Gail Maney granted appeal hearing to fight ‘Gone Fishing’ conviction

Gail Maney spent 15 years in prison for ordering the murder of Deane Fuller-Sandys. Maney has maintained her innocence since before she was convicted in 1999. Photo / File

After almost three decades of fighting to clear her name, convicted murderer Gail Maney has been given another chance to have her case heard.

In 1999, and again at a retrial in 2000, Maney was convicted of the August 1989 murder of West Auckland man Deane Fuller-Sandys. She spent 15 years behind bars.

The Crown case was that Maney ordered her associate Stephen Stone to murder Fuller-Sandys by shooting him, as revenge for an alleged burglary a few weeks earlier.

But Maney always maintained she had never met Fuller-Sandys, let alone commissioned a hit on him.

Stone was jailed for life in 1999, after being found guilty of the murders of Fuller-Sandys and Leah Stephens, who was believed to have been a witness to the murder.

The pair went missing within a week of each other. Stone was also convicted of the sexual violation of Stephens.

Today, the Court of Appeal ruled that Maney’s recall application, asking the court to retract its 2005 decision to dismiss her appeal against her murder conviction, and appeal will be heard in August.

It will be heard alongside Stone’s leave application and appeal. He has also maintained his innocence.

On hearing that she had another chance to have her case heard, Maney said: “This is huge for me.

“I have fought for this moment for 19 years, since my last appeal in 2005. I have fought to prove my innocence since 1997 when this nightmare began,” she said in a statement released by investigator and former police officer Tim McKinnel, who has been a part of the team fighting to have her conviction quashed.

“I have been fighting for 27 years. I won’t stop until I prove my innocence. None of what the Crown argued in court ever happened.

Deane Fuller-Sandys was believed to have drowned while fishing on Auckland’s west coast but police later said it was murder. Photo / RNZ

“Right now I feel emotionally overwhelmed, excited and grateful. I will take some time to process the fact that, after all these years, I have a hearing in just a few months.”

For almost a decade, Fuller-Sandys, a tyre fitter, was believed to have drowned while fishing on Auckland’s west coast.

But after an investigation in the late 1990s, Maney and Stone were charged with his murder. Police then linked Stone to Stephens’ murder.

Stephens’ body was found in a forest northwest of Auckland, but Fuller-Sandys’ body has never been found.

The killings became known as the “Gone Fishing” case after a podcast co-produced by Stuff and RNZ.

Tara Shaskey joined NZME in 2022 as a news director and Open Justice reporter. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff where she covered crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.