Greenlight given to appeal bid

Lake Horowhenua campaigner Philip Taueki will be able to appeal a conviction of escaping police custody, as he may not actually have been in custody at the time of the apparent escape, despite police saying they had arrested him.

In a judgment issued on Monday, the Court of Appeal decided Taueki’s case was of such public importance that it needed to be heard.

Taueki, of Muaupoko, has campaigned for years to have Lake Horowhenua cleaned up. The Crown has conceded a failure to protect the lake from pollution.

He has also had a longstanding dispute with a local rowing club, which occupied a building on the lake’s foreshore in March 2014.

The building was allegedly burgled and defaced by Taueki, and he was subsequently arrested.

He was allowed by police to drive to his home near the lake to get personal items. Police said he then climbed out a window and left, watching police search for him from a nearby graveyard.

Taueki was eventually found and charged with, among other things, escaping police custody.

He was found not guilty of the vandalism and burglary offences, and other charges were withdrawn, but he was convicted and discharged on the escaping charge.

In his decision, Judge Bill Hastings said Taueki asking police if he could get the items was important.

‘‘He asked to go to a particular place for a particular purpose, and the arresting officers consented,’’ he said. ‘‘This does not mean the custody then ended. It means that the custody continued, but on condition and under direction of the police to go to that place for that purpose.’’

The Court of Appeal declined Taueki’s appeal on some grounds, but decided they would hear him on one point - if the police officers maintained custody of Taueki to the point he could be said to have escaped.

In the Court of Appeal judgment, Justice Christian Whata said Taueki put the situation ‘‘colourfully’’ when saying ‘‘given permission to leave and remaining in custody is the perfect oxymoron’’.

There were cases when people had been given a day release from prison and had not returned on time, but were still not judged to have escaped custody because they were not in the direct control of prison authorities, Whata said.

On the other hand, people in similar situations to Taueki’s had been convicted of escaping custody. ‘‘We are satisfied that Mr Taueki raises a matter of public importance in terms of defining the circumstances where the police may maintain remote custody of an arrested person and the conditions that must be satisfied in order to maintain such custody,’’ Whata said.

If Taueki could show the conditions for ‘‘remote custody’’ were not met in his case, he may show a miscarriage of justice had taken place.

An appeal against a decision to not award Taueki $55,136 in Mckenzie Friend costs - money he says should go to former Horowhenua District councillor Anne Hunt for work she did on his defence - was declined.