David Tamihere Appeal: Access to aerial images will be considered

Convicted double murderer David Tamihere has asked a court to grant him access to aerial television footage as part of his appeal.

Tamihere, who was paroled in 2010 and has always maintained her innocence, received a Royal Prerogative of Mercy earlier this year to have her case reviewed by the Court of Appeal.

He was convicted in 1990 for the murders of Swedish tourists Urban Hӧglin and Heidi Paakkonen, who disappeared from Coromandel in 1989.

In 2012, Tamihere and a team from Television New Zealand flew over the crime scene and search area, a violation of parole conditions, although Tamihere was not called to prison.

He says the images are in the public interest and will help the court appreciate the topography, while the Crown says it is not immediately apparent that the images are relevant.

Television New Zealand says the footage is available, subject to a court order.

In a decision of the Court of Appeals, Judge Kos said:

“[The] The footage is likely in the hands of TVNZ and is at least widely relevant to one of the reasons for the reference (being the possible inconsistency between the discovery of Mr. Hӧglin’s remains in the Wentworth Valley and the identifying evidence that places Mr. Tamihere in Crosbies Clearing). “

No hearing date has been set to consider the request for access to the images.

30 year mission

Tamihere last year applied for a Royal Prerogative of Mercy, a rare legal avenue to reopen criminal cases in which a person may have been convicted or sentenced in error.

The fate of the Swedish couple remains one of the country’s enduring mysteries.

Three years ago, key witness Robert Conchie Harris, a prison informant known as ‘Witness C’, was jailed for lying at the Tamihere trial in 1990.

The private prosecution was initiated by jail attorney Arthur Taylor, who has since been released on parole.

Harris told the jury that Tamihere made confessions to him in prison, including that she sexually assaulted Swedish tourists and dumped their bodies into the sea.

Hӧglin’s body was found in a shallow grave in Coromandel after the trial.

Paakkonen’s body has never been found.

Harris later changed his story, swearing to an affidavit alleging that the police offered him $ 100,000 for evidence against Tamihere.

His story changed again a year later, in 1996, when he retracted the entire affidavit and claimed that he had been threatened by gang members in prison.

The Police Complaints Authority investigated the allegations of police corruption and bribery and cleared the police, finding that Harris’s bribery allegations were unfounded.

Harris apologized for damaging the integrity and credibility of the police and reiterated that the evidence he had provided at the Tamihere trial was true.

He remains in prison after being called twice; the first after complaints of assault and demand for money and the second after a complaint for indecent assault on a 14-year-old girl.