Arthur Allan Thomas is a New Zealand man who was granted a Royal Pardon and compensation after being wrongfully convicted of the murders of Harvey and Jeannette Crewe in June 1970. Thomas was married and farming a property in the Pukekawa district, south of Auckland before the case. Following the revelation that the crucial evidence against him had been faked, Thomas was pardoned and awarded NZ$950,000 in compensation for his 9 years in prison and loss of earnings.
Campaign to overturn the convictions
There were numerous inconsistencies in the evidence, which led to an outcry among elements in the farming community and among relatives of Thomas and his wife, Vivien Thomas. That led to the formation of the Arthur Thomas Retrial Committee. The report by a retired judge, Sir George MacGregor, which rejected the appeal for a retrial, was also riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies. However, a report on that by journalist Terry Bell, then deputy editor of the Auckland Star Saturday edition, was rejected for publication on the grounds that "it is not the role of the newspapers to attempt to try the courts". Bell then resigned and produced the booklet Bitter Hill, which is the English meaning of Pukekawa, outlining inconsistencies in the prosecution's case and the theory advanced by the retrial committee. It provided 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. Thomas was again convicted. Pat Booth, the assistant editor of the Auckland Star, attended the retrial and became concerned. As part of the campaign for a pardon, Booth wrote a book, Trial by Ambush. That was followed by another campaigning book, Beyond Reasonable Doubt, by British investigative author David Yallop, which was subsequently made into a film of the same name. Thomas received a pardon, and a Royal Commission report explicitly stated that detectives had used ammunition and a rifle taken from his farm to fabricate false evidence against him. A 2014 police review of the case acknowledged police misconduct was probably the explanation for the key evidence against Thomas: a spent cartridge case.
A Royal Commission of Inquiry was established, headed by retired New South Wales Justice Robert Taylor. It declared Thomas to have been wrongfully charged and convicted and found that among other improprieties, police had planted a.22 rifle cartridge case in the garden of the house in which the murders were committed. The case was found four months and ten days after the area had already been subjected to one of the most intensive police searches ever undertaken. The cartridge case was said to have come from a rifle belonging to Thomas. However, the police tested only 64 rifles in an area where this weapon was common and found that two, including the one belonging to Thomas – could have fired the cartridge case found in the garden. That was the link to the deaths of the Crewes although it was later admitted that the case was "clean" and uncorroded when it was found. As such, the condition of the case was inconsistent with having lain in the garden, exposed to weather and dirt for more than four months.
No action against police officers
The commission report said: "Mr Hutton and Mr Johnston planted the shell case... and they did so to manufacture evidence that Mr Thomas' rifle had been used for the killings." The Solicitor-General recommended against prosecuting the officers because of insufficient evidence. An independent review of the 2014 police review by David PH Jones QC, 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".
Subsequent events
In 2009 Arthur Allan Thomas travelled to Christchurch to support David Bain, who also had criminal convictions against him overturned. In 2010 he collaborated with investigative journalistIan Wishart on the book Arthur Allan Thomas, where for the first time he gave his perspective on his life, from before the murders to the present. The two detectives who planted the shell which helped convict Thomas are now dead. Johnston died in 1978. Bruce Hutton, 83, died in Middlemore Hospital in April 2013. At Hutton's funeral, Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush praised Mr Hutton and said he was known for having "integrity beyond reproach". An editorial in the New Zealand Herald said: "that was clearly absurd. It was also an unthinking or calculated insult to Mr Thomas, who spent nine years in prison before being pardoned". Thomas, then aged 75 years old, responded by saying the police were engaged in "a blatant cover up". A police review of the original investigation, at a cost of $400,000 to New Zealand taxpayers, released in July 2014, cleared all other suspects and implied that Arthur Thomas remained a police suspect. The independent review by David PH Jones QC concluded that "It does not appear that there was any real inquiry by the 1970 investigation team into any persons other than Arthur Thomas".
Further
19th December 2019. Arthur Allan Thomas, now aged 81, faces one charge of rape and four of indecent assault against two women. He previously pleaded not guilty and elected trial by jury. His case was called at Manukau District Court on Thursday where he was excused from attending. Judge Charles Blackie lifted suppression orders that previously prevented the media from reporting anything about the case. Detective Superintendent Dave Lynch and other detectives were seated in the public gallery. Thomas first appeared in November where wide-ranging suppression orders were made, preventing any reporting of the case. Thomas is due back in court in March.
