Case note
Red Fox Tavern murder convictions set aside; acquittals entered
Charged almost 30 years after the killing and convicted in 2021. A Supreme Court majority found the verdicts unreasonable.
- Court
- Supreme Court
- Counsel
- Q Duff, S L McColgan, and G T R Duff for Mr Hoggart
- Charges
- MurderAggravated robbery
- Outcome
- Appeals allowed; convictions set aside; acquittals entered
Orders suppressing the identity of witnesses and connected persons remain in force; this note names none
What happened
Late on 24 October 1987, Labour Weekend, two armed men held up the Red Fox Tavern at Maramarua, and one shot the publican dead. Almost 30 years later, in August 2017, Mr Wilson and Mr Hoggart were charged with murder and aggravated robbery. Identity was the issue, and the Crown case was circumstantial. A jury convicted both men in March 2021, and the Court of Appeal dismissed their appeals in May 2023. On 7 July 2026 the Supreme Court allowed the appeals, set aside the convictions, and entered acquittals. The majority held the verdicts were unreasonable; Glazebrook J would have ordered a retrial.
The point worth pausing on
The Crown had to exclude a reasonable possibility that another man had committed the robbery and murder: a career criminal with a background in armed robbery, who had planned a robbery of that same tavern and visited it about two weeks beforehand. The majority held the evidence against him was of much the same order as the evidence against the appellants, and in at least one respect significantly stronger.
The majority restates the appellate duty under s 232(2)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011. It may not be abdicated by retreating to the proposition that the weighing of evidence is a matter for the jury, and circumstantial evidence may conceivably be more susceptible to appellate review than direct evidence where credibility is contested.
“Each item of evidence may bear only the weight it may reasonably bear.”