Pair's convictions over Red Fox Tavern killing quashed by Supreme Court

The two men convicted in the Red Fox Tavern cold case murder have had their convictions quashed.

Chris Bush was gunned down at the Maramarua pub on the Saturday of Labour weekend, October 24, 1987, and two balaclava-clad offenders had fled with more than $30,000.

The Supreme Court delivered its ruling in the case on Tuesday morning after deliberating two years, finding there was no reliable evidence to prove they were at the scene of the crime.

One of the men acquitted was James Henry Wilson, the Filthy Few gang president who had a string of previous convictions including for murdering an ex-girlfriend in Welcome Bay in 1999. He had also been convicted of other aggravated robberies.

Wilson was released from prison two weeks before the Red Fox Tavern shooting, and his alleged accomplice Mark Hoggart came out of prison about two months before him.

Wilson was named for the first time following Tuesday's ruling.

He lost name suppression after the Supreme Court issued a majority ruling, determining there would be no retrial.

Detective Superintendent Dave Lynch said in a statement police respected the court's decision and would carefully review the judgement.

"The Supreme Court's decision does not diminish the seriousness of the offending or the commitment shown by investigators over many years," added detective Lynch, who also acknowledged the difficulty Bush's family and friends would be facing following the ruling.

The case went unsolved for almost 30 years before Wilson and Hoggart were charged in 2017.

They were found guilty by a jury at the High Court in Auckland in 2021 and were sentenced to life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of ten years.

Tuesday's judgement comes two years after the Supreme Court heard the appeal in July 2024. Lawyers for Wilson and Hoggart had earlier failed in their bid to overturn their convictions at the Court of Appeal.

Chief Justice Helen Winkelmann, and Justices Joe Williams, Stephen Kós, Forrest Miller and Susan Glazebrook unanimously overturned the convictions.

The majority of judges ruled that a reasonable jury could not have reached the guilty verdicts beyond reasonable doubt, based on the Crown's evidence at trial.

The majority found the Crown evidence failed to prove that Wilson and Hoggart were at the crime scene, and also failed to make a case beyond reasonable doubt, to exclude the possibility of another person committing the crimes.

"At its highest, it showed Messrs Wilson and Hoggart were in the region but there was no reliable evidence that they were at Maramarua, or at the scene of the robbery and murder," the judgement said.

The majority found that while Wilson had a shotgun similar to the one described by witnesses at the robbery, that kind of gun was "not uncommon" at the time amongst bikies and criminals, and that it doesn't add substantially to culpability in the absence of compelling forensic evidence.

They also found that while evidence established that both Wilson and Hoggart were short of money after coming out of prison, there was no "direct evidence" of planning a robbery of the tavern.

The judges noted that there was no evidence of whether the Ford Falcon car Wilson got after the Labour Weekend when the crime happened, was bought or stolen, and that one of the two motorcycles he bought after that weekend still owed $3000 when police interviewed him.

Hoggart paid over $4000 for a Triumph Tiger motorcycle weeks after Labour Weekend, but he claimed it was from money he made from selling drugs and contraband in prison. Wilson claimed he made his money as a prison tattooist.

On the issue of the man the defence had blamed the crime on - Lester Hamilton - the majority of judges found that the evidence against him was "much of the same order" as that against Wilson and Hoggart.

They found the case against Hamilton is weaker in the absence of money and expenditure after the robbery, but "significantly stronger" in the evidence of Hamilton's detailed planning of robbing the Red Fox Tavern, and his visit to the scene about two weeks before the Labour Weekend shooting.

Meanwhile, Justice Susan Glazebrook came to her determination that the convictions should be quashed through a different pathway - after finding parts of Crown's evidence were improperly admitted.

She found that was a miscarriage of justice, and she said she would've ordered a retrial.

Justice Glazebrook differed from the other judges on her conclusion that a reasonable jury could've accepted the case against Wilson as proved beyond reasonable doubt, and accepted that Wilson's "earn up north" which he told someone in prison, was a reference to the robbery of the Red Fox Tavern.

Justice Glazebrook found that other evidence supported this, including that Wilson got a shotgun five days before the Red Fox Tavern robbery, similar to the one used in the robbery, lied about its disposal, that he and Hoggart were in the vicinity of the tavern over Labour Weekend, and that both came into money inexplicably after the robbery.

Justice Glazebrook said while there was less evidence against Hoggart, compared to Wilson, Hoggart's association with Wilson meant a reasonable jury could also be sure of his guilt as a second offender beyond reasonable doubt, if they'd already found the case against Wilson beyond reasonable doubt.