‘Persecuted’, convicted, and finally cleared
After more than 30 years Wayne Montaperto has been cleared of child kidnapping convictions that altered the course of his life.
The former Hawke’s Bay man cried when the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that the verdicts against him were unsafe.
Speaking after court, Montaperto said his name had been smeared for years.
‘‘I was persecuted,’’ he said of the years he was a suspect for the rape and murder of 6-year-old Teresa Cormack in 1987.
Another man, Jules Mikus, was arrested and convicted 15 years later but by that time Montaperto had been through ‘‘a pretty hard time’’, said his lawyer, Ron Mansfield.
He was seriously injured in an assault, he went to Australia to rebuild his life but was deported home in 1993 because of the convictions that have now been overturned.
He said his family can now breathe easier. ‘‘It’s a load off my shoulders.’’
Mansfield said he had never had a more persistent client, ringing him every couple of days for many years. Questions of compensation for Montaperto were for another day.
While police were investigating the Teresa Cormack killing they resurrected a case from a year earlier. Montaperto was charged with those offences, found guilty, and sentenced to three years’ jail.
The charges – of kidnapping and one of doing an indecent act with intent to offend – came from an incident in 1986 when four children said they accepted a ride with a man and instead of taking them home he drove them to a river, gave them beer and offered them money in exchange for sex.
They refused and the man drove them back to the Hastings suburb of Flaxmere, where he had picked them up.
Montaperto said it was a case of mistaken identity. His appeal was dismissed.
Years later, in 2008, the jury foreman contacted Montaperto’s lawyer. The man gave evidence at the Court of Appeal yesterday.
He said his memory of a lot of what happened was not clear, but someone who knew he was on the jury had told him that Montaperto was a suspect for the Cormack killing. He told other jurors.
In court yesterday, he said the verdicts were based on the evidence at the trial. He did not recall telling an independent lawyer that he thought the information influenced other jurors.
Four other jurors were contacted. They said they either did not know about the Cormack link or did not recall it.
In 2014 Montaperto asked for the Governor-General, Dame Patsy Reddy, to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, based on grounds including the juror’s account.
In late 2018 Dame Patsy referred Montaperto’s convictions back to the Court of Appeal to decide if a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
Three Court of Appeal judges gave their decision after a fiveminute adjournment at the end of yesterday’s hearing. President Justice Stephen Kos said they were satisfied that a case of apparent bias had been established and the convictions were unsafe.
No retrial was ordered. Mikus died in Rimutaka Prison in 2019, still serving the life jail term.