KEY POINTS:
A police videotape showing the confession of a man later acquitted of murder needs to be aired to shed light on a 12-year-old murder mystery, the Supreme Court heard yesterday.
The justices reserved their decision on whether TVNZ should be allowed to screen the tape of a police interview with Noel Clement Rogers, who was acquitted last year of the murder of Katherine Sheffield 11 years earlier.
Ms Sheffield's partner, and Rogers' uncle, Lawrence Lloyd, was convicted of her manslaughter and served seven years of an 11-year sentence.
His conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2004 when police obtained information which led them to charge Rogers.
At his trial the videotape, which showed him confessing to police and helping them reconstruct the murder, was ruled inadmissible on the grounds police had conducted the interview without giving Rogers his right to silence and legal counsel.
But TVNZ had already obtained a copy of the tape from the officer in charge of the case, and a legal battle between the broadcaster and Rogers has continued since the date of his acquittal, last December.
Yesterday the Supreme Court heard an appeal from Rogers over the August decision from the Court of Appeal ruling TVNZ could broadcast the tape.
Counsel for Rogers, Michael Corry, said the Court of Appeal had erred in weighing up the right of an individual to privacy against the public interest in screening the tape, it had failed to recognise the depth of privacy concerned in the images depicted.
The Court of Appeal had said the act of confessing to murder lay at the lower end of the privacy spectrum, with examples at the top end of the scale relating to sexual or financial affairs.
"But are revelations, for example, of an adulterous affair more inherently degrading than graphic images of a deluded reconstruction of a confession to murder?" he asked.
It had also erred in that it had taken a "narrow view" on what the effect on open justice suppression of the tape would have.
Rogers had no problem with free reporting of the trial and case, or of open debate around the case - he only objected to a piece of graphic and degrading evidence, that was not admitted in court, being aired on national television, Mr Corry said.
Chief Justice Sian Elias said the court would take some time to make its decision.
- NZPA
