The Dwarf Who Moved and Other True Stories from a Life in the Law by Peter QC. Williams

Author:Peter QC. Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Polling the Jury

In 1979, I travelled to Gisborne to look over the farm of Simon Dods, who had been charged with criminal offences relating to 38 large fertiliser sacks containing 161 kilograms of cannabis. The sacks had been found, together with $50,000 in cash, secreted under the concrete floor of an old, disused freezing works, situated on land leased by Simon, who lived on a property adjacent to the freezing works with his wife and family.

He was a very enterprising young farmer, who not only grew all sorts of crops, but bred eels, which he exported to China. A highly intelligent young man, his close-knit family helped him work the farm, which was a hive of industry. Simon was a successful farmer, and it was rumoured that other farmers in the district, who were jealous of his success, had ‘dobbed’ him in.

The first trial against him took place before Justice Lester Moller and jury in the Gisborne Supreme Court, where the prosecutor was Tom Thorpe, who later became a highly respected High Court judge. Before the judge summed up, I obtained his consent to allow a local lawyer to take my place at the bar, as I was required back in Auckland, so I was not present when Simon was found guilty and sentenced to six years imprisonment.

A perusal of the judge’s summing-up, however, revealed that he had made a serious misdirection of fact to the jury. The judge had told them that the making of the large hole in the concrete floor of the freezing works, where the cannabis and the money were found hidden, must have caused a lot of noise, and surely Simon and his family would have heard the racket. The truth was, though, that the hole had been there for many years previously, and had been part of the drainage system of the now-disused freezing works when it had been operating.

Simon’s case went to appeal, and at that hearing the judges of the Court of Appeal asked Tom Thorpe, who appeared on behalf of the Crown, why he didn’t stand up and correct the trial judge.

Tom replied, ‘Well, Your Honours, if you know Mr Justice Moller, he’s not a judge that one attempts to correct lightly.’

This raised a judicial laugh among the appellate judges, who finally quashed the conviction and ordered a new trial.

The second trial was held at the Wellington Supreme Court, and this time I was assisted by Dick Kearney, who was a brilliant advocate; he later became a District Court judge. The prosecution case was tainted with police malpractice this time. One of the pieces of evidence against Simon were some cannabis reefers found in his car. But when defence scientists analysed this cannabis, they found that the active ingredient of cannabis had been extracted. The inference was that the cannabis had previously been subjected to DSIR analysis. In other words, the police had taken this cannabis from an exhibit belonging to some previous case, and deliberately planted it in Simon Dods’s car.

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