Trials and tribulations
While the government looks at overhauling the justice system, Tommy Livingston sat down with a woman who has spent three decades dealing with the good, bad and the ugly at the front line of justice.
There was a stillness in court the day John Ruka, Arnold Leefe and Hector Kelly were all found guilty of murder. And Marie Dyhrberg remembers that decision in 1994 as if it was yesterday. Verdicts always play out in the same painful way. A sense of anxiety and anticipation often suffocates the room until the foreperson reads out the jury’s decision.
That day was particularly hard, Dyhrberg recalls.
The three teenagers had gone into Navin Govind’s West Auckland dairy to rob him of cash, cigarettes and lollies. Things escalated, and the three beat him to near death. He died two days later from his injuries.
Dyhrberg had been defending 17-year-old Ruka.
‘‘When the verdicts came I just sat there, I couldn’t move. I thought ‘I can’t leave, this is so tragic for everyone.’ I let everyone else pack up, and then one of the court staff said ‘Are you alright?’ That’s when the tears just came.
‘‘I packed up and went out the door, the deceased’s brother was standing waiting for me. He said, ‘We now move on, we have things to do’. He put his arm out, for me to take his arm, and led me down the corridor.’’ For more than 30 years Dyhrberg has had a front-row seat to the most high-profile crimes and controversial criminals.
Her work in the courtroom has earned respect from the cells of Paremoremo to the halls of the High Court as one of the best defence lawyers in the country.
Dyrhberg is as captivating outside the courtroom as inside; her anecdotes about murder and mayhem are intertwined with details of her trip to the garden centre and recent travels. Two men eating nearby shoot glances in her direction, trying to listen in. Dyhrberg is too engrossed in her stories to notice, and some memories make her smile before she has had a chance even to tell them.
‘‘I don’t do off-the-record. This will be the good, the bad and the ugly,’’ she says.
Alife of law wasn’t always on the cards for Dyhrberg. Raised in Christchurch and educated by nuns, she thought becoming a lawyer was out of her reach. Subjects like law and medicine were reserved for the families with large houses and old money, not the working class.
A self described ‘‘maverick’’, Dyhrberg questioned everything growing up. She laughs remembering the time a friend of hers – who was