KEY POINTS:
Yesterday's not guilty verdict in the Jack Nicholas murder trial came as a surprise to police who worked on the case, Eastern District crime manager Detective Inspector Sam Aberahama said today.
Mr Nicholas was gunned down on his remote farm northwest of Napier on August 27, 2004.
After deliberating for 13 hours, a High Court jury found Murray Foreman, 51, not guilty of the dawn murder.
The jury added the rider that it did not believe any member of the Nicholas family was involved in the shooting.
The defence team had implicated Mr Nicholas' son, Oliver, during the trial.
Mr Aberahama said police were disappointed by the verdict, but accepted the court's decision.
"This has been a lengthy and difficult inquiry and my staff have worked tirelessly to bring someone before the courts, but we must accept the jury's decision as due judicial process," Mr Aberahama said.
He rejected criticism by Foreman's defence counsel that they conducted a shoddy inquiry, focusing on one person only during the course of the investigation.
"That is absolutely incorrect and has no basis of fact. There were many phases to the investigation that were thoroughly examined," Mr Aberahama said.
Foreman's counsel, Bruce Squire QC, today lashed out at the police investigation, labelling it "shoddy" and "selective".
He told Radio New Zealand police had made the "fatal flaw" that characterised many investigations of picking a particular individual and trying to fit a case around them, instead of thoroughly investigating a crime and remaining open minded until all the evidence was clear.
"They simply picked the wrong man and they should have known it long before they charged him," Mr Squire said.
Mr Aberahama said police would have a debriefing and would critique the investigation and in that respect, the case was not closed and police would follow up any new information.
"There is no new information for police to work on at this stage, but if anything new comes to light, we will gladly look into it," he said.
- NZPA
