Justice for All

Wrongful Convictions

The story of Mauha Fawcett is one of the most controversial wrongful-conviction cases in modern New Zealand criminal justice involving a vulnerable young Maori man, a cognitive impaired suspect, a false confession, and a jury not knowing some important information.

Read the story about David Lyttle, who confessed a murder to a false crime lord. There was only one problem, the murder didn’t happen.

The case of Arthur Allan Thomas remains one of the most significant miscarriages of justice in New Zealand history. What began as a murder investigation in rural Waikato in 1970 evolved into a national scandal that exposed serious flaws in police procedures and raised fundamental questions about the integrity of the criminal justice system.

For more than two decades, Gail Maney lived under the shadow of one of New Zealand’s most controversial murder convictions. Convicted twice for the 1989 murder of West Auckland tyre-fitter Deane Fuller-Sandys, she spent 15 years in prison insisting she was innocent.

In any justice system, few failures are more serious than convicting an innocent person. The case of David Dougherty remains one of New Zealand’s most significant miscarriages of justice, highlighting the devastating human cost of wrongful conviction and the importance of scientific evidence in safeguarding the innocent.

For Rex Haig, the justice system’s mistake cost more than a decade of his life. The New Zealand fisherman spent ten years in prison for a murder he always maintained he did not commit. His conviction was eventually overturned, but the battle to clear his name and obtain recognition for what happened to him would continue long after he walked free.

Murderer in the Family?
On a cold winter morning in Dunedin on 20 June 1994, New Zealand woke to one of the most disturbing crimes in its modern history. Five members of one family—Robin Bain, Margaret Bain and three of their children, Arawa, Laniet and Stephen—were found shot dead inside their home on Every Street. The only surviving family member, 22-year-old David Bain, called emergency services and reported the horrifying discovery.

Few New Zealand cases illustrate the human cost of wrongful convictions more starkly than that of Aaron Farmer, whose wrongful conviction exposed serious investigative failures and reignited questions about police accountability, compensation, and how miscarriages of justice can be prevented.

The New Zealand Supreme Court’s decision to quash David Tamihere’s murder convictions has reopened one of the country’s most debated criminal cases and sparked wider questions about how the justice system deals with historic convictions.

Stephen Hudson’s long-running fight to overturn his murder conviction is approaching a critical stage, as the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) prepares to decide whether his case should be referred back to the Court of Appeal. Convicted in 2009 for the 2002 murder of Nicholas Pike, whose body has never been found, Hudson continues to insist he is innocent despite exhausting every avenue of appeal.