Watching the detectives: Bryan Rowe remembered

Bryan Rowe in 1979. File photo / NZ Herald

The case for the prosecution: Former top-ranking policeman Bryan John Rowe is accused of being a traitor. Miffed by a Police Complaints Authority verdict which tainted his stellar career, he took revenge as a private investigator, exposing flaws in police cases and undermining loyal cops.

The defence case - backed by an overwhelming line-up of witnesses- is that Rowe in both careers was motivated only by the truth. He would pursue justice fearlessly and fairly. His one minor blemish was a certain obstinacy: once he settled on a theory, he was very hard to shake from his conviction.

Rowe, who died suddenly last weekend aged 70, was the country's highest-ranking criminal investigator from 1988 to 1996 as superintendent of the Auckland CIB. In a 33-year police career, without DNA testing and other technology advances, he used a methodical, evidence-gathering approach to resolve many cases.

The highest-profile success was the mistaken-identity shooting of Margaret Bell outside the Mainstreet nightclub in 1979. His biggest regret: the failure to nail the killer of publican Chris Bush after the Red Fox Tavern shooting in 1987. He knew who did it, though. A roll-call of top investigators, including police commissioner Peter Marshall, found him a supportive mentor.

Ironically, Rowe will be best remembered for his work after taking early retirement, helping those he believed were wrongly accused or convicted to beat the police.

For this, he was branded traitor by some. He ruined a few careers. But at his funeral on Thursday, plenty of tall men with crewcuts and dated suits rubbed shoulders with those who had cause to resent the police, along with family, friends, lawyers and fellow ex-police now on "the other side".

Mourners heard of a passionate man who liked nothing better than a family gathering with a few beers and a whisky to watch sport on TV - horse racing or his beloved Warriors.

His wife Judy says it did hurt that some in the police thought him a turncoat. But he had no difficulty reconciling the apparently opposing careers. "He always said he was doing exactly the same as when he was a policeman - he was searching for the truth."

His early death (he was with five family members at the local gym when his heart stopped) leaves unfinished business. Though he retired last year, he was still helping Christchurch lawyer Jonathan Eaton's bid to get compensation for Rex Haig, the Invercargill tuna fisherman wrongly convicted of the 1994 murder of crewmate Mark Roderique.

In Paparua Prison in 1997, Haig and two fellow inmates took prison guards hostage to draw attention to their cases. Rowe was flown down from Auckland with Kevin Ryan QC to defuse the drama. Haig's acquittal in 2006 had much to do with Rowe's tenacious investigation.

"Once he decided something was awry he showed absolute commitment to see it through," says Eaton. "He wasn't afraid to put noses out of joint. But he wouldn't make a finding unless he had dug very deep."

Haig couldn't be at the funeral. His daughter Karen flew from Dunedin to speak on his behalf and told of the hundreds of hours Rowe worked on the case. Her father looked on Rowe as a brother.

The Vini family were there too. Tania Vini was one of three teenage girls convicted in 2001 of the aggravated robbery of a 16-year-old at the Three Kings mall. Tania, aged 14 at the time of the offence, Teangarua "Lucy" Akatere, 15, and Cushla Fuataha, 14, spent seven months in prison.

Tania's distraught father Vini Kavi approached lawyer Gary Gotlieb who brought in Rowe, who blew the police case apart. He walked the route police said the trio had walked to establish they could not have done so within the timeframes. He interviewed the victim who said she knew Lucy and had told police she was not one of her attackers. The policeman said to keep the information to herself.

Tania named her son, now 5, after him (with Gary as the middle name in Gotlieb's honour). "He was like a second dad, protecting us from everything. And he never wanted any money from us," she says.

Gotlieb first met Rowe in 1973, and after he launched the Double 8 detective agency, used him frequently. "He did the hard yards and thought outside the box," says Gotlieb. "He would chase up every avenue."

Breakthroughs often came on Rowe's nightly long walks. "He would come home, ring me up and away he'd go ... When he thought the cops had got it wrong he got really angry, especially if they were covering it up or withholding information."

He was, of course, not infallible himself (though he might have trouble admitting it). In the late-80s, he faced a drink-driving charge which was eventually dismissed. In 1995, he was criticised by the Police Complaints Authority over the Janine Law case. Law was raped and murdered in her Grey Lynn house in April 1988, a teatowel stuffed down her throat. Somehow, police concluded she died of an asthma attack. When Rowe reviewed the file, he supported the investigating officer's findings.

In his second career, he became a "go to" man for crime reporters seeking insight into police procedure or misdoings. Commenting on the PCA's low prosecution rate in 1997, he said: "I think there is a feeling with any member of the police that if he or she is stupid enough to do something wrong he would expect to get support from his colleagues about his version of events."

He further polarised ex-colleagues in 2002 by giving evidence in the private prosecution of Keith Abbott, the constable who shot dead a softball bat-wielding Steven Wallace in Waitara in April 2000. Rowe maintained that, with three officers present, alternative means could have been used. In cross-examination, the Law case came up and he was accused of being "anti-police". He subsequently won a $270,000 defamation award over a story and column critical of him and other officers who testified against Abbott.

Rowe was not, says Gotlieb, motivated by money. There were no flash cars, he and Judy lived in the same Glenfield house for 35 years. But he put his earnings to good use, shouting the extended family to fortnight-long holidays in Queensland four times in recent years.

The summing-up is left to Eaton: "He leaves a huge hole in the justice system. There would be people wrongly behind bars but for Bryan Rowe."

And the verdict? It's hard to fault the judgment of Judy, who this week received many messages of sympathy from strangers. "He was a good man. I'm just beginning to realise how many people he has helped."