Maori Party candidate charged with helping murderer
Ian Steward at Stuff reports:
Auckland lawyer and Maori Party political candidate Davina Murray has been charged with illegally smuggling contraband to convicted murderer and rapist Liam Reid, who she believes is innocent.
Murray lost her name suppression today after she and her lawyer Barry Hart had battled for months to keep her name secret.
Murray was charged with delivering an iPhone 4, a packet of Marlboro cigarettes and a Bic lighter to Reid at Mount Eden prison on October 7 last year – two months after a smoking ban was introduced.
She had a new charge laid earlier this month of “holding a communication with him that might prejudice the safe custody of a prisoner” – in essence, passing on inappropriate information.
Reid is serving one of New Zealand’s heaviest sentences for the 2007 rape and murder of deaf Christchurch woman Emma Agnew and the rape and attempted murder of another woman in Dunedin soon after.
He was originally sentenced to preventive detention with a 26-year minimum period, but that was later reduced to 23 years on appeal.
Murray is understood to have visited Reid frequently and had communications with him at Mt Eden prison.
It is alleged that Reid was searched before one of their visits and had nothing on him, but after the visit he was found to have an iPhone, cigarettes and a lighter.
Murray stood for the Maori Party as a list candidate in the 2011 election.
She is a criminal barrister in the chambers of Hart, a prominent defence lawyer.
Hart had argued Murray should keep her name suppression as her reputation would be irreparably damaged and she and her family might suffer adverse consequences from being named.
Yes the reputation is damaged – if she is found guilty. And if she is guilty, her reputation should be damaged.
Liam Reid is not a good person. Even putting aside the rape and murder of Emma Agnew and the Dunedin rape, he had 61 previous convictions before that. If she is found guilty, the Maori Party should dump her as a candidate.