One of Hawke’s Bay’s longest-serving judges who presided over more than 600 jury trials has died.
Former District Court Judge Tony Adeane, 72, died on Saturday in Napier following a period of illness.
Adeane was a District Court judge for almost 30 years before retiring in May 2021 at the compulsory retirement age of 70.
He is survived by his “beloved” wife of 50 years, Linda, two children and four grandchildren, according to a death notice published in Hawke’s Bay Today.
He served all of his tenure in Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne and was estimated to have presided over more than 630 jury trials.
In an interview with Hawke’s Bay Today upon racking up 25 years in the job, he reflected on the many people he had dealt with in the courtroom.
“Very few are really bad people, and those are usually products of some very bad circumstances,” he said. “All the rest are just people. That has to be kept in mind.”
Adeane’s career spanned the rise of the internet and the risk that posed to jury trials, where juries are instructed to put anything they may believe they know about a case to one side and keep away from Google.
“In jury trials you have got to have faith that people are fair-minded, that people still respect the presumption of innocence, follow the judge’s legal instructions and decide the case solely on the evidence presented in court,” he said in 2018.
He previously made headlines as the judge who cleaned up the region by railing against taggers, including handing out short prison sentences to curb the problem.
He has also spoken out about gang members intimidating witnesses against speaking in court, which he said had interfered with justice in Hawke’s Bay.
Adeane was appointed a District Court Judge in 1993 following an impressive earlier career as a law firm partner.
He was also a keen motorbike enthusiast.
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