David Tamihere granted Supreme Court appeal in Swedish backpacker case

Friday, 20 December 2024

David Tamihere outside his home in Auckland. Tamihere has always maintained he did not kill Swedish tourists Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen.

David Tamihere has received a Christmas present he never expected.

On Friday afternoon, the Supreme Court announced it would hear his appeal against his convictions for murdering two Swedish backpackers in 1989.

The court said it was particularly interested in hearing whether the Court of Appeal’s decision in July to uphold Tamihere’s convictions was correct, given new evidence that had emerged and the importance of cases being heard by juries.

It also said the Crown and Tamihere’s lawyers could make submissions on the admissibility and relevance of evidence from Sir Robert Jones, which was revealed by the Sunday Star-Times in 2023.

Sir Robert Jones, who says the lead detective in the Tamihere case confessed he made up evidence.

The prominent Wellington businessman said the officer who led the investigation into the murders, Detective Inspector John Hughes, admitted to him shortly after Tamihere was convicted, that he had fitted him up.

Jones said Hughes told him: “I nailed him by making up all the evidence, but I’m telling you, the bastard did it.”

Tamihere told The Post on Friday that he hadn’t expected the Supreme Court to grant him leave.

“I thought that it would be a big no, and dress it up with some crap like the last couple of times I’ve heard from the Court of Appeal.”

Tamihere said the biggest issue for him was that while they were arguing against the evidence presented at his trial, the Crown kept changing its scenario of what happened.

All he wanted was the opportunity to have this new evidence argued in court before a jury, and have witnesses cross-examined.

He said the news would make Christmas celebrations with his family even better.

Tamihere was found guilty of killing Swedish backpackers Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Höglin, in what has become one of the country’s most controversial cases.

Höglin and Paakkonen had been holidaying in New Zealand for five months when they disappeared on the Coromandel Peninsula.

At the time, Tamihere, who had a previous conviction for manslaughter, and been on the run for two years after skipping bail while facing sentencing for a brutal rape, was living off the land in the Coromandel.

Swedish tourists Urban Hoglin and Heidi Paakkonen were murdered while holidaying in the Coromandel. David Tamihere was accused and convicted of their murders.

When Tamihere was eventually apprehended, police discovered possessions from the Swedish couple.

Tamihere admitted stealing their car, but denied meeting or murdering them.

Led by formidable detective John Hughes, police originally claimed Tamihere abducted and killed the couple on a tramping track near Thames.

But a year after Tamihere was convicted, Höglin’s body was found more than 70km away on the Coromandel’s opposite coast, wearing a watch police had insisted Tamihere had stolen and given to his son.

Heidi Paakkonen’s body has never been found.

Tamihere always insisted he was innocent and fought to clear his name, even after he was paroled from prison in 2010 after serving more than 20 years.

From left: Justice Forrie Miller, Justice Christine French, and Justice David Collins in the Court of Appeal who said there was still a strong case against David Tamihere.

In 2020, he was granted a second appeal, when it was proven one of the witnesses at his trial, jailhouse snitch Roberto Conchie Harris, had committed perjury and given false evidence.

But at Tamihere’s appeal in November 2023, the Crown presented a new theory: that Tamihere encountered the couple near where Höglin was buried in the Wentworth Valley, close to where Tamihere had a bush campsite.

For an unexplained reason, the Crown said Tamihere then drove Paakkonen back to the Coromandel’s east coast, and marched her up a popular hiking track, where two trampers said they saw Tamihere with a woman resembling Paakkonen - an identification that has remained controversial.

In July, the Court of Appeal agreed that while Harris’s evidence shouldn’t have been heard by the jury, there was still sufficient proof Tamihere killed the couple.

They pointed to the trampers’ crucial identification of Tamihere; lies Tamihere told about his movements; claims he made about finding and breaking into the Swedes’ car; and his actions after they disappeared.

The judges said Tamihere murdered Höglin, then abducted Paakkonen, with the most likely motive being “for the purpose of sexual assault”.

Tamihere then appealed to the Supreme Court for leave to have his case heard there.

Appealing to the Supreme Court is a two-stage process: first leave has to be granted, and then a substantive hearing is held.

Tamihere’s lawyer Murray Gibson said he was “delighted at the close attention the Supreme Court has given this case, especially at this time of the year,” and he looked forward to the substantive hearing.