Supreme Court bid bombs out

They call him ‘‘Bomber’’ Swain. And he says this led to him serving a life sentence in jail. But the Supreme Court has rejected his last-ditch attempt to clear his name.

Neil Raymond Swain, 61, was convicted of the 2013 murder of Whetu Hansen, whose body was never found.

The Crown says Hansen was shot by Swain on Swain’s Linton, Manawatu¯ , property. Hansen’s body was then placed in a 44-gallon drum, which Swain took to an associate to get rid of in the Whanganui River.

Swain accepts Hansen, of Whanganui, died on his property, but maintains he saw two other men there on November 24, 2013, and, after they left, he found Hansen’s body on the back of his ute.

But he will not identify nor describe the mysterious pair.

Swain was not on good terms with the police, having in the 1990s bombed the Sydenham police station in Christchurch.

This earned him the nickname ‘‘Bomber’’, which, along with the bombing, his defence revealed to the jury at his 2015 trial.

But the police officer who read the evidence to the court went too far, Swain argues, mentioning other convictions, including one for ‘‘kidnapping Crown witnesses at gunpoint’’.

Swain’s defence didn’t object to this at the time, but questioned the officer to establish the convictions were more than 20 years old. The trial judge told the jury to ignore them when deciding if Swain was a killer.

He took the issue to the Court of Appeal, claiming a miscarriage of justice had made him a murderer. The appeal was rejected.

Now, in a just-released judgment, the Supreme Court has declined Swain the right to an appeal in the court of last resort.

Supreme Court judges Justices Ellen France, Mark O’regan and Suzanne Glazebrook said Swain didn’t point out any error in the Court of Appeal judgment, which said by the time evidence of prior convictions was brought up, they ‘‘would not have stood out as particularly significant to the jury’’.

Swain’s appeal also pointed out he wasn’t convicted of kidnapping.

‘‘In any event, that mistake does not materially alter the prejudicial effect of the admission of this evidence, all of which was carefully assessed by the Court of Appeal,’’ the Supreme Court judgment says.

Swain must serve at least 14 years in jail.