Arthur Allan Thomas
Arthur Allan Thomas (born 2 January 1938)[1] is a New Zealand man who was wrongfully convicted twice of the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in June 1971.
[5] At his trial, the Crown alleged Thomas, who was married at the time, was infatuated with Mrs Crewe, made his way to the their farm house on a stormy night, and shot the couple with his .22 rifle in a fit of jealousy.
[7] Four months after the initial investigation, the police claimed they found a cartridge in the Crewe's garden which fitted the calibre of Thomas rifle and presented it as evidence at his trial that he was the murderer.
[11] In May 2012, independent counsel to the police inquiry, David Jones, QC, submitted a 28-page report in which he describes the brass 22 cartridge case and agreed with Adams-Smith that the verdicts against Thomas were unsafe.
[14] The booklet helped to provide the impetus for a national campaign that eventually led to a controversial retrial where the jury was housed incommunicado with police in a local hotel.
Peter Williams, QC said the police wined and dined the jury members and the Justice Department picked up the bill.
He worked closely with forensic scientist, Dr Jim Sprott, who asserted that the cartridge case crucial to the conviction had been planted at the scene by police.
As part of a seven-year campaign to have Thomas' convictions overturned, in 1975 Booth published a book, Trial by Ambush.
Shortly thereafter, a Royal Commission was established which explicitly stated that detectives had used ammunition and a rifle taken from his farm to fabricate false evidence against him.
[21] In the end, the Commission "rejected entirely the notion that any of the evidence put forward... established a motive by Arthur Allan Thomas to kill the Crewes".
"[25] It was later established that the case was "clean" and uncorroded when it was found, which was inconsistent with having lain in the garden, exposed to weather and dirt for more than four months.
The Solicitor-General, Paul Neazor, recommended against prosecuting Hutton and Johnston as a number police officers disputed the claims that the cartridge had been planted, such that it would be too difficult to prove the case against the two detectives.
They sought an injunction in the High Court to try to halt the Royal Commission's proceedings and openly attacked its findings once they were issued.
His report, released on 30 July 2014, concluded "In my view, there was sufficient evidence for a prosecution to have been taken against Bruce Hutton based on the available material.
[40] In 2012, Keith Hunter published The Case of the Missing Bloodstain in which he pointed the finger at Jeannette Crewe's father, Lenard Demler - who the police initially suspected - for the murders.
However, in September 2022, a stay of prosecution was ordered in response to Thomas now being considered unfit to stand trial due to deteriorating mental health.
He says that suspicion of the justice system now exists in the cases of Peter Ellis, Scott Watson, Mark Lundy, John Barlow, Rex Haig, David Tamihere and others.
[47] In 2015, Judy Chu analysed the role of the police, the judges and the jury in the Thomas case and determined that "the conduct of actors within the courts inhibited the fair administration justice and as a result, exposed themselves to profound derision."
She noted that: Chu concluded that the Arthur Allan Thomas case saw public trust in New Zealand’s criminal justice system diminish dramatically.
