Killer seeks fourth trial
Rewa’s lawyer claims previous trial was unfair
Convicted killer and rapist Malcolm Rewa wants to be put on trial for a fourth time over one of New Zealand’s most infamous murders. He says his last lawyer’s conduct created an unfair trial, and that the judge’s warnings to a witness who had possible motive to kill the victim, Susan Burdett, deprived the jury of the chance to assess his answers properly.
Rewa was convicted in 2019 of the 1992 murder of Burdett in her South Auckland home.
It was his third trial for the murder charge, having already been convicted of Burdett’s rape.
He appeared by audio visual link in the Court of Appeal in Wellington yesterday where his lawyer, Mark Ryan, said they were seeking a retrial as there had been a miscarriage of justice.
The first branch of the appeal related to a witness who had been in a sexual relationship with Burdett.
Ryan said the trial judge warned one of the witnesses of his legal right to decline to answer questions if the answers would cause him to incriminate himself.
Due to this warning, the witness declined to answer most of the defence counsel’s questions, which Ryan said “deprived” the jury of the chance to assess his answers and credibility.
The witness had been in a sexual
relationship with Burdett, and there had been letters found showing Burdett was threatening to tell the man’s wife.
While these facts were provided to the jury in a document of admitted facts, the inability for defence counsel to cross-examine him fully on the information robbed Rewa of a fair trial, Ryan said.
He said the judge should have been told beforehand of the admitted facts, and should not have given the warning.
Ryan also said Rewa’s trial lawyer, Paul Chambers, created an unfair trial through his conduct at the time.
He described Chambers’ behaviour as “clumsy”, said he had “poor thought processes in a jumbled fashion” and said his closing did not do Rewa any benefit at all.
“Mr Chambers did this case pro bono. Mr Chambers has never done a murder case before. Mr Chambers did not advise Mr Rewa of the ability to get legal aid.
“He did not do it on legal aid because he is not allowed to do legal aid work at that level.”
He said Chambers described himself to the jury as having memory lapses, being bad at multi-tasking, and discussed personal circumstances by talking about his own diagnosis of PTSD.
“There was an unfair trial based solely on trial counsel’s conduct.”
Rewa’s appeal was supposed to go ahead in 2020, but was put off at the last minute when the court ordered Chambers to obtain a medical report showing his fitness to act.
Ryan also challenged the admission to the jury that Rewa had a conviction for raping Burdett, as Rewa’s defence relied on the assertion he didn’t rape her, but instead had a consensual relationship with her.
In response, Crown lawyer Mark Lillico said while Chambers’ closing statement to the jury was “unconventional”, the issues raised around his conduct were simply “noise”.
Rewa’s two previous trials in 1998 resulted in both juries being unable to reach a verdict on the murder charge.
The Court of Appeal yesterday reserved its decision.
The case also led to one of New Zealand’s great injustices — the prosecution and imprisonment of Teina Pora.
Pora was just 17 when he was arrested before twice being wrongly convicted of murdering Burdett.
He spent 22 years in prison, and his conviction was quashed by the Privy Council in London in 2015. He received a government apology and $3.5 million in compensation.