Law man's silken touch

Paul Davison

Doctor, drugs, cash - put them together and hey presto. It's a no brainer." Paul Davison, QC is explaining how the media often gets a simplistic, distorted view of court cases.

"Life's not like that. What I was confronted with in this case and what I've been confronted with in case after case is people who say, 'This is not what happened, there is another side to this, please listen'."

Davison is referring to Dr Xiao-Zhong Chen, the 55-year-old Auckland heart surgeon found not guilty on eight charges of supplying a precursor substance for the manufacture of methamphetamine, or P.

Even though Chen made $250,000 on-selling 22,000 boxes of Telfast decongestant tablets containing pseudoephedrine, (the primary ingredient of P), Davison was able to convince a jury there was another side to the story. Chen's only transgression was that he had "committed a social crime of being gullible".

The verdict is just one of many remarkable outcomes Davison has pulled off in a 30-year career, the past 10 as Queen's Counsel.

Other notable acquittals include Judge Martin Beattie on 45 fraud charges and Wayne Porter in the Rescue Helicopter Trust fraud case.

In his spacious Victoria St chambers, Davison, 54, - debonair and trim as you'd expect from someone who cycles avidly, surfs (longboard) and does yoga when he can focus the mind - agrees he does take on a lot of seemingly impossible cases.

"You can imagine how satisfying it is to have a case where the media have your client found guilty from the day they're charged and to take them through this ordeal and then to see the outcome that one can achieve."

He insists that the satisfaction is also because it shows the system works. "That's what makes me regard this job I have as a worthwhile job - when you can make a difference by using your skills to present material to an impartial court."

It doesn't take long to realise Davison is utterly committed to the rule of law and its proper working, and he is passionate about reaching just outcomes. "I subscribe to that as an alternative to anarchy."

You also get the sense he likes to win. When Davison makes eye contact, which he does a lot, it's unsettling - a probing analytic stare that somehow also conveys warmth.

Davison's career is unusual - it spans criminal and civil law, for the prosecution and the defence.

I ask about the final sentences of his prosecutor's summation in the Scott Watson murder trial: "There is no mystery ketch (pause). There is no mystery man (pause). The man is Mr Watson (pause). He has been sitting over there throughout the trial. And he is responsible for the deaths, (pause) the murders, (pause) the killing of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope."

I suggest it was drama worthy of Boston Legal. Davison doesn't like the comparison. "Let me say from the outset, it's not studied drama. It's not the intentional introduction of a dramatic device. To understand the context you need to understand I had been addressing the jury in excess of a day."

Yes, but it was a stunning climax. "And there needs to be a climax - the courtroom is a very dynamic environment. I wouldn't expect good counsel to give an address that didn't have some human dynamic in it.

"But you don't construct an address around some dramatic gestures and think dramatic gestures are going to have any effect on the jury - it's all of the telling analysis that is actually going to bear on the jury's consideration."

It turns out Davison doesn't watch TV lawyers and doesn't care much for the surfeit of forensic science programmes either.

There's a touch of defensiveness too when asked about his narrative abilities and sense of timing. Although Davison's summation in the Watson case took nearly two days, by all accounts he had the courtroom on the edge of their seats.

"I don't see in any way that my role as an advocate is an opportunity for theatrical or other expression.

"I just see my role in a professional sense as bringing whatever skills I have to this to communicate that case and that knowledge to that court."

Davison is uncertain about what makes him so good, but his colleagues have no doubt.

Aaron Lloyd, who worked as his junior for three years, says Davison's motto was: "The way you win cases is by knowing more about the case than anybody else in the room."

Crown solicitor and good friend Simon Moore says Davison "knows his cases forwards, backwards, inside out and in every combination and permutation," and has an "abiding understanding" of human nature.

"When he addresses a jury, not only do they respect him, they like and trust him and they believe what he says as an advocate."

Kieran Raftery worked with Davison on the Watson case and says he has a quiet, dignified, gentlemanly approach. "Occasionally the voice will rise in tone, but not aggressively. In the way he prepares a case there is a plan to help the narrative unfold."

In the face of such accolades it's surprising to find that during his secondary education at Auckland's King's College, where he became head prefect of Marsden house, Davison wasn't so sure that the law was for him. And that he didn't feel pressure to follow in his father's footsteps. Sir Ron Davison was a chief justice and commissioner for the Winebox Inquiry.

"I wasn't necessarily expected to have a legal career. My father didn't coach me or encourage me into a decision to do it, but I was surrounded by a legal world full of legal personalities in my childhood."

But in his early years at King's Davison faced a formative personal tragedy - the death of his younger brother by arsenic poisoning. A woman committing suicide tried to make her death look like food poisoning. The food she poisoned was innocently eaten by Davison's young brother and both she and the boy died.

"It was a tragedy of monumental proportions to our family, of course, and it has a legacy which still endures. These things affect one's makeup in a variety of ways and they probably make you address aspects of life and yourself much sooner than I would have liked to.

"But perhaps they make you more aware of life and human nature and things like that. It obviously has an effect which shapes you in some form or another."

While the experience may have destroyed or embittered many, what carries through to Davison's practice is a sense of compassion. "In the sort of work I have done you learn that human nature and people come in all shapes and sizes. People are where they are for all manner of reasons and who am I to be judgmental of things like that?"

Married for 30 years to Anne-Marie and proud of his four children - Benjamin, 30; Danielle, 27; Jonathan, 25; and Thomas, 20 - Davison says he has a positive view of human nature.

"I've sat down with people whom society would regard as the absolute bottom of the barrel - people with tattoos over their faces and over their bodies that have identified themselves as strongly anti-social - and found in them a humanity hiding behind the carapace that was remarkable."

Colleagues are also impressed that although as a silk he can command rates of between $550 and $1100 an hour, he does a fair share of legal aid and pro-bono work and doesn't baulk at prosecution duties at the lesser crown rate.

While conscious of his father's notable career, Davison has never felt an obligation to meet his standards.

"People have the expectation that my father and I would sit down and discuss cases, but when I sat down with him we would be talking about other things. We seldom talked about legal matters. I suppose I was wanting to be independent and he wasn't looking to interfere."

Davison wasn't a top student at Auckland University. "I worked hard and I got better as I went through."

He pays tribute to Stuart Ennor who, in the early days, "trained me by popping me in the deep end".

And to David Morris the crown prosecutor who asked Davison to assist as a junior on high-profile cases, including the JBL fraud case and the Swedish backpacker murders.

Davison doesn't harbour any doubts about the wrong people being in jail. And although he hasn't had to defend any psychopaths, he acknowledges there are times when being a barrister involves "straightening your spine and doing your job".

Despite his commitment to the system Davison readily admits it is not foolproof - which is why he advocates an independent body to examine possible miscarriages of justice.

"I can't think of anything worse than sitting in jail after being wrongly convicted. And by reason of the process having been exhausted thinking you had nowhere else to go."

Where to now in this brilliant career? Davison says he is in no hurry to change, although he would consider moving to the judging side of the bench if asked. "To apply some of the accumulated knowledge and to make a contribution. One of the things you do realise when you go through the pathway that I've gone through is the importance of the rule of law.

"It actually is quite important that our society is governed by laws and the judicial system as an alternative to any self-help measures that could be socially corrosive."


Paul Davison, QC

1974 - Graduated Auckland University, LLB.
1975 - Admitted as a barrister and solicitor.
1977 - Junior representing Vaughan Jeffs in JBL fraud case.
1980 - Erebus Royal Commission for estate of pilot Jim Collins.
1985-8 - Junior to Auckland crown solicitor, David Morris - Otara machete murders (1988), Swedish tourists murders (1989).
1989 - Junior counsel representing dominatrix Renee Chignall.
1990 - Barrister sole, representing Ray Smith from Goldcorp.
1996 - Appointed QC.
1996-2000 - Represented Judge Martin Beattie, prosecutor in trials of Malcolm Rewa and Scott Watson.
2004-6 - Powdergate depositions, Rescue Helicopter Trust fraud, heart surgeon Dr Xiao-Zhong Chen.