George Moulden had already spent a year in prison after earlier being identified as the offender from a police photo line-up. Photo / File
George Moulden had already spent a year in prison after earlier being identified as the offender from a police photo line-up. Photo / File
He was wrongly identified in a police photo line-up as the culprit of a burglary and served a year in prison.
Then, six months later as he sought compensation, he was picked in a photo line-up for another crime.
But a judge dismissed the charges after the Crown admitted the photo identification alone wasn't enough evidence to prove George William Moulden was the culprit.
In the latest case, Moulden was arrested in March and charged with threatening to kill and aggravated injury after an elderly couple were confronted in their South Auckland home the month before.
He was accused of entering the couple's property on the evening of February 22. While on the front porch of the house, the offender began yelling and threatening to kill the pair.
The offender tried to open the front door and, as he pushed it open, forced the woman back and into a window, causing her to cut her arm on a metal door frame.
He then fled, but as he got into a waiting vehicle he yelled at the woman and said he would be back.
Police separately showed the elderly couple and the two neighbours a photo board of suspects. On it were Moulden and seven other men.
One of the neighbours and the couple identified Moulden as the intruder, but the second neighbour was unable to identify anyone in the row of photos.
However, as Crown Solicitor at Manukau Natalie Walker later explained to the Herald, the strength of the identifications was mitigated by two of the witnesses also identifying Moulden's brother.
The third witness was not shown a photo board containing a photograph of Moulden's brother.
"In those circumstances, the Crown considered additional evidence corroborating the three positive identifications would be required," Walker told the Herald.
Moulden was remanded in custody after his arrest when the District Court declined his application for electronically monitored bail on April 17.
But on appeal, the High Court granted him electronically monitored bail with a 24-hour curfew on May 4.
Natalie Walker, the Crown Solicitor at Manukau. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Moulden's bail application was opposed by the Crown because of the location of his proposed bail address being close to the couple's home and there was a potential risk of further offending after the threat by the offender to return, Walker said.
The Department of Corrections also said Moulden was unsuitable for bail because of 11 previous bail breaches and four convictions for breaching release conditions.
Moulden has also previously removed his electronic bracelet and has a lengthy criminal history which includes 18 convictions for offending on bail, including several burglary and violence convictions.
Despite his past, when police completed its investigation and after the forensic analysis was completed, the Crown immediately invited the court to dismiss the charges.
Last month, in the Manukau District Court, Judge David McNaughton did just that.
While the Crown could have proceeded to trial and relied on the photo identifications alone, the evidence wasn't enough to prove beyond reasonable doubt Moulden was the offender, Walker said.
"It would have been premature for the Crown to reach that position before all lines of inquiry had been completed," she said.
Detective Inspector Fa'amanuia Va'aelua said Moulden was nominated as a suspect because he fitted the general offender's description. Photo / Rosie Gordon
Detective Inspector Fa'amanuia Va'aelua, of Counties Manukau Police, told the Herald Moulden was nominated as a suspect because of his criminal history and because he fitted the general description of the offender.
"The law allows charges to be filed when a case relies solely on one or more witness visual identifications of a suspect," Va'aelua said.
"In this case there were three separate identifications of Mr Moulden. This was sufficient evidence to support the initial police decision to file the charges."
However, Va'aelua accepted the Crown's assessment the photo evidence was insufficient.
No one else has since been arrested for the incident, he told the Herald.
Moulden's lawyer Susan Gray did not wish to comment on the case but did say its circumstances concerned her.
Private investigator Tim McKinnel, who is working with Moulden's defence confirmed Moulden was seeking compensation for his wrongful imprisonment.
But this year's case was nothing new to Moulden.
In extraordinarily similar circumstances, he was earlier selected as an offender from a photo line-up and spent a year behind bars as a result of the misidentification.
After a jury trial in the Manukau District Court in 2016, he was convicted of aggravated burglary and aggravated assault.
He was said to have burgled a South Auckland house in November 2014.
The occupants were not home at the time, but a Pākehā man of slim build, with fair to salt pepper hair was seen leaving the area as the security alarm sounded.
Two neighbours from across the street and a gardener down the road confronted the burglar, who pulled a knife and threatened the gardener before fleeing.
Another neighbour, who was driving home also saw the same man as he was about to step out onto the road.
Last month in the Manukau District Court a judge dismissed the charges against Moulden. Photo / NZ Herald
Each witness viewed a police photo montage with a picture of Moulden about a week and a half later.
Three identified him as the burglar, but one could not identify him with confidence.
One witness also described the offender as having a tattoo on his left forearm, something Moulden didn't have.
There were also differences in the descriptions of the two men's heights; Moulden was up to five inches shorter than the burglar seen by the neighbours.
Despite the apparent discrepancies in the identification process and the absence of any other evidence implicating Moulden, there was no pre-trial challenge by his then lawyer Shane Tait.
"The omission is inexplicable," three Court of Appeal judges would later comment on the lack of an objection.
Moulden was sentenced on the aggravated burglary and aggravated assault charges to two years and 11 months' imprisonment.
He appealed his conviction, but by the time it was heard he had already served more than a year of his sentence.
Eventually, last August, Court of Appeal Justices Ailsa Duffy, Rhys Harrison and Joseph Williams concluded Moulden had suffered a miscarriage of justice.
They said the witnesses had identified the wrong man.
Private investigator Tim McKinnel is working with Moulden's defence to seek compensation for the wrongful imprisonment. Photo / Duncan Brown
"When these factors are combined with the suggestive effect of the montage, we are satisfied there is a reasonable doubt as to the reliability of the identifications," the judges said.
Moulden was also the only person in the line-up with fair hair.
"There is, in our judgment, a reasonable risk that the witnesses identified the wrong culprit and it was therefore unsafe for their evidence to go to the jury," they said, while also not ordering a retrial.
Va'aelua, meanwhile, said the use of photo boards was a common police investigative practice to assist in the identification or elimination of suspects.
The line-up shown to witnesses in the 2018 case was different to the one used in the 2014 case, he said.
"The 2018 photo board was created taking into account the Court of Appeal's decision," he said.
