A busy month
REGION: Mark Lundy’s long-running legal battle was back in court in October, as he appealed against his retrial convictions for murdering his wife and daughter.
OCTOBER: Mark Lundy’s longrunning legal battle was back in court, as he appealed against his retrial convictions for murdering his wife and daughter.
More than 17 long years have passed since Christine and Amber Lundy were found bludgeoned to death in their Palmerston North house.
Lundy was convicted of their murders in 2002.
After the Privy Council overturned his convictions in 2013, he was again found guilty at his retrial in 2015.
Two months before his latest court hearing, in Wellington’s Court of Appeal, Lundy released letters from prison proclaiming his innocence.
He wasn’t present in the courtroom for the three-day hearing, as his lawyers argued the science used to convict Lundy was experimental.
Jonathan Eaton, QC, said Lundy has been treated like a guinea pig while the Crown shopped around for experts to identify tissue found on his shirt as being Christine’s brain matter.
The Crown disagreed, saying its case, vastly different from the one presented at the 2002 trial, was sound.
Gone was the mad dash Lundy was said to have made from his Petone motel to Palmerston North, where he had scant time to murder his wife and daughter, clean up, rush south again and sleep with a prostitute in a cynical attempt to create an alibi.
Instead, Lundy was said to have committed the murders later in the night.
Both sides were filing more submissions after the hearing and the Court of Appeal decision isn’t expected until well into the new year.
After releasing 13 proposed options for the alternative route for the likely permanently closed highway through the Manawatu¯ Gorge in September, the NZ Transport Agency narrowed the list to four.
The shortlisted routes are an upgrade to the Saddle Rd, a new road north of the Saddle Rd, a new road south of it, and a new road south of the Manawatu¯ Gorge.
The preferred route was to be named by the end of the year, but the announcement has since been delayed.
The cheapest shortlisted option is the 13.8-kilometre Saddle Rd upgrade, which is expected to cost between $300 million and $400m and take between five and six years to complete.
The most expensive is the $450m-$550m 19.2km route south of the gorge, which would take six to seven years. It could include a second road bridge across the Manawatu¯ River, near Whakarongo.
Central government politics ground to a halt for the early part of October as NZ First leader Winston Peter negotiated with Labour and National about the reins of power.
On October 19, he announced he’d chosen to form a coalition with Labour, with Jacinda Ardern as prime minister and the Greens in support.
Labour’s Palmerston North MP Iain Lees-galloway was named a Cabinet minister, picking up the heavyweight immigration portfolio, as well as workplace relations and safety, and ACC.
Lees-galloway, now a nine-year veteran of Parliament, was also made deputy leader of the House, where he tries to keep proceedings ticking over for the Government.
Palmerston North-based NZ First list MP Darroch Ball is chairman of the transport and infrastructure select committee.
He also remains his party’s spokesman for Civil Defence; consumer affairs; research, science and technology; social policy and welfare; and youth affairs.
Sport is a big part of life in the provinces and on the global stage there’s few events bigger than Formula One.
So sports fans swelled with pride over Labour Weekend when Palmerston North’s Brendon Hartley drove in the United States Grand Prix with the the Toro Rosso team, finishing 13th.
This turned out to be his best result in four starts, but he’ll be back next year.
Let’s hope the notoriously unreliable engines of Toro Rosso don’t undermine his season.
In a final note to regional sport at its finest, Levin Domain put on a glorious day for the Heartland Championship rugby final between Horowhenua-ka¯ piti and Whanganui, won by the boys from the river city.