The Crown will not pursue a retrial for Stephen Ralph Stone, whose convictions were quashed in October.
The Crown will not pursue a retrial for Stephen Ralph Stone, whose convictions were quashed in October.
It’s been over 25 years since the “Gone Fishing” double-murder trial, which had already been considered a cold case.
Stone was released from prison after the Court of Appeal found a miscarriage of justice, but he remained on bail as the Crown mulled a retrial.
The Crown announced today it will not pursue a retrial for high-profile double-murder defendant Stephen Ralph Stone, six months after the Court of Appeal quashed his 25-year-old jury trial convictions.
The decision now leaves Stone - who was released from prison in October but remained under bail conditions until a planned 2026 trial - a completely free man for the first time in decades.
Auckland Crown Solicitor Alysha McClintock confirmed the decision during a brief hearing this morning before Justice Timothy Brewer in the High Court at Auckland.
“...A criminal trial is about what can be proved with admissible evidence,” she said. “Sometimes, the passage of time brings about substantial changes to what evidence is available to support a criminal charge. That is what has occurred in this case...
“Here, I have concluded that there is no longer sufficient evidence available to the Crown to support Mr Stone being retried.”
Stone wore a white T-shirt and mumbled, seemingly annoyed, as the prosecutor read aloud the prepared statement.
Stephen Stone was found guilty in 1999 of the 1989 murders of Dean Fuller-Sandys and Leah Stephens (inset), but 25 years later the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial. Photo / Russell Smith
“Thank God,” he said as Justice Brewer confirmed that he now has the equivalent of an acquittal.
“So you are now free to leave the dock and the court,” Brewer said.
Stone didn’t wait around as other cases were called. He left the courtroom immediately.
“F*** off!” he yelled at reporters who surrounded him as he left the courthouse a short time later.
The death of tyre fitter Deane Fuller-Sandys - a 21-year-old initially presumed to have drowned while fishing along Auckland’s west coast in 1989 - was already considered a cold case when jurors in the High Court at Auckland found Stone guilty of murder in 1999.
It was at the time dubbed the “Gone Fishing” case by the media.
Stephen Ralph Stone outside the Auckland High Court today after the Crown announced it will not pursue a retrial. Photo / Craig Kapitan
The bouncer and Black Power gang member was later ordered to serve two concurrent life sentences for the murder convictions and 10 years’ imprisonment for the rape charge.
Co-defendant Gail Maney, twice found guilty of Fuller-Sandys’ murder, was fully acquitted as a result of last year’s Court of Appeal decision after prosecutors acknowledged a miscarriage of justice had occurred. But Stone was granted only a retrial for reasons that were at the time suppressed.
Mark Henriksen and Colin Maney - Gail Maney‘s brother - were acquitted by the same appellate panel of being accessories to Fuller-Sandys’ murder.
Stephen Stone before he was convicted of the murders of Dean Fuller-Sandys and Leah Stephens.
Prosecutors had alleged during the previous trials that Gail Maney ordered Stone to kill Fuller-Sandys because he had stolen drugs, money and leather goods from her.
After Fuller-Sandys stopped by the flat on his way to a fishing trip, it was alleged, he was confronted and shot in the garage in front of numerous witnesses. Prosecutors said the gun was passed around and others were encouraged to shoot him.
Fuller-Sandys’ body was then buried at Woodhill Forest before his car was dumped at the fishing spot in Whatipu, they alleged.
It was alleged Stone then targeted Stephens because she was present at the first killing and he feared she would talk. Her body wouldn’t be discovered until three years later, buried near the Muriwai Golf Club.
In the decision released last year, the Court of Appeal noted that two of the four witnesses who said they were present during the first shooting have since recanted.
It was also noted that a detective had incorrectly told the court during previous trials that no witnesses had been shown statements by any other witness. That contributed to a miscarriage of justice along with the detective’s failure to disclose his communications with a lawyer representing one of the witnesses.
The detective, Mark Franklin, would later be sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment for selling cannabis after quitting the force and moving to Rarotonga.
Gail Maney has repeatedly insisted over the years that she never met Fuller-Sandys and that she didn’t meet Stone until after Fuller-Sandys vanished. She told NZME in October that she was relieved her conviction had finally been quashed but was confused as to why a retrial was ordered for Stone.
“Basically none of this happened, we’re all innocent people and to me, it doesn’t make any sense,” she explained. “He doesn’t deserve to be there [in jail] any more than me.”
Gail Maney and her brother Colin Maney arrive at the Court of Appeal in Wellington in August 2024 for their hearing over their convictions connected to the murder of Deane Fuller-Sandys. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prosecutors had initially indicated they would announce in December whether they intended to retry Stone or drop the charges. Time was needed, in part, to explore the possibility of further DNA testing. But extensions were sought ahead of the December hearing and again in March.
“Additional ESR testing on samples collected by police at the time has been carried out,” McClintock told the court today. “It has not produced any results of significance.”
Prosecutors also needed time to consider whether Stone’s own post-conviction admissions of guilt could form the basis of a retrial, McClintock said.
The Parole Board noted in 2009 that Stone had “never in the past been so clear about his acknowledgement of his guilt and responsibility” as when he appeared before them that year. The following year, he wrote a letter to Fuller-Sandys’ family in which he said their loved one died over a “drug deal [that] turned into a fight and went wrong that cost Dean[e] his life”. He said he was responsible and that he was “constantly haunted by [his] thoughts and actions of that moment”, lawyers previously told the Court of Appeal.
Fuller-Sandys’ brother earlier submitted a sworn affidavit recalling a restorative justice conference with Stone at Rimutaka Prison around 2010. Stone initially denied having killed anyone but eventually admitted, “Yes, I did do it,” the brother recalled.
But lawyers for Stone said have previously dismissed the statements, equating them to false confessions made in the context of trying to get parole. Stone has continuously denied responsibility for well over a decade, it was noted.
McClintock agreed today that there would have been too many questions surrounding the veracity of the statements.
“Mr Stone’s admissions do not in and of themselves provide a basis for prosecution in all the circumstances given the standard of proof,” she told the court.
“As a result of the passage of time – some 26 years – significant pieces of evidence that the Crown was able to adduce at the March 1999 trial are no longer available. No additional admissible evidence of consequence has since been identified. The inevitable conclusion is, therefore, that the evidential test for prosecution – whether there is enough evidence to prove the proposed charges beyond a reasonable doubt – is no longer met."
Outside the courthouse today, defence lawyer Annabel Maxwell-Scott said her client has good reason to remain angry and distraught by the way he’s been treated by the justice system.
“This isn’t a victory today,” she said. “We’ve always maintained this is a travesty.
“This is a case that was engineered by the police. The evidence against all of these defendants was not credible, and we’re just extremely disappointed that we’re still here 27 years on having to fight this.
“...This is really not a victory for anybody. It’s an extremely sad day for the criminal justice system.”
Maxwell-Scott said the first thing her client intended to do today was go to his mother’s grave, which he hadn’t been able to visit since he was a young man due to prison and bail conditions.
His anger today was understandable, she added.
Defence lawyer Annabel Maxwell-Scott and private investigator Tim McKinnel speak to media outside the High Court at Auckland today. Photo / Craig Kapitan
“The police were out to get him, as far as we’re concerned, and that hasn’t ended,” she explained. “As you heard from the statement [from McClintock] today, the Crown doesn’t accept that he’s innocent, clearly.”
She said she will continue to support Stone, including looking into the possibilities of compensation and requesting a Royal Commission of Inquiry. Private investigator Tim McKinnel, whose extensive work on the case helped lead to the quashed convictions, agreed that such an inquiry is needed.
“There’s multiple failures throughout the criminal justice system over 30 years, and so questions of accountability are really important,” he said. “They need to be answered. But that can’t be done by one or two inquiries. There needs to be an overarching inquiry into how this could have occurred and how we prevent anything like this from ever happening again.”
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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