David Tamihere’s lawyer has outlined “fundamental” errors in the case against the double-convicted murderer, as an attempt to clear his name gets under way in the country’s highest court today.
More than three decades after he was first found guilty, Tamihere’s latest appeal is being heard in the Supreme Court today – likely his last chance to clear his murder convictions.
Tamihere’s long-time lawyer Murray Gibson told the court the case presented an “unusual circumstance” as a recent court decision had already found there had been a miscarriage of justice.
“[The Crown] no longer subscribes to the theory presented at trial,” Gibson said as he went on to list six breaches of fair trial rights in the 1990 jury trial.
Tamihere was found guilty of murdering Swedish tourists Urban Hoglin, 23, and Heidi Paakkonen, 21, in the Coromandel Ranges in 1989.
He admitted stealing the Swedish couple’s white Subaru but denied ever meeting them.
“The issue now is whether it’s a substantial miscarriage of justice,” Gibson said.
“There are so many errors with respect to the trial not being fair.”
Tamihere, now in his 70s and living in West Auckland, has always claimed he was framed by police.
Gibson said his counsel will advise on six breaches of fair trial grounds – later adjusted to seven breaches when Justice Susan Glazebrook noted he had not mentioned the discovery of Urban Hoglin’s skeletal remains in a different area to the Crown’s theory after Tamihere was already convicted.
Hoglin and Paakkonen were hiking in dense bush at a time when Tamihere was on the run from police while on bail for rape.
He was charged with their murders, and at his trial in November of 1990, a jailhouse informant, then known as “secret witness C”, testified that Tamihere had admitted to the killings while in prison after having been sentenced on the earlier rape conviction.
Witness C, a murderer later identified as Roberto Conchie Harris, was later convicted of perjury in connection with that evidence.
Two other inmates also testified that Tamihere had made admissions.
Gibson said the Crown case at trial relied heavily on a “marriage” of evidence by two trampers and Harris, describing it as “relatively weak identification evidence corroborated by perjury”.
The trampers failed to identify Tamihere originally, but identified him in their statements the day after they saw him in person in Thames District Court, Gibson said.
The trampers were unable to identify the Swedish couple with images and said they thought that the couple they had spoken to may have been able to help police find the Swedish couple, rather than identifying them as the Swedish couple themselves.
“Honesty is no guarantee against a false impression,” Gibson told the Supreme Court.
Another breach of fair trial was the false evidence that Tamihere had stolen Hoglin’s watch. The watch was later found on the wrist of Hoglin’s body after the trial.
Gibson said the watch was originally presented as an important piece of evidence because it linked Tamihere to the couple, not just their car, which he had admitted to stealing.
The sixth breach related to the affidavit of the late Sir Robert Jones, who said Inspector Hughes introduced evidence he knew to be false.
“This undermines the integrity of the trial,” Gibson said.
But it was after Tamihere’s conviction, despite the Crown having no bodies or a murder weapon, that the case was turned on its head.
The original trial (and first appeal) proceeded on a “false premise”, Tamihere’s lawyers said, because the Crown’s case was based on the theory that the bodies were disposed of in Crosbies Clearing.
Exactly two years after Tamihere was charged, Hoglin’s body was found in a shallow grave by pig hunters near Whangamatā – more than 70km from where the Crown said the murders had happened.
But it was not enough to convince the Court of Appeal in 1992, or the Privy Council later, and Tamihere would spend 20 years behind bars. He was released on parole from his life sentence in 2010.
In 2020, he was granted the rare legal lifeline of a Royal Prerogative of Mercy, which allowed his case to be heard by the Court of Appeal in 2023 – only to have his case dismissed again, despite the panel of three judges finding the use of evidence from a discredited jailhouse snitch amounted to a miscarriage of justice.
But last December, in another twist in one of New Zealand’s most infamous cases, the country’s highest court, the Supreme Court, granted him leave – and a final chance to try to clear his name.
The five justices hearing Tamihere’s challenge will focus on whether the Court of Appeal should have exercised its jurisdiction under a particular section of the Crimes Act to quash the double-murder convictions.
The Supreme Court has said it will likely probe:
Hoglin and Paakkonen went missing when they were hiking in dense Coromandel bush in April 1989.
At that time, Tamihere was on the run from police.
Three years earlier, he had raped and threatened a 47-year-old woman in her home for more than six hours.
He pleaded guilty to that offence but had ignored his bail conditions and absconded to the bush, where he was living rough.
He also had a prior conviction for manslaughter after hitting 23-year-old stripper Mary Barcham on the head with a rifle in 1972, when he was 18.
On April 10, 1989, Tamihere came across the Swedish couple’s white Subaru, “loaded with gear” and parked near the start of a difficult walking track.
He stole the car, something he has always admitted.
Weeks later, after the Swedes’ disappearance had sparked the largest land-based search in New Zealand history, Tamihere was linked to the car.
The head of the investigation, Detective Inspector John Hughes, had also been involved in the case against Arthur Allan Thomas, who was found guilty over the Crewe murders in 1970.
Thomas was released after nine years in jail and given nearly $1 million in compensation; a Royal Commission of Inquiry said that detectives had planted fake evidence and police had produced fake confessions from two prisoners.
“It causes us grave concern that very senior police officers were so obviously ready to place credence on such unreliable, self-interested, and, in the case of the first inmate, deluded evidence,” the commission’s report said.
The report did not name any officers in relation to the confessions, nor was there any sign of Hughes’ involvement in the planting of fake evidence.
But Hughes did provide evidence about Thomas being in the Crewe home that was wrong, and which allowed Thomas’ credibility to be attacked under cross-examination.
Hughes died in 2006.
The Post journalist Mike White reported in 2023 that Hughes had bragged to Sir Bob Jones that “I nailed [Tamihere] by making up all the evidence”.
Hughes was also spoken to as part of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) investigation in 1996, into Harris’ claims of a $100,000 police offer and help to get parole in exchange for saying Tamihere had confessed to the murders to him.
Hughes told the IPCA that the claim of a $100,000 bribe was “absolute rubbish”.
“I believed that he [Harris] was sincere for his motive for coming forward ... He was respectful to the Crown, Defence Counsel and everyone and explained why he was there. He was sick of listening to Tamihere quoting about what he had done,” Hughes told the IPCA.
Hughes admitted to travelling to Christchurch to appear at Harris’ parole hearing in 1992, telling the Parole Board that Harris had given evidence at the Tamihere trial, “nothing more”.
The board postponed its decision until a further hearing six months later, when it recommended releasing Harris.
The IPCA found the allegations of police misconduct had “no validity whatsoever”.