The attempted rescue of Liz Gunn - Steve Braunias

Liz Gunn, whose legal name is Elizabeth Jane Cooney, arrives outside the High Court at Auckland ahead of a hearing to appeal her conviction for assault. Photo / Michael Craig

“This won’t take very long,” promised Justice Mary Peters, leaving courtroom 7 in the High Court at Auckland on Tuesday morning. I wondered whether that meant we may as well hang around for her to come back after a nice hot cup of tea and announce her decision in the matter of Liz Gunn, the well-known conspiracy hobbyist, who is appealing against her conviction for just about the weirdest or lamest assault case in modern New Zealand criminal history.

My hopes of a same-day decision were a bit hopeful, actually quite deluded, but an end could soon be in sight. It behoves me to see this through. I attended Gunn’s trial in May last year, at the Manukau District Court, and returned in November for the sentencing. And so to the High Court on Tuesday, with 12 people in attendance, two carafes of water, and a very ugly digital clock on the wall.

Liz Gunn at the Manukau District Court in May 2024. Photo / Michael Craig

Gunn was there. She was once again represented by Matthew Hague, who has grown an uncertain beard over summer. It has had the reverse effect of making him look younger. Crown Law sent two hotshots from its Manukau offices. Karan Venter’s woolly haircut was in the fashion of Bob Dylan circa 1966 as impersonated by Timothée Chalamet in the best film of 2025. The name of his colleague likely sent tremors up Gunn’s spine: Jacinda, as in Jacinda Brown, the blameless namesake of the Prime Minister whose Covid response agitated Gunn to enter political life as the leader of New Zealand Loyal.

The assembled eminent parties met to discuss a tap on the shoulder. Perhaps not even really a tap. Certainly not a grasp, a grip, a hold, a pinch, a slap or any other overt physical gesture. What had happened, what was at the root of the whole issue, was that Gunn went to Auckland International Airport on May 25 last year to film friends arriving from the Pacific who refused the Pfizer vaccine; she was approached by a security guard who asked what she was doing, and Gunn placed her hand on the woman’s upper arm. The contact was brief. Perhaps less than 60 seconds; certainly not more; safe, then, to calculate it at one second.

Liz Gunn at the Manukau District Court ahead of her appearance in March 2023. Photo / Mark Mitchell

She was charged with assault. Gunn, naturally, pleaded not guilty. Hague argued it did not meet the threshold for assault. Judge Janey Forrest, however, ruled that it did: “It is accepted law that the slightest application of force is sufficient.” She found Gunn guilty – and to add pettiness to verdict, she sentenced Gunn to a conviction without discharge, rejecting Hague’s bid for a discharge without conviction.

And so to the carafes and the ugly digital clock at courtroom 7 in the High Court at Auckland. Hague appealed the verdict and sentence, and set out grounds for why Judge Janey Forrest had “erred”. He counted her errs. One, she erred in finding the tap constituted assault. Two, she erred in not finding Gunn held the honest belief that her tap was with the security guard’s consent. Three, she erred in not finding the tap fell within the legal definition of acceptable conduct in day-to-day life. “A slap on the back might not cut it,” said Hague, “but that’s not the case here.”

No. The case here was a tap on the upper arm. Incredible that so much dancing, at such an elevated court, was required on the head of this particular little pin. Hague told the court there was no sense in holding a retrial. There was no purpose, either, he said, in allowing the conviction to stay in place. He respectfully asked that it be quashed.

Then it was the turn of Jacinda Brown. If it pleases the Herald and its readers, she shall henceforth be addressed as Jacinda. It gives the story an added political resonance – and really this whole saga, this whole prolonged legal nonsense, is political. The courts were dealing with Liz Gunn, political party leader. In her sentencing remarks, Judge Forrest scolded Gunn for spreading “misinformation”. It was a wholly irrelevant observation, as Hague said in the High Court.

“The law is clear,” said Jacinda, “that a fleeting touch can be assault.” Yes, Jacinda said, the tap was brief, but it had to be seen in a wider context, that it was a confrontational gesture in a hostile situation. The guard, said Jacinda, did not want to be touched; it was disingenuous for Gunn to claim that the woman gave her consent.

But the judge, who had listened to Hague without interruption, cut across Jacinda’s bows.

“Was the security guard,” she asked, “wearing her uniform?”

Yes, Jacinda said.

“Oh,” said Justice Peters, clearly surprised. “Well. Touching goes with the territory, doesn’t it?”

Jacinda bowed her head. Her hands scratched at a set of documents, and she read out Judge Forrest’s description of Gunn as “arrogant” and “overbearing” and “hostile”. All of which goes with the territory of Liz Gunn, as clearly seen in her behaviour that day at Auckland International Airport, on CCTV. The waving of hands, the loud protestations, the whole indignant self-entitled performance – it would have driven the security guard mad, then the police who arrested her. I interviewed Gunn afterwards and found her behaviour repugnant.

But a tap is a tap is a tap. Gunn sat quietly in the public gallery; Justice Peters can only judge the appeal on what she has seen, and on the facts. It really ought not take her very long.