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Chris Kahui's lawyers plan to make a formal complaint about the way police handled his twin sons murder inquiry.
Mr Kahui's lawyer Lorraine Smith told the Weekend Herald yesterday she and her co-counsel, Michele Wilkinson Smith, would lodge a complaint with the Independent Police Complaints Authority (IPCA).
The
IPCA is a judge that exists to investigate complaints of misconduct or neglect of duty by police officers.
Mr Kahui was found not guilty on Thursday after a six-week High Court trial where he was charged with murdering his 3-month-old sons Cru and Chris in June 2006.
The complaint will focus on information they say wasn't disclosed quickly enough to the defence team.
It was revealed during the trial that police had interviewed a former lover of Macsyna King, the twins' mother.
She allegedly said to him: "Chris didn't do it. I did." He interpreted the statement as a confession for the murders of babies Cru and Chris.
It was also revealed police knew about a cellphone call by Ms King's sister Emily that placed her in Mangere about the time the twins were assaulted. Macsyna King told police she was with her sister that night and they weren't anywhere near Mangere.
In her closing address to the jury Mrs Smith labelled the police investigation a "disaster" and said they ignored obvious pointers that led to Ms King as being the killer.
After the verdicts inquiry head Detective Inspector John Tims said the comment could have been made for the "purposes for the courtroom".
Yesterday Mrs Smith said there were good reasons she didn't take the matter further in court.
"It wasn't a jury matter. The reason I didn't elaborate was the matters weren't for the jury."
FOR THE DEFENCE: LORRAINE SMITH
Lorraine Smith has been working on the Kahui case from the very beginning and can still remember the "horrendous" sight of the battered twins as they lay dying in their hospital beds.
"It was just awful," Mrs Smith said yesterday, a day after her client, Chris Kahui, was cleared of the babies' murders.
His acquittal has propelled her and her co-counsel, Michele Wilkinson Smith, into the spotlight as the lawyers who helped to prove Mr Kahui's innocence.
"Everyone was against us. It was exhausting, mentally debilitating ... it was so hard."
She recalled working late into the night, trawling through 50 folders of disclosure looking for something that could help the defence case.
Surprisingly, though, she doesn't rate this case the biggest of her career. She considers that to be the 1983 Oakley Inquiry where, two years out of law school, she fought for the rights of mental health patients and forced the closure of a psychiatric ward after revelations of ill treatment.
But the Kahui case couldn't have been won without Mrs Wilkinson Smith, a lawyer Mrs Smith heaps praise on. "She's a wonderful young woman. Over the two years we worked together there wasn't one cross word between us."
The pair divided up the work between them and treated it like a prosecution case, something Mrs Wilkinson Smith would be familiar with as she was a former Crown prosecutor.
"I realised I needed someone I could trust and who would work hard and intelligently," Mrs Smith said. She will maintain a close friendship with her - and with Mr Kahui.
"I am fond of him and I've told him I'll be there for him in the future."
FOR THE PROSECUTION: SIMON MOORE
The Kahui double murder trial is one of the few cases Simon Moore has lost in his legal career.
Mr Moore, Auckland's Crown solicitor since 1994, leads the prosecution case in most major criminal trials.
He told the Weekend Herald the Kahui trial was one of the hardest he'd been involved with.
"I think this could arguably be the toughest case I've prosecuted."
What made it stand out was the subject matter - two dead little babies and the public battle between the prime suspects, Chris Kahui and Macsyna King.
The "defence finger-pointing exercise" complicated matters but Mr Moore was adamant Ms King, who he said was a "popular target" throughout the trial, had been completely ruled out of the inquiry.
"At any realistic view of the evidence, Macsyna King was excluded at every level."
Mr Moore said the Crown case against Kahui "didn't depend on her evidence" and could have gone ahead without her.
"What made this case particularly tough was the Crown called and relied on witnesses who had close relationships with the accused and each other."
He said it was difficult for family to give evidence against their own but prosecutors found it difficult too, likening the experience to "drawing teeth".
Mr Moore praised his prosecution colleagues Simon Mount and Richard Marchant.
"Simon is very intelligent and is an able tactician and Richard has an uncanny ability to get on with anyone, whatever their background. He was masterful with some of those witnesses."
THE LEGALITIES - WHY CHRIS KAHUI WAS ARRESTED AND HOW HE WAS ACQUITTED
The Prosecution
The Crown called medical experts, including paediatrician Dr Patrick Kelly, who said it was most likely the twins were injured just minutes before Cru's breathing episode. Kahui was alone with the twins at that time on June 12 2006 and that made him the prime suspect.
The Crown experts said it would have been impossible for the twins to have fed normally after they were injured. Kahui told them, more than once, that he fed his babies in the hours after the injuries were most likely inflicted. The prosecution said this was proof he was a liar.
Kahui's erratic behaviour. The Crown said his failure to call an ambulance when Cru stopped breathing was because he knew if Cru went to hospital doctors would discover he had been injured. Kahui also didn't accompany his partner, Macsyna King, to hospital with the twins.
He told police he was "too amped" to make the trip.
When first asked how the twins had been injured, Kahui told King their 1-year-old son Shayne could have done it.
Evidence given at the trial was it was impossible for a small child to have inflicted the injuries.
The Defence
The defence called its own experts, including a forensic pathologist from Australia. These experts argued the injuries could have been inflicted hours earlier and the breathing episode was a secondary symptom of the assault.
These doctors also said it was possible for the twins to have fed after they were injured. But Kahui, in his third police interview, also said he did not feed them after the night the attacks most likely took place. Lawyer Lorraine Smith said Kahui made genuine mistakes when speaking to police because he was desperate to be seen as a good father.
Kahui's claim about Shayne hurting the boys only related to the bruise on one twin's face, his defence said. Kahui never claimed Shayne caused the head injuries because at the time he didn't know how bad the injuries were.
It alleged Macsyna King was the murderer and said a cellphone call made by her sister was proof she was in the area at the time of the assaults. Just after 7pm Kahui was visiting his mother in hospital. King claims she was with her sister, Emily King, in New Lynn but phone records show Emily King was near Mangere between 7pm and 8pm. The defence said this gave Macsyna King a chance to hurt the twins.
