Ministry rejects pardon plea in double killing

John Barlow arrives for his third trial in 1995. Picture / Martin Hunter

Convicted double-murderer John Barlow has lost his bid for a pardon, despite forensic evidence used to convict him being discredited.

Barlow, from Wellington, was found guilty at his third trial of the 1994 shootings of businessman Eugene Thomas and his son Gene in their central Wellington office. Jurors failed to reach verdicts in the first two trials.

At the third trial, the prosecution called a United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ballistics expert who provided forensic evidence using lead-content tests to match crime-scene bullets with those in a box belonging to Barlow.

The FBI has since stopped its bullet-testing practice after scientific criticism it might produce a high rate of false matches of bullets. It contacted law enforcement agencies worldwide, informing them of its decision.

Barlow is in Upper Hutt's Rimutaka Prison serving life with a minimum non-parole period of 14 years.

The Justice Ministry has released a report saying there are no grounds for a pardon and refused to send the case back to the Court of Appeal.

Barlow's wife Angela told the Dominion Post yesterday she and her husband were "flabbergasted", and planned to fight the decision.

"They've got it wrong. We haven't given up at all. We're going to look at the report and will most likely go to the Privy Council."

Barlow's lawyer, Greg King, said in August that the main grounds for a pardon were that two juries had failed to convict. '

'This evidence, which we now challenge, which is accepted by the FBI as being invalid ... was brought in for the third trial. It was the only direct forensic link between Barlow and the crimes and it is now completely discredited by their own admission."

- NZPA