Pubdate: Fri, 8 Jan 2010
Source: Dominion Post, The (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2010 The Dominion Post
Contact:  http://www.dompost.co.nz
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2550
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/informants

HUSH DEALS NET $446,000 FOR INFORMANTS

Police paid informants a record amount of nearly half a million
dollars in the past year.

But it is impossible to know whether taxpayers are receiving value for
money in the payouts as police cannot reveal how many arrests or
convictions resulted from the payouts or which crimes the payouts were
for.

Informants received $1.7m in the past five years. The payout of
$446,845 in the last year was the most in the last 10 years. Witnesses
also receive non-cash incentives such as early parole or benefits for
their families.

The practice has long attracted controversy.

The Government demanded a review of the payouts in 2001 after police
paid $30,000 to killer Travis Burns for accusing his friend
Christopher Lewis of the murder of Auckland woman Tania Furlan in 1996.

Lewis continued to claim Burns had framed him and killed himself in
jail before the trial. Burns went on to commit a nearly identical
crime, murdering another Auckland mother Joanne McCarthy.

Then Justice Minister Phil Goff said at the time the process of
payment of witnesses should not be ruled out but should be more
transparent. "The very payment of an individual suggests that there
may be an ulterior motive in what they are saying, rather than simply
the desire to tell the truth."

Police would not say how many informers have been paid, the highest
paid to any informant, what cases information was paid for, or what
other gifts or incentives were offered, saying release of the
information would harm the maintenance of the law and would endanger
the safety of informants.

But police informers policy states that some informants are on weekly
retainers and they claim entertainment and mileage expenses in
"extraordinary" cases - but they have to provide a receipt or suitable
explanation for the spending.

Police district commanders authorise payments of up to $2000 to
informers and regional commanders up to $8000. The deputy commissioner
must sign off any reward above $8000.

Informants also receive non-financial benefits such as legal help,
mediation with other government agencies or letters to the court.

Defence lawyer Greg King said tipoffs provided to police that pointed
them in the right direction were in everybody's best interests.

But he worried about jailhouse confessions where criminals accused
others of crime in exchange for money, letters of recommendation to
the Parole Board, and shorter sentences.

"That situation is extremely risky in my view," he
said.

"Fundamentally, when you've got someone that's in prison in the first
place who is coming forward purporting to have information, and the
fact that it will often have benefit to them ... you don't need much
imagination to see an unscrupulous person can manipulate that whole
scenario to their advantage."

He said the courts were rarely told that many were serial informants,
and were often providing information at another trial at the same time.

"These people come along, they're con men, they're professional con
artists. They will take what they can get at any expense."

He said the police did not do this on purpose. "But when you're paying
for that evidence, there's a risk that you will be taken advantage
of.

"It needs to be done a whole lot more openly than it
is."

High-Profile Deals

In 1994, police paid $13,000 and offered immunity to prosecution to
David Hogan for information leading to the conviction of his uncle,
Rex Haig, for the murder of fisherman Mark Roderique. Haig's
conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2006, which said
in a ruling there was "an evidential basis for the proposition that
Hogan murdered the deceased".

In 1999, a secret witness in the Scott Watson trial, who told the
court Watson had admitted killing Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, admitted
receiving a cellphone and car from police. The man, known as Witness
B, was a gang member and a prison inmate at the time of meeting
Watson. A second secret witness later recanted similar evidence,
saying he was put under pressure by police and had lied.

In 2001, the government ordered a review after it was revealed that
police paid rapist Travis Burns $30,000 for alleging his friend
Christopher Lewis had killed Auckland mother Tania Furlan. Lewis
committed suicide in prison before the trial, claiming he had been set
up by Burns. Burns went on to murder another Auckland mother, Joanne
McCarthy, in a similar crime - both young mothers were bludgeoned to
death in their homes while their children played nearby.
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