More than $300,000 from the sale of a $2 million luxury yacht ended up with a company directed by his father-in-law, a court heard yesterday.

The mastermind of one of NZ's biggest public service frauds is about to be released from prison to live on a property "most of us can only dream about".

A former rich-lister is back at the High Court today, fighting to be discharged from bankruptcy - one of 24 the Official Assignee has objected to releasing.

A justice reform group is calling for 17-year-old offenders to be dealt with by the youth justice system rather than the adult criminal courts.

Jurors have begun their deliberations in the racially charged trial of a US neighbourhood watch volunteer accused of murderingunarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.

Kerre McIvor has always wanted to serve on a jury. Courtroom dramas are the stuff of great movies and have spawned a genre of thrilling fiction.

Russian President Vladimir Putin must have been a very angry man when he sanctioned the posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky, who died in March 2009, for tax evasion.

Who is the volunteer Wikipedia editor who has inadvertently come to attention in a "wikispat" between Justice Minister Judith Collins and a ministry critic?

A man who used a video camera to secretly film a young girl has been sentenced to home detention at a property near a Hastings primary school.

In her judgment against what was in many respects a phantom company on trial, Judge Jane Farish was clear about where the buck should stop, writes Fran O'Sullivan.

High-profile boxing promoter David Higgins has been revealed as one of the men caught up in an assault which left his brother with a broken cheekbone and shoulder.

Ten horses were left to starve on lawyer Barry Hart's property after it was seized by the bank, leaving at least two in an emaciated state.

An urgent rule change by the Corrections Department which banned smoking in prisons has been ruled unlawful by a High Court judge.

Mark Tucker will never know how much money he lost during the darkest days of the Rena disaster.

More than 3600 former Feltex shareholders are now opted into litigation against the carpet-maker's former directors and an updated list of claimants has been filed with the High Court.

A lawsuit claiming the ANZ Bank charged "excessive" penalty fees is to be filed in the High Court at Auckland today.

Britain's Attorney-General is to review the 15-month jail sentence given to Stuart Hall, the disgraced BBC presenter, for a 20-year campaign of sexual abuse against young girls.

ANZ head of retail banking Kerri Thompson says she is confident the bank will "come out in the clear" in a legal case claiming it has charged excessive penalty fees to customers.

Disgraced lawyer Barry Hart has lost his bid to take his fight against the decision to strike him off to the Court of Appeal.

The number of international child abduction cases before New Zealand courts is soaring, as the cost of court action forces desperate parents to go on the run.

Greymouth Petroleum director Jim Sturgess must take primary responsibility for the "destruction of trust" between himself and two other board members at the oil and gas company.

At least two judges were among 21 court staff assaulted in courtrooms in the past two years, documents released under the Official Information Act show.

The new leaner legal aid system is unlawful, the Court of Appeal has ruled. But the system will continue unchanged for now while officials prepare advice for Justice Minister Judith Collins.

Owners of apartments in Auckland's five-star Metropolis tower are pitted against one another in battles which have ranged from cat-keeping to who sits on the body corporate.

A resident of New Zealand's tallest apartment tower has lost a bid to injunct body corporate members.

In 1991 Ranta, who is now 58, was convicted of shooting dead a rabbi, Chaskel Werzberger, during a botched jewellery robbery in Brooklyn, New York.

After a riot at Perth's Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre, more than 140 teenage inmates were moved to Hakea high security prison

Almost 10,000 houses are affected by an Environment Court decision on pre-1940s demolition consents, a planner says.