'Poo in the post' real estate agent Grant Tucker loses bid to keep hearing secret

Grant Tucker leaving Auckland District Court today. Photo / Doug Sherring

A real estate agent struck off after pleading guilty to a charge of sending faeces in the post is taking his case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

However, the tribunal has denied his application to bar the public and media from his case against the Real Estate Authority.

Grant Tucker failed to convince the tribunal that a hearing over access to information the authority holds about him should be held behind closed doors.

In the Auckland District Court in 2015, Tucker was discharged without conviction after previously pleading guilty to a charge of posting a noxious substance, namely faeces. A count of using a telephone to offend was dismissed.

But the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal found him guilty of disgraceful misconduct and his license was later cancelled.

Prosecutors alleged Tucker embarked on a sustained campaign of harassment against his former Custom Residential boss Johnathan Wills and Wills' lawyer David Beard after falling out with the agency over a commission dispute.

Late last year, Tucker requested that the Real Estate Authority provide access to all his personal information. He has now brought a case before the Human Rights Review Tribunal against that authority, alleging that it had failed to comply with his request.

The authority, in turn, has denied that and said it had extended the time limit.

Tucker has sought that a hearing in the matter be closed to both the public and media. His grounds are that he has "been the subject of much media hype where the coverage was not balanced or fair. Some media outlets amended their publications".

Tucker also wants to introduce new medical evidence, both personal and private. That potentially exposes him to discrimination if it becomes public knowledge, he says.

The tribunal said no particulars had been given of the alleged "media hype" or of the alleged absence of balanced or fair reporting.

On the second grounds, the tribunal noted a letter from last October by consultant psychiatrist Dr David Codyre and a note from senior psychologist Sue Lawrie.

"Dr Codyre offers the opinion that adverse media coverage of Mr Tucker's past court cases has had 'a very detrimental impact' on Mr Tucker's depressive illness and that Mr Tucker would be at risk of a relapse should such adverse coverage occur again," the tribunal said.

But the tribunal said Dr Codyre did not identify the past court cases he was referring to. The tribunal said it assumed he was referring to media coverage of cases between Tucker and the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal and it noted the High Court had upheld that decision on appeal.

"Dr Codyre's evidence about the past impact of these cases on Mr Tucker's mental health appears to be based on a self-report from Mr Tucker during a single consultation on August 5, 2019, some years after the events in question," the tribunal said.

It expressed reluctance to close any hearing to the media or public, saying that was a radical departure from common expectations about how justice was done in New Zealand.

It noted that if there was unfair or unbalanced reporting of the present proceedings, Tucker was not without remedy. He had the right to complain to the Media Council or the Broadcasting Standards Authority. The tribunal would be over-reaching itself if it made an order for a closed hearing.

That Tucker might again face embarrassment and damage was not enough to justify closing the court.

"For the reasons given, we have concluded that by a wide margin, Mr Tucker has failed to establish justification for the drastic step of closing the forthcoming tribunal hearing to the public and to the media," it ruled.