Gail Maney demands police be investigated in Gone Fishing case

Sunday, 22 December 2024

She spent 16 years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, leaving her five children to grow up without her. Now Gail Maney wants the police officers responsible held to account. Mike White reports.

A victim of one of the country’s most prominent miscarriages of justice is calling for the police officers responsible for her wrongful conviction to be held to account.

Gail Maney was convicted in 1999 of killing Deane Fuller-Sandys in what has become known as the Gone Fishing case.

Stephen Stone was also found guilty of murdering Fuller-Sandys, as well as Auckland woman Leah Stephens, and two other men were convicted of being accessories after the fact.

In October, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of all four.

In acquitting her, the court stressed, “there is no evidence at all against Ms Maney, let alone credible evidence”.

Two weeks later, Maney wrote to the officer overseeing the case, Detective Superintendent Uraia Vakaruru, lodging a criminal complaint against the officers responsible for her wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

She specifically asked police to investigate officers who failed to disclose crucial material to her lawyers at her trials and appeal; alleged lies by a senior detective under oath in court; another officer’s evidence at her appeal that has now been contradicted by a witness; the apparent failure by police to provide relevant facts to the solicitor-general before four witnesses against her were given immunity; and the untrue evidence of two of these witnesses (the other two having already recanted their testimony).

In her letter, Maney said there was never any evidence against her, as she didn’t know Fuller-Sandys, let alone have any reason to murder him.

“The case against me, as set out in the Crown evidence at my 1999 and 2000 trials, was a fabrication, directed and facilitated by police officers.”

Vakaruru told Maney police were assessing the matters she had raised, and would respond by November 25.

When police failed to do this, Maney’s lawyer wrote to Vakaruru again.

On November 29, Vakaruru said police were still assessing Maney’s complaints.

“I am reluctant to provide any firm time-frames for decisions at this point in time, but we are progressing this matter as a priority.”

Maney told the Sunday Star-Times that throughout her 25-year fight to clear her name, she always wanted people held responsible for what happened to her.

“Because there’s clear evidence to show they covered up stuff.

“It’s definitely not about revenge, because I don’t have any animosity or anger. Those people who lied, and the police who knowingly did what they did - they have to live with that, and they have to live with that guilt.”

The police theory was that Maney, angered by a burglary at her flat in Larnoch Rd, Auckland, got 19-year-old nightclub bouncer Stephen Stone to kill Fuller-Sandys.

Leah Stephens was supposedly one of eight other people to witness the murder, and when Stone feared she would spill the beans, he killed her too.

Stone spent 26 years in prison for the murders he insists he didn’t commit, only being released on bail in October, and police and Auckland’s Crown prosecutor are still deciding if they will re-try him.

Concerns about the case eventually led the Crown to accept there had been a miscarriage of justice.

It based this on the non-disclosure of two crucial documents, relating to police dealings with witnesses given immunity in return for their testimony against Maney and Stone.

One was a fax from the investigation head, Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Franklin, to the lawyer for one of the witnesses. It included the statement from another of the crucial four police witnesses.

Until that time, the two men’s stories had diverged widely.

But after the fax was sent, the lawyer’s witness, who had already provided nine differing statements to police, gave an interview largely corresponding with the other witness’s claims.

But at Maney’s second trial, Franklin denied sharing witness statements.

“None of the witnesses in this case have been furnished with any other witness’s statements,” Franklin told the court.

Instead, he indicated witnesses had only been told in “very broad terms” what other witnesses had described.

This led to lawyers for Maney and Stone alleging Franklin lied to the court.

In submissions to the Court of Appeal this year, Stone’s lawyers claimed Franklin gave “untruthful evidence at trial and the Court of Appeal”, and the investigation head was “the puppet-master” manipulating witness evidence.

“The police acted with contorted motives, inscrutability, and impropriety, to wrongly convict Mr Stone and his co-accused.”

In their submissions, Maney’s lawyers alleged Franklin “coerced and threatened” all four key witnesses to get the evidence he wanted from them, and the two undisclosed documents were “a slim fraction of the police misconduct in this case”.

The Court of Appeal said there were “significant questions about the veracity of Detective Franklin’s assurances in the 1999 trial”, and it harboured “deep misgivings” about his conduct.

However, the court said it may only be possible for a jury to decide if Franklin was telling the truth.

Franklin, who retired from the police in 2005, has been bullish in response to allegations about his actions.

“Well, that’s a matter that can be put to the Crown, and a complaint of perjury can be made, if that’s the case.

“I’m not going to make any comment on that.”

Franklin has previously defended his investigation of Maney and Stone, saying it was done “by the book”.

But Maney, who is applying for compensation for the years she spent in prison, says the case against her was riddled with misconduct.

“I could never believe that we actually went to court for this. For me, it was just so obvious we were innocent.

“But it was just this big maze of lies that the police went round and concocted.”

Maney suggests if the same amount of evidence was produced against any member of the public, the police would have charged them long ago, but were dragging out the investigation into their own officers.

Her concerns had increased after it was revealed the new police commissioner, Richard Chambers, was connected to the case through his father, barrister Roger Chambers, who represented Stone, but later publicly stated Stone was guilty.

“To be honest, I don’t have any faith or confidence in the New Zealand police. I don’t trust them at all,” Maney says.

“I was a mother. I lost my children, and that’s the hardest thing. They had to grow up without a mother.

“And I think it’s terrible what they did - and they need to be held accountable.”

When asked by the Sunday Star-Times what investigations they were undertaking into the actions of officers in the case, police said a complaint had been received, and the Independent Police Conduct Authority had been notified.

A spokesperson said commissioner Richard Chambers had no involvement in the case.

Investigator Tim McKinnel, whose examination of the case led to Maney’s acquittal, says concerns about detectives’ actions were very clear at the time of the Court of Appeal hearing in August, and should have been sufficient to launch a police investigation.

“That didn’t happen. Gail has now complained. And the police position is that they are assessing the information.

“That sounds like stalling, to us.

“There is a substantial body of compelling evidence, and I can’t see any reason why police wouldn’t promptly begin an investigation.”

McKinnel, a former detective who helped prove the innocence of Teina Pora, and Alan Hall, believes three or four officers involved in the case may be criminally liable.

The apparent lassitude of police towards investigating their own potential wrongdoing, mirrored what happened with Pora and Hall when concerns about their convictions were raised, and proven, he says.

“It’s incredibly frustrating. It’s almost as if nothing at all has been learnt.

“There’s this silly dance going on around the periphery of what is a very serious matter.

“The proper, perhaps courageous, and right thing to do is just to get on with an investigation.

“There’s a need to give the public confidence that when these types of cases emerge, and there may be wrongdoing involved, then it’s taken seriously and acted on with urgency.”

McKinnel fears police are “playing politics” with an embarrassing case, refusing guarantee they will investigate their officers, let alone lay charges for what happened.

“There are elements of corrupt practice in this investigation, in my view, which undoubtedly contributed to what are now confirmed as three separate miscarriages of justice, and likely four.

“But within police there seems to be a reluctance to admit what is blindingly obvious to most.”

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