Crown witness is killer, appeal told
The judge for the trial of a Dunedin doctor charged with murder had ‘‘put on a prosecutor’s hat’’, his lawyer has told the Court of Appeal.
The judge lacked the essential balance to make the trial for murdering Amber-Rose Rush fair, lawyer Jonathan Eaton, QC, said yesterday.
However, the Crown defended the judge, saying Justice Gerald Nation invariably balanced his comments in considerable detail overall.
The Court of Appeal reserved its decision on Venod Skantha’s appeal against his conviction for murdering Rush, 16, at her Dunedin home in February 2018. He abandoned his appeal against the sentence of having to serve at least 19 years of a life jail term.
Much of the appeal focussed on the evidence of a witness, 16 at the time, who said he alerted Skantha to Rush’s Instagram posts that made public texts she and Skantha had exchanged that night. In the text messages, she suggested telling the hospital where Skantha worked that he supplied alcohol to minors and preyed on young females.
Skantha was already on a final warning at the hospital.
The witness said he drove Skantha to Rush’s home and told him where to find the spare key and her bedroom.
Eaton said the witness, whose name was suppressed, had such extensive knowledge that he had either spoken to the killer, or was the killer.
The defence said the witness set Skantha up to ‘‘take the fall’’ for the killing.
During the High Court trial in Dunedin in late 2019, the witness denied having killed Rush.
Eaton said police, the Crown and the judge refused to treat the witness as a suspect, even though that was part of the defence’s theory of the case.
The witness admitted being a compulsive liar and the jury should have had a clear warning from the judge about his unreliability, Eaton said.
Crown lawyer Robin Bates said Eaton overstated the importance of the witness. The Crown relied on numerous pieces of circumstantial evidence.
The witness’ account was consistent in various ways with that evidence, Bates said.
He was naive and unusual, but the jury had three days to assess him while he gave evidence, he said.
Eaton said the jury heard ‘‘endless’’ evidence about Skantha’s alcohol and drug use, and his sexual behaviour, some of which was alleged to have been criminal and some was ‘‘loose’’,
Eaton said.
The jury needed a strong direction from the judge about the limited relevance of the evidence, Eaton said.
Rush was fatally knifed in her own bedroom. Her mother, Lisa Rush, discovered her body in the morning. Four months later she also died.
Skantha was a 30-year-old junior doctor at Dunedin Hospital, but he had been drinking alcohol to excess and had disciplinary issues at work, where he was on a final warning.
He had been dismissed but talked his way back with an untrue story about having been under stress because his mother had died.
Justice Nation said at Skantha’s sentencing that he had no explanation for how someone, with the discipline and intelligence to train as a doctor, could have killed a young woman as Skantha did.