Bennett prepared to wait in jail
A violence complainant too scared to come to court was wrongly labelled by police as a false complainant. By Kelly Dennett.
PAUL James Bennett will spend his fifth Christmas behind bars.
There’s nothing unusual in that except he is not a sentenced prisoner and is still awaiting trial.
Justice moves slowly but Bennett, who is facing fraud charges involving about $250,000, is an extraordinary case.
He believes the fraud prosecution (and other charges) should be stayed because, according to him, he was removed illegally from Australia, where he allegedly fled in 2015. That issue, including appeals, must be dealt with before his fraud trial. Had he simply gone ahead with his fraud trial, he would in all likelihood be a free man by now, even if found guilty.
But Bennett is a man of principle.
The helicopter pilot was arrested in Sydney in February 2015, after sailing a stolen yacht across the Tasman with his then-partner Simone Wright. Police had been trying to find him for years so they could arrest him on the fraud charges and an alleged sexual assault on a teenage girl in Auckland in 2008.
Bennett, who arrived in Sydney without a passport, was kept in custody until he was escorted back to Christchurch in May 2016. Police were waiting for him and, because of his flight risk status, he was remanded in custody.
He then began a battle to show his return to New Zealand was illegal, claiming Australian and New Zealand police had colluded to circumvent his rights to leave Australia under his own volition. He had talked about going to Indonesia or Canada.
After a hearing in the Christchurch District Court in July, Judge Paul Kellar ruled the Australian authorities were entitled to remove Bennett under the relevant Australian law as an ‘‘unlawful non-citizen’’. New Zealand police had not brought about his removal and the fact they treated him as a ‘‘returning offender’’ did not render their actions unlawful.
Bennett’s lawyer, Simon Shamy, said Bennett would appeal Judge Kellar’s ruling in the High Court and he was in the process of applying for legal aid.
Bennett could have been a free man by now but he was prepared to stay in jail to fight for a principle, Shamy said.
‘‘He has effectively served a 10-year jail sentence because he would be eligible for parole after serving a third.’’
The delays in the case were ‘‘a little surprising’’, but the case was complex and required getting information from multiple parties in several jurisdictions. Some of the delays were systemic, in that three were too few District Court judges and matters like Bennett’s did not have top priority. Shamy said his involvement in the case was recent and previously Bennett had represented himself and had another lawyer.
A supporter told Stuff Bennett was not responsible for delaying his fraud trial. He claimed, she said, the Crown had caused delays by opposing his applications seeking disclosure of email evidence between the authorities in Australia and New Zealand. Other delays were due to judges and lawyers going on leave, she said. ’
A police spokesperson said the proceedings against Bennett were ‘‘unable to progress while a stay of proceedings filed by the defendant was waiting to be heard’’.
Criminal Bar Association president Len Andersen said the Bennett case sounded unusual, but spending five years behind bars on remand was ‘‘extraordinary’’.
Twenty per cent of sentenced defendants were now released immediately because they had already served the sentence through time spent in jail on remand. Sometimes delays were caused by defendants, such as when they changed lawyers constantly.
POLICE kept false notes on their intelligence system claiming a domestic violence complainant had made up abuse claims and then failed to come to court.
A devastated Tania Pulham says the incident has caused her significant stress and paranoia, and she has complained to the Police Professional Conduct team after those false details were then accidentally shared with a journalist.
While another man whose details were shared in the same document was paid $10,000 by police for the breach, Pulham has been denied compensation.
She only became aware of the inaccurate comments in the police National Intelligence Application (NIA) after police sent the details of those alerts, and alerts made about Pulham’s friend Phillip Saleh, to a Stuff reporter by accident.
When Saleh complained police apologised and gave him $10,000. Police have apologised to Pulham, and corrected the
NIA details, but haven’t offered her compensation because they don’t believe she was harmed.
Police use the NIA in their day-to-day work. It contains information on nearly 2 million people, including criminal history, and notes against their name that could help police with background information.
Pulham, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, fears the information recorded against her name – that she made ‘‘false complaints to police’’ and failed to show up for a court hearing despite being summonsed – had affected police perception of her. ‘‘I was shocked,’’ Pulham said. ‘‘I was completely, completely overwhelmed. It’s really triggered a lot of uncertainty and paranoia. I had no idea why they would do this.’’
In 2017 Pulham complained to police after her ex-partner allegedly sent her threatening messages. The long-term relationship had allegedly been abusive and Pulham, fearing for her safety after a period of no contact, provided police with the text messages and a video of her allegedly being assaulted with a bat by her ex-partner.
He was charged with six counts of male assaults female, assault with a blunt instrument, and threatening to kill, but a November 2017 trial, at which Pulham gave evidence, resulted in a not guilty verdict for one charge, and a hung jury on others. The judge dismissed three charges. Pulham says she couldn’t face giving evidence again during a trial on the remaining charges last year and avoided it in fear, having already told police she did not want a retrial.
Police didn’t summons her and when she failed to show, the trial was subsequently abandoned.
She only learned that police had shared the NIA alerts with a journalist after Phillip Saleh, and advocate Shannon Parker, contacted her. The Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) decided not to investigate further because