‘I never even met him’
After 15 years in prison for murder, Gail Maney won’t give up the fight to clear her name, write Adam Dudding and Amy Maas.
Awoman who was jailed for life for ordering the murder of a West Auckland man wants her case to be one of the first to be heard by a new government tribunal that will examine suspected claims of miscarriages of justice.
Gail Maney has spent 15 years behind bars, and is currently serving out a life sentence on parole for the murder of Deane Fuller-Sandys, who went missing in 1989.
Maney was arrested eight years later, and eventually convicted for ordering a hit on Fuller-Sandys after he was said to have burgled her home in Henderson, West Auckland.
In the podcast Gone
Fishing – a joint production between
Stuff and RNZ – she maintains her innocence and says her story hasn’t changed since she was arrested in 1997.
Maney says she is confident the Criminal Cases Review Commission will be able to pick apart the flaws in the case against her. She has also applied to the New Zealand Innocence Project, and most recently, to the New Zealand Public Interest Project – groups run by experienced investigators, lawyers and scientists who volunteer their time to investigate potential miscarriages of justice.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) is due to be set up by the Labour-led Government by mid-2019. It was part of a coalition agreement with NZ First and will be set up in response to a growing number of cases where people claim they’ve been wrongfully convicted.
In the past 20 years, seven payouts totalling $5.3 million have been made to people who have been wrongly convicted. Most recently, Teina Pora was awarded $2.5m for spending 21 years in prison.
Maney was twice found guilty of ordering the killing of FullerSandys, a 21-year-old Auckland tyre-fitter. At the time it was thought he had slipped from rocks while fishing on Whatipu, a beach on Auckland’s dangerous West Coast.
Maney and three others were arrested, including Stephen Stone, who carried out the hit, as well as Mark Henriksen and Colin Maney, who got rid of Fuller-Sandys’ body. They were all found guilty at their first High Court trial at Auckland in 1999.
But Maney launched a successful appeal, which quashed her convictions and a retrial was ordered. However, she was again found guilty by a jury a year later. A second appeal was thrown out.
In the Gone Fishing podcast, Maney says she did not know Fuller-Sandys, and that no murder ever took place at her home. She adds there was no evidence to link her to the crime either – luminol testing could not detect any traces of blood on the garage floor where Fuller-Sandys was meant to have been shot, and ballistics experts could not detect any bullet markings.
Tim McKinnel, a private investigator who helped set up the New Zealand Public Interest Project (NZPIP), says he cannot speak in detail about Maney’s case but, on
the face of it, there are several red flags in the case against her – mainly, the lack of evidence.
‘‘Based on my limited knowledge, there are issues around reliability of witnesses
. . . but importantly, there doesn’t appear to be any corroborating forensic evidence and, when there isn’t corroborating forensic evidence, it means you’re left relying on human witnesses – and we all know how fallible humans can be.’’
McKinnel says a recent example of a jailhouse witness prosecuted for perjury is an example of ‘‘risky testimony’’ that makes its way in front of juries.
‘‘There is a growing scientific and psychological evidence around memory, around identification, our ability to detect lies, and a jury or court’s ability to detect lies based on evidence. So as that side of science develops, we are starting to question the way that evidence is produced, and I think there is a growing need for corroboration in these criminal cases.
‘‘A case like Gail’s sounds
‘‘When there isn’t corroborating forensic evidence, it means you’re left relying on human witnesses – and we all know how fallible humans can be.’’
Tim McKinnel private investigator