook said if the trial had been held prior to Hamilton’s death, it was inevitable he would have been a Crown witness.

“The approach that was ultimately taken, the Crown says, was more favourable to the appellant, indeed the most favourable, than if the charges had been brought earlier in time.”