Miscarriage of justice claim dismissed

A man found guilty of indecent assaults has had an appeal against the charges, partly laid because of counsel error claims, dismissed.

Jeffrey Robert Bunting, 49, faced four charges of indecent assault against two girls aged under 12 between 2003 and 2006. In October 2016, he was found guilty by a jury of three of the charges.

The charges related to incidents in the early 2000s at Queenstown. The two complainants were under 12 years old at the time. In 2015, the allegations came to light after one of the young women was working in Queenstown and saw Bunting walking down the street. Police were contacted after the incident.

Bunting appealed the convictions on four issues: was a formal visual identification procedure required, was a prior conviction for indecent assault wrongly admitted as propensity evidence, was there material trial counsel error and did a miscarriage of justice occur?

Judges Justice Stephen Kos, Justice French and Justice Forrie Miller dismissed the appeal in their written decision, released last week. Part of the appeal was on the basis that Bunting’s lawyer Simon Claver failed to properly consider and follow a theory of the case meeting Bunting’s instructions – that he did not commit the indecent assaults – and failed to act diligently in refusing to consider evidence supporting an attack on the honesty of one of the victims. The written decision from the judges said, ‘‘we consider the complaint made about the defence opening overstates matters . . . the opening could hardly have been clearer in stating: ‘Mr Bunting, my client, says these things did not happen, never’.’’

The judgment said, ‘‘by closing, the trial was no longer finely balanced and while the closing brief was relatively brief ... we do not think the closing address so deficient as to cause miscarriage’’.