Ronald Turner, a name paramount to this investigation simply because he is the only witness outside of the Easton family that saw the alleged offender.
The importance of Turners testimony is he described a man he saw running two blocks from the scene of the homicide as Maori where clearly Allan Hall is European or male Caucasian.
In his signed statement the day following the murder, Mr Turner gave details about the man’s movements and observations stating the alleged offender had stopped and looked around behind him, walking down a right of way.
Turner described the alleged offender as being a male Maori and his height would be between 5’7” and 6’ and you could see he was definitely dark skinned; he was not white.
Alongside Mr Turners witness statement, the two injured Easton boys gave statements saying, although not conclusive, that the offender was male Maori, and these two statements were supported by the attending ambulance officers statement, again describing a male Maori offender.
The Police purposely withheld both Easton boys’ statements from defence counsel as well as the statement from the ambulance officer.
Given the fact these statements had been purposely withheld the jury had little reason to think the offender couldn’t have been Allan, especially given the fact the Police had changed Mr Turners statement removing the words Maori out of it.
Mr Turners changed statement was read to the jury by the residing judge, who also was unaware that it had been changed.
The other troubling issues has to be the description of the offender given by the Easton boys. Putting ethnicity aside they speak of a solidly built offender who fought off 3 males trying to defend themselves. Allan Hall is slight and weighs around 62 kilos.
The offender had a Tennis racquet smashed over his head, which would have left injuries, but Allan Hall had not sign of healing wounds, but still the investigation focused on him.
Why would the police falsify a written witness statement, purposely removing words describing the ethnicity of the offender? The answer simply must be to get a quick easy conviction.
SJA believe that the public have a right to know who changed the witness statement, and how this was allowed to happen? Even though it was many moons ago, what has been done to stop it happening again? and is it still happening today? From where we are standing it clearly is and those responsible must be held to account.
Jackie Foster, CEO, Social Justice Aotearoa
Thanks Jackie, this is great. Not only did the Police remove the description provided by Mr Turner, without him knowing, they also inserted words into the same statement describing a piece of clothing matching an item of clothing owned by Mr Hall.
By reading Mr Turner’s statement to the jury, it avoided the need for Mr Turner to give evidence which meant he could not be questioned about his statement.
The actions of the cops who did all this, so that they could build up a false case against a vulnerable autistic man, who they interviewed for hours, and hours and hours without legal representation, was disgustingly corrupt and wrong on so many levels.
The big question is will anyone be prosecuted for what these cops did. I think it is called perverting justice. The cops that did this should be prosecuted. If I deliberately changed a statement to support a case in court, the cops and the system would come down on me hard and have me prosecuted no questions asked. They would prosecute me immediately, which begs the question, why haven’t these cops been charged already? It has been such a long time now which makes me think they probably won’t be charged.
Yes, it seems grossly unfair that the police can fabricate evidence and/or deny evidence to the defense yet it is not considered criminal conduct.
I will not back down until the truth is told and people are held to account.
Fantastic Jackie
You inspired me to listen to the Grove Road Pod cast, beats listening to the wife nag, and i am gob smacked.
When we look at this along with a lot of other wrongful convictions it clearly shows we have a pack of pricks that call themselves police who dish out justice as they see fit.
Problem is it wont get better under this so called coalition it will get worse because Seymour, Mitchell and Winston wont give two hoots about who gets locked or how they got locked up as long as seemingly they are being harsh on criminals even if some of those criminals are innocent.
Mitchell is a prick from way back when he was a cop himself, and we all know Seymour is a self styled KKK member so god help us all.
Good on you for digging Jackie, question is how deep are you prepared to dig.
Hello
I will dig as deep as I need to.
I was brought up to stand up for what is right in this world and what I see here is certainly not right, its nothing short of corruption and coercion and it needs to stop.
I’m glad you have listened to the pod cast and hope other readers do as well, because when they do they will understand the depth of the issue. This will not be the first and or the last and it is not right, but we as a country, need to seek answers, we should be mindful that anyone of us could be put in a situation like this??