PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I will be following this trial very carefully as it is very rare for police officers to be charged with perverting the course of justice decades after their conduct - way over the line - has literally caused an innocent accused person to be convicted of a very serious crime. As you will see below, in Alan Hall's case, the two ex-police officers are accused are accused of perverting the course of justice by altering the written statement of the key witness, leaving out the reported ethnicity from the statement, while adding other erroneous incriminating information about Alan Hall into the statement and failing to disclose to the defence information about another suspect. These officers have been investigated and charged without bowing to the temptation of police, prosecutors, and politicians to expose heinous police skulduggery to the public eye. In Tim Rees' Ontario case, police officers buried a video (discovered in an unmarked box in the police chief's office, many years after he was convicted by the jury and he had exhausted all his appeals) which utterly cleared Tim Rees, and unequivocally implicated the deceased 10-year-old girl's family's landlord as a viable suspect. But unlike the Hall case, no officer has been charged, it's not clear whether any of the officers (or prosecutors) involved in the investigation have been investigated, the case has hardly received public attention (unlike the Hall case which led to compensation, and public rage at the police conduct which led to his being compensated, and to a reward being offered for information leading to the conviction of the real murderer. To Ontario's great shame, the decision of the three judges who conducted an evidence hearing ordered by the federal minister of justice because of a likely miscarriage of justice is cold, and legalistic, and lacks the fire, the anger one would expect Ontario's highest judges to experience when confronted by such an unforgivable miscarriage of justice of this magnitude. They stayed silent instead of condemning the outrageous, if not criminal police behaviour, which led to the imprisonment of an innocent man. Like the Alan Hall case - 'an unforgivable miscarriage of justice.' Stay tuned, dear readers, That's why I will be following the trial of the two officers in the UK so closely.
Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Today, defence lawyer David Jones KC argued there was insufficient evidence to prove the Crown case. He said that when Turner gave evidence last week he was not sure about the ethnicity of the person he saw near the scene. The defence also argued there was insufficient evidence to show the two former officers knew about the original Turner statement not being disclosed. Justice Ian Gault dismissed the application, and will release his reasons later."
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STORY: "Judge rules case to proceed against former police officers in Alan Hall case," by Senior Reporter Simon Mercep, published by 1 News, on July 14, 2026.
SUB-HEADING: "High Court judge dismisses call for trial of two former police officers to be thrown out."
SUB-HEADING: "Defence lawyers argued there isn't enough evidence to show the defendants perverted the course of justice in the Alan Hall case."
GIST: "A High Court judge today dismissed an attempt by defence counsel to throw out a case against two former police officers accused of perverting the course of justice.
The two defendants, whose names are suppressed, are charged with withholding evidence in the trial of Alan Hall. Hall was convicted of the 1985 murder of Arthur Easton in the Auckland suburb of Papakura.
Alan Hall spent 19 years in jail. The Supreme Court quashed his conviction in 2022, finding a substantial miscarriage of justice. He was awarded just under $5 million, the highest compensation payout in New Zealand.
At a judge-alone trial in Auckland, the Crown has argued the two former officers deliberately omitted part of a description of a possible offender given by witness Ronald Turner.
In his initial statements, Turner described the man as Māori, but this description was not put before the jury in the original trial or at appeal. Alan Hall is Pākehā.
Today, defence lawyer David Jones KC argued there was insufficient evidence to prove the Crown case. He said that when Turner gave evidence last week he was not sure about the ethnicity of the person he saw near the scene.
The defence also argued there was insufficient evidence to show the two former officers knew about the original Turner statement not being disclosed.
Justice Ian Gault dismissed the application, and will release his reasons later.
The defence is expected to call its witnesses tomorrow. Summing up may take place at the end of the week."
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
