'A case gone badly wrong'

The Crown finally accepts that the 1986 murder conviction of Alan Hall was "a substantial miscarriage of justice". PHIL TAYLOR, who first wrote about the case in 2011, asks why it has taken so long.

- PHIL TAYLOR

Crown submissions filed in April in the Supreme Court case of Alan Russell Hall v The Queen make such extraordinary reading that Hall’s lawyer nearly fell out of his chair. It is “unassailable” and “incontrovertible” that “key evidence was materially altered” and “relevant evidence was concealed”, they say.

These are not defence assertions but acknowledgments by Crown Law, the government department that oversees criminal prosecutions, of a case gone badly wrong.

Whether this was due to misconduct or something else entirely remains to be seen, but the Crown has acknowledged it is “regrettable” and “will likely cast a long shadow”.

In its submissions, Crown Law accepts that Hall’s convictions should be quashed and says it will not seek a retrial. The court this month granted the special leave required to appeal in a case so old, and Hall’s convictions are expected to be formally quashed after a hearing on June 8.

At long last. The Crown’s reversal came 13,350 days after Auckland man Arthur Easton was murdered in a random home invasion. Hall has appealed five times and spent almost 19 years in prison.

Hall has always insisted he is innocent, claiming that evidence was manipulated to fit him up and information helpful to him was hidden. His mother, Shirley, who sold the family home to pay legal bills, fought for her son until her last breath. She died in 2012 but her influence lives on.

“You know,” says Hall’s brother, Geoff, “I think Mum was up there guiding us.” It should have been a time for celebration, to break open the bubbles, but the mood was subdued. “What an absolute waste of Alan’s life.”