In Auckland’s High Court this week, the trial commenced for two former police officers accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice in the 1985 murder case of Arthur Easton. The case centers on allegations that critical evidence contradicting the prosecution’s suspect was withheld during the original investigation and subsequent trial.

Arthur Easton was fatally stabbed in his Papakura home on the evening of October 13, 1985. Minutes after the attack, a motorist named Ronald Turner reported seeing a man behaving suspiciously near the scene. Turner described the individual as a male Māori in his 20s, approximately 5 feet 6 to 7 inches tall (1.68m to 1.7m), who was nervous and frequently looking over his shoulder as he moved through the neighborhood.

Alan Hall, a man of non-Māori descent and standing about 6 feet tall (1.83m), was later arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder. Hall spent 17 years in prison followed by extensive parole conditions until the Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 2022. The court ruled that the wrongful conviction resulted either from “extreme incompetence or a deliberate and wrongful strategy” by authorities to secure a conviction.

Prosecutors in the current case argue that the former officers deliberately failed to disclose Turner’s eyewitness description, which did not match Hall’s physical appearance or ethnicity, to the defense, the court, or jury during the 1986 trial or Hall’s subsequent appeal. They highlighted that the witness statement read to the jury was altered, omitting reference to the suspect’s race. Additional police documents also referenced inconsistent witness reports describing the offender as a young Māori male approximately six feet tall, wearing distinct clothing, and involved in the stabbing of Easton and his son.

Senior Sergeant Robert Cleary, who has been with the police since 1997, testified that the original investigators would likely have been fully aware of these discrepancies, which should have been flagged within the case files. He acknowledged that inconsistencies in witness descriptions are common in investigations but emphasized that any such contradictions must be openly presented in court proceedings.

The defendants in the trial, aged 76 and 83, maintain their innocence and face potential sentences of up to seven years if found guilty. A third co-defendant, whose name remains suppressed, died before the trial began.

During opening statements, defense counsel David Jones described the witness account from Turner as potentially irrelevant, given the witness’s distance from the crime scene and inability to positively identify the suspect later. Jones argued that other evidence from the time supported Hall’s guilt and cautioned against viewing the case solely through the lens of the Supreme Court’s later findings.

The prosecutor’s position, however, is that disclosure of the full witness accounts would have critically undermined the Crown’s case against Hall and that the alleged cover-up represents a serious breach of justice. The trial continues as the court examines the conduct of law enforcement officials in this decades-old case.