‘Snitch’ fights for name secrecy

The ‘‘jailhouse snitch’’ charged with perjury over evidence he gave as a secret witness at David Tamihere’s trial, is fighting to remain anonymous.

Swedes Heidi Paakkonen and Sven Urban Hoglin disappeared on the Coromandel Peninsula in 1989. Hoglin’s body was eventually found, but Paakkonen’s was not.

Tamihere was convicted of their murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was released on parole in 2010 and continued to maintain his innocence.

Arthur Taylor, a long-time prisoner with a talent for legal argument, says one of the witnesses against Tamihere lied and he has started a private prosecution against the man for perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Taylor has also appealed against a judge’s refusal to vary or revoke the order suppressing the name of the witness.

Taylor told three judges in the Court of Appeal yesterday, via an audio-visual link from prison, that there was no record of how the original suppression order came about or why it was made.

But Adam Simperingham, the lawyer for the witness, said as Taylor was not a party to the case in which the suppression order was made, he had no right to appeal against it.

Crown lawyer Charlotte Brook said the fact of Taylor’s private prosecution could not of itself be enough to give him a right to appeal against the original suppression. ‘‘There is a right of appeal, just not for him.’’

The Court of Appeal reserved its decision.

The man, known as ‘‘Witness C’’, gave evidence at Tamihere’s trial that Tamihere confessed to him inside prison that he had killed Paakkonen and Hoglin. The witness is also a convicted murderer and remains in prison.

Taylor alleged the man changed his story several times, and told people he’d lied at trial.