Injunction blocks tape of 'murder confession'

An 11th-hour injunction prevented Television New Zealand screening footage last night of a man apparently confessing to murder.

Earlier yesterday TVNZ won a court battle for the right to broadcast the videotape.

TVNZ had planned to screen part of the police videotape of Noel Clement Rogers on One News after the Court of Appeal unanimously allowed the broadcaster's appeal against the High Court ruling suppressing the videotape.

But lawyers for Mr Rogers, who was found not guilty last year of murdering Far North woman Katherine Sheffield in 1994, won an injunction about 5.30pm.

"Basically it's an injunction so that Mr Rogers' lawyers can consider whether they want to appeal today's decision," TVNZ lawyer Willie Akel said..

TVNZ had planned to screen part of the video on One News last night with a lengthier piece in the Sunday current affairs slot.

The videotape, in which Mr Rogers apparently confessed to and reconstructed the murder of Ms Sheffield, was intended to be used as evidence in his murder trial.

However, it was ruled inadmissible in an earlier decision of the Court of Appeal because it was obtained in breach of Mr Rogers' rights.

Police leaked it to the Sunday programme but the High Court issued a permanent injunction on the grounds of Mr Rogers' privacy.

TVNZ appealed, and in a judgment yesterday, Justice Graham Panckhurst said open-justice considerations required that the public be able to view the evidence the Court of Appeal had previously ruled inadmissible.

He said the threshold for pre-publication restraint was very high.

Given the low-level privacy interest and the high-level public interest in the videotape's contents, this was not an appropriate case to restrain publication, Justice Panckhurst said.

In a short concurring judgment, the president of the court, Justice William Young agreed that prior restraint was not appropriate in the case.

He doubted whether there was a privacy interest in the tape, but said that if there were, there was certainly not a sufficient interest to allow for prior restraint of publication.

Justice Young also said that Section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990, which guaranteed freedom of expression, was relevant in coming to the conclusion that the tape should not be suppressed.

Mr Akel said the decision gave the video the status of a court file and allowed it to be inspected.

Courts had broad discretion to weigh up such things as freedom of information, privacy, public interest and open justice principles, he said.

That meant the news media could be allowed to inspect court files "whether it's a video or some other documentation".

"It's a very important decision as far as the public's right to know is concerned," he said.

"It said the public interest and the open justice principle outweighs the privacy interest in this case."

In 1995 Mr Rogers' uncle, Lawrence Lloyd, was convicted of Ms Sheffield's manslaughter and served seven years of an 11-year sentence. His conviction was overturned in the Court of Appeal in 2004.

Mr Rogers was arrested in 2004 but was found not guilty of Ms Sheffield's murder last year.

- NZPA