Convicted murderer Gail Maney released from prison

Convicted murderer Gail Maney has been released from prison after serving 15 years in jail for a murder she says she did not commit.

Maney was convicted of the murder of West Auckland tyre-fitter Deane Fuller-Sandys, but has always denied committing the crime saying she never even met him.

Deane Fuller-Sandys went missing in August 1989 and was for years presumed to have been washed off rocks while fishing on Auckland's west coast.

However, in 1997 police reopened the case and accused Maney of having commissioned Stephen Stone, a gang member, to kill Fuller-Sandys because he'd stolen drugs from her house.

The Parole Board released its decision on Thursday, granting her parole, after a hearing chaired by Sir Ron Young by teleconference on Tuesday.

In 2016, she was released on parole but was recalled to prison earlier this year after she failed to show up to a series of drugs tests last year.

Gail Maney has been granted parole. Photo / File.

Maney returned a urine sample that had been diluted last December and tested positive for methamphetamine a month later.

"We do not support her drug use but we do not consider that her difficult behaviour and her drug use adds up to her being an undue risk to the safety of the community," the board said.

Maney had problems with her accommodation in the past but now had a new address in an isolated, unidentified area.

The board said Maney had made a number of "very strange complaints" to the police about someone interfering with her clothes, glasses and motor vehicle.

"Community Corrections suggested those complaints were essentially paranoid and indicative of possible methamphetamine use," the board said.

Although the probation service found Maney difficult to manage, they wanted her to work with her probation officer and supporters to keep out of trouble.

"We agree with that approach. We have tried to stress to Ms Maney that Community Corrections and the Parole Board are not in the business of trying to get people back to prison, they are in the business of trying to support people while they are on parole."

She has been living in the community on life parole for the past several years, which meant she could be recalled to prison at any time at the discretion of police or probation officers.

The first time she was released from prison was in 2010, but was recalled two years later. She was then released in 2016, but recalled again briefly the year after.

Maney was found guilty along with Stone at a trial in 1999. She successfully appealed against her conviction, but was found guilty again at a retrial in 2000.

Her case was depended heavily on the accounts of four trial witnesses. Two later recanted their evidence and the other two received immunity from prosecution for their own involvement in exchange for giving evidence.

Stone was convicted of carrying out Fuller-Sandys murder and of raping and murdering a prostitute, Leah Stephens, five days later because she had witnessed the shooting.