Lawyers for Gail Maney and Stephen Stone have described the Crown’s case against the pair for murder as a “pile of ashes” on the opening day of a much-anticipated hearing at Wellington’s Court of Appeal.
Maney and Stone were convicted for the murder of 21-year-old Auckland man Deane Fuller-Sandys in 1999 and during a retrial in 2000.
Speaking to media as she arrived at the Court of Appeal, Maney said she had waited a “long time” for this day and “for the truth to be told and to have our lives back”.
Fuller-Sandys went fishing in August 1989 off Auckland’s west coast and never returned. His body was never found.
Within a week of Fuller-Sandys going missing, a sex worker named Leah Stephens disappeared. Her body was found, but it was not until 1997 that police started to link the two cases based on tips.
At trial in 1999, the Crown successfully argued Maney ordered Stone to kill Fuller-Sandys because he had stolen her belongings.
The murder occurred in Maney’s garage with seven others present, police concluded.
Stone made four others pull the trigger after firing the first shot, including Gail’s brother Colin Maney, and Mark Henriksen. The two men were convicted as accessories to murder and are also part of today’s appeal.
Stephens was also in the garage, and police said she was raped and killed by Stone because it was feared she would talk.
Stone remains in prison today.
The four remaining people – all of whom have name suppression – were key Crown witnesses. Two of them recanted their evidence.
Last month, the Crown admitted a miscarriage of justice had occurred at trial as police had not disclosed two vital documents that affected credibility of two key witnesses.
Maney’s lawyer Julie-Anne Kincade said she must be acquitted as the only evidence against her has been recanted by a witnesses who has since died.
She said three out of four Crown witnesses in the case were bullied by police.
“Witness or jail. Say the Crown case or you will be in the dock,” she told the court.
The Crown wants a retrial but Kincade said the matter should be settled today.
“There is nothing that should be allowed to go beyond today. And today is the day a decision should be made – not to allow more time, another year, two years.
“We are asking this court to draw a line under these sorry events.”
Paul Wicks, a lawyer for Stone, said evidence from two of the witnesses was “heavily tainted” and “demonstrably unreliable”.
Another lawyer for Stone, Annabel Maxwell-Scott, said the witnesses’ stories changed so much.
“You have change of venues, change of witnesses, change of motives, change in the manner of death, changes in who died, who was alive, and how bodies were disposed of.
“The Crown case is left as a pile of ashes, but the Crown says the court can safely and rightly return this matter for a retrial. And we say absolutely not, that we are beyond a point of salvation and this matter cannot safely return to trial and the court should intervene.”
