Arthur Easton murder: Ethnicity of suspect debated in High Court

A man who saw someone running from the scene of Arthur Easton's murder in 1985 says he still believes the person he saw was Māori.

The ethnicity of the suspect is important as Alan Hall - the man wrongly convicted of the murder - is Pākehā and went on to serve 17 years in prison.

Two former senior police officers have gone on trial at the High Court in Auckland, charged with wilfully attempting to obstruct, prevent, pervert or defeat the course of justice.

They both have name suppression and have pleaded not guilty.

Witness Ronald Turner was in a car with his then-wife when he saw the man running in October 1985.

Easton had just been murdered by a bayonet-wielding home invader.

A key element of the Crown's case is the evidence of Turner's description of a man he says he saw running away from the crime scene.

Turner was driving through Papakura that night and says he saw someone acting suspiciously and running across Clevedon Road.

He read from a written statement recorded by a detective the day after the murder.

"I would describe the guy as being a male Māori and his height would be between five foot seven and six foot. I am five foot six and he was definitely taller than me.

"When he turned around, I could see that he was definitely dark skinned. He was not white."

He said the man was of average build and appeared to be in his 20s.

Hall, who was 23 at the time, is five foot seven and Pākehā.

Several months after the murder, Turner gave a further statement to police in which he said he was "100 percent sure" the man he saw was Māori.

Turner was summonsed to give evidence ahead of Hall's trial, but the day he was due to appear in court was told a written affidavit was sufficient.

But he would later learn that his evidence about the man's ethnicity had been left off that document.

Turner read from another statement he made in 1988.

"I have now re-read my court statement and compared it with my earlier statement to the police. I now note the important point that I definitely identified the person as being of Māori race has been omitted from my court statement," he said.

"I'm extremely surprised at this omission, not apparent to me before, particularly after the police sergeant had tested me at length on this very point and made an issue of it.

"I still believe that the person I saw that night was a Māori person and that would have been evidence in court. And the police certainly knew that I was definite in that identification."

Under cross-examination from David Jones KC, Turner was asked why there was a correction to the term "100 percent" in his statement. He conceded that he had initially written 95 percent.

"That was my immediate impression," he told the court.

"I still believe that it was a Māori guy."

Turner was asked why he had described the man as being between five foot six and five foot seven in his call to police on the night of the murder, not up to six foot as he would say the following day.

"Is it that you heard on the radio that the police were looking for a male Māori about six foot?" Jones asked

Turner denied this.

Jones asked why the witness had repeatedly used the word "feel" to describe why he thought the person he saw was Māori.

"Was that word in your statement because that is essentially what you were doing? It was your sense that the person was Māori?"

"Yup," Turner replied.

The lawyer continued. "Does it boil down to this: That your impression from mannerisms and movements was that the person was Māori?"

Turner also accepted this.

"At the end of the day it's exactly what happened so it doesn't matter"

Turner's former wife Linda Burrows also gave evidence today.

She had previously backed up Turner's account of what had happened, but in a subsequent statement said it was in fact her who had seen the man fleeing from the crime scene.

"That's how I remember it - I was the one that saw him and said, 'that Māori guy over there looks suspicious'," she said

"It's just that they said Ron said it when I said it."

When she saw him being quoted about the sighting she told him: "This is funny, isn't it?"

"I said, well, at the end of the day it's exactly what happened so it doesn't matter."

Burrows said the man was wearing a hoodie and a balaclava.

She was asked about an earlier statement in which she said: "He was a Māori was my first impression. It could be wrong".

"Well, it could be," she replied. "I mean, I didn't have a really good look - he had a balaclava on. To me, that was what my first impression was when I saw the person."

'For a jury, not the police to decide'

The court yesterday heard from former High Court judge Justice Kit Toogood, KC, who was called as an expert witness in the case against the police officers.

He was asked whether it was acceptable to leave such evidence out, even if police deemed it unreliable.

"I don't believe that's any ground at all. Reliability was a matter for the jury or the decider of fact in the trial," he said.

"The fact that either the police or the Crown prosecutor might have thought the evidence was unreliable was not relevant to the decision or the obligation of disclosure."

Toogood stressed how crucial Turner's evidence could have been to the trial.

"He was at pains, in a subsequent interview by the police, to stress his certainty about the ethnicity of the person he'd seen running away."

Paul Wicks KC, who is representing one of the former police officers, asked whether Justice Toogood accepted that assessing the relevance of evidence was subjective.

"Yes, I do. But I think if you're talking about this case, I don't agree that this was a marginal case.

"I think the materiality of Mr Turner's descriptions of the person he saw as Māori was obviously highly material."

Hall has appeared in court every day since the trial began last Monday.

The judge-alone trial, before Justice Gault, is expected to run into next week.