Tim McKinnel: Private Investigator on Gail Maney's murder trial being a miscarriage of justice

An investigator says it was obvious Gail Maney didn't murder Auckland man Deane Fuller-Sandys in 1989.

Maney and Steven Stone's murder convictions have been quashed, and a re-trial's been ordered for Stone.

Colin Maney and Mark Henriksen have also had their accessory to murder convictions quashed.

The Crown's accepting the police failed to disclose important information, which caused a miscarriage of justice.

Private Investigator Tim McKinnel told Heather du Plessis-Allan that work is underway towards gaining compensation.

He says it became clear the Crown case was an absurdity, and those who looked at the case knew fairly quickly there'd been a miscarriage.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Private investigator and former police officer Tim mckinnell's been working
on this case. A tim morning here, And when you
first saw the documents relating to this case, right when
she gave them to you, did you know immediately that
she hadn't done it?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
It was pretty clear pretty quickly. It takes a wee
while to get through it. There's a lot of material,
but it became pretty clear that the current case was
in many ways just an absurdity. And so myself and
others that looked at it and knew fairly quickly that
we had a miscarriacter justice on her hands.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
The thing that struck me was when I read about
it. It was not nearly as extensively as you obviously, but
the fact that the facts that the detective sent the
lawyer about witness statements that to me looked like a
crucial piece of evidence that said something was wrong.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah. Absolutely, you just don't do that. It's pretty plain,
one O one a detective thing, you don't send things
like that, and when you do, and if you do,
you disclose it. And it wasn't disclosed. And that's one
of the reasons that the court pointed to a miscarriage
occurring here.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Now. One of the other cases you've worked on was
the Allen Hall case has actually got three people now
before the courts themselves for the miscarriage of justice. Are
you expecting something similar to happen here?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Based on our assessment of what happened, we think there
are a few people that probably ought to be the
focus of a criminal investigation, and we'll be encouraging the
police to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Tim. That's quite serious, isn't it, Because that's not we
just whopsey, We stuffed it up, that there's something more
considered there in order to be charged.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, this is I think this whole investigation was corrupted
from the outset, and when that started to become exposed,
it was covered up.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
You reckon, you reckon. She's going to get combom.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
She ought to. She's as innocent as you and I
of Dean phil of Sand's murder. And so that's the
next step for us is to start working towards that.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
For right, I mean, why is it that we are
dealing with so many miscarriages of justice at the moment,
because it feels like it's just quite a lot coming
at us.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, that's right. Well, it's because I think some of
the belief we had in the safety of our criminal
justice system was misplaced. The system has, I think, over
the years, protected itself. The mask is starting to slip
and we're starting to see more and more of these cases.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
There are more to come, Tim, Thanks very much, appreciate it.
Tim McKinnell, private investigative, former police officer.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
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