Wrongful conviction of Aaron Farmer

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Aaron Lance Farmer is a New Zealand man who, in 2005, was wrongfully convicted of rape. On September 1, 2003, he was riding his Suzuki motorbike in Christchurch around the same time that a 22-year-old woman was dragged into bushes off Colombo Street and raped by a passing motorcyclist. [1] Farmer is autistic and had an alibi. But in the course of their investigation, the police lied to him, telling him they had found his DNA on the victim.

Contents

Farmer was arrested, but when the case came to trial, his public defence lawyer failed to present the alibi evidence. He was found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. His mother managed to find another lawyer, Simon Shamy, who was willing to take on the case. Shamy applied to the Court of Appeal, which quashed Farmer's conviction and ordered a retrial. After new DNA testing confirmed Farmer was not the rapist, the Crown dropped all charges against him. Four years later, Farmer received $350,000 in compensation and a formal apology from the Crown for the two years he spent in prison.

He died in a car accident in 2019 at age 48.

Background

The woman told police her attacker had a motorbike, stank of cigarettes and alcohol and had a stubbly beard. When Farmer became aware that police were looking for anyone who had been in the area where the rape occurred, he went to a police station and gave a DNA sample, so he could be ruled out of their inquiry. [2]

Farmer doesn't drink or smoke cigarettes; he has very little facial hair; and the woman's descriptions of her attacker's motorbike, helmet and clothes did not match up with what Farmer had been wearing. However, she picked out him out as the perpetrator from a photo montage and he became the prime suspect. [3]

The trial

Farmer is autistic, and had other mental health issues. His disability made him an easy target for the police who lied to him, claiming that his DNA was found on the victim. He was arrested and charged with rape. Mr Farmer had an alibi, but his public defence lawyer never presented this evidence to the jury. [4] His lawyer even told him an appeal would be a waste of time. [5]

On April 1, 2005, Farmer was found guilty and sentenced to eight years’ jail. However, Judge Murray Abbott seemed unsure of his guilt. [6] He criticised aspects of the police inquiry. He noted that an identity parade had never been conducted and that samples submitted to Environmental Science and Research had not been followed through in a timely way. Judge Abbott also expressed concern about missing information in transcripts of a police video interview, and was not satisfied with the explanation given by police for this. [7]

The appeal

Farmer was devastated that nobody listened or believed him and decided to stop speaking. For two years, he remained silent in prison, refusing to talk to anyone. [8] Aaron Farmer's mother, Bev, was also distressed. She wrote numerous letters to Government officials demanding help for her son, who she said had been wrongly imprisoned. She was put in touch with Christchurch lawyer, Simon Shamy, who agreed to help. He tracked down the witness who corroborated Farmer's alibi and initiated an appeal. Shamy also had further DNA testing done, which proved the woman's attacker was someone else. [9]

In 2007, the Court of Appeal quashed Farmer's conviction, but ordered a retrial. The retrial did not proceed as the Crown no longer had any evidence against him.

Compensation claim

Farmer's lawyer applied for compensation for the two years he spent in prison. Even though his conviction was quashed, he was not automatically eligible for compensation under Cabinet guidelines because the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial. The Crown appointed Robert Fisher QC to conduct a review of the case. Fisher identified six inconsistencies between descriptions of the rapist and of Farmer, and said his conviction "relied upon nothing more than a visual identification by the Complainant of a kind that is notoriously unreliable." [10] Fisher concluded that Mr Farmer was innocent beyond reasonable doubt.

In 2011, four years after his conviction was quashed, the Government granted him compensation of $351,575 under the "extraordinary circumstances" provision. [11] The Crown also made a formal apology to Mr Farmer for "the loss of liberty and reputation, interruption of family and personal relationships, and mental and emotional harm." [12] [13]

Police response

Assistant Commissioner of Police Malcolm Burgess publicly acknowledged "the inadequacies in the police investigation" and that the police "could have done better." In an interview, Burgess told Radio New Zealand that the officer who told Mr Farmer his DNA linked him to the rape no longer works as a detective. [14]

His death

On 28 February 2019, Farmer bought a car with some of the compensation money he received. He died the next day after colliding with a truck on the Desert Road. He was 48. His mother said the compensation for his wrongful conviction helped, “But emotionally it didn’t. The damage was done. It gave him a house. But the scars were there, and they were there forever. He never, ever forgot.” [15]

See also

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