Probe on 'incompetent defence lawyers'

The full bench of five Court of Appeal judges has been called to hear the cases, ranging from serious fraud to sexual offending against young children. Photo / File

Top judges to analyse appeal cases.

The country's top judges will take the rare step of hearing three serious criminal appeals amid concerns over incompetency among defence lawyers.

The full bench of five Court of Appeal judges has been called to hear the cases, ranging from serious fraud to sexual offending against young children. In all cases those convicted are arguing their lawyers were not up to the job.

The bench has sat together just four times in the past five years. It is called on only to consider the revision of sentencing guidelines or when the matter involves a significant issue that will have an impact on other cases.

Dr Bill Hodge, law professor at Auckland University, said the full sitting signalled a "serious matter".

He would be concerned if the judges found there could be a systemic failure in the way people were defended in court.

"[The professional associations] may say one of the issues is that the Government has cut funding for those legally aided and the top people have left the legal aid side because they can't afford to run their office. That means very, very junior people have stepped up," said Hodge.

In one of the cases, a business executive has appealed his sentence after being found guilty of 10 dishonesty charges in September 2013.

The man, who was earning $160,000, was found guilty of fleecing his company over five years.

Another case involves a man found guilty of sexual offending and sentenced to nine years and six months in jail. The case is subject to strict suppression orders.

The Court of Appeal has also called for several professional law associations to research and make submissions on the cases, including the Law Society, Criminal Bar Association and Public Defence Service.

Tony Bouchier, president of the Criminal Bar Association said it was concerned there were questions around the competency of defence lawyers.

"I think it's obvious the Court of Appeal is treating this matter seriously. We are looking forward to good guidelines in the future on how such appeals are dealt with," he said.

The Ministry of Justice could not provide details about how many people had appealed their cases because of their representation in court, but there had been several cases where defendants had successfully won the right to appeal.

In one case Jonathan Dixon - the man at the centre of allegations involving England rugby captain Mike Tindall during the 2011 Rugby World Cup - claimed his defence lawyer urged him to plead guilty to two serious assaults in 2013. The penalty would have been three to four years in jail.

Instead, he defended himself in court and was sentenced to four months' community detention and 300 hours' community work.

Later this month he will appear in the Supreme Court to appeal a conviction of dishonestly obtaining security camera footage from a Queenstown bar in 2011.

Dixon said last week: "I would be inside right now if I had taken advice from that lawyer. Everyone puts their freedom in the hands of a complete stranger. I can't do that.

"I won't have a lawyer. I believe I am going to win."