Articles in ‘Crime’

Rodney Fallowfield was released on parole in 2023 after serving part of a sentence for killing his wife, Shirley Reedy. Three years later, he has pleaded guilty to murdering two men in Christchurch. The case raises serious questions about how risk is assessed, how parole decisions are made and what the justice system can learn when a person previously convicted of a killing commits further fatal violence. eLocal Report: Based on reporting by…

A Syrian man convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in Munich was released from pre-trial detention because the traumatised teenager could not be questioned quickly enough. Three months later, another woman reported being raped, and the same man is now standing trial alongside two other defendants. INR Report: Based on reporting by RT International, 24 October 2026, with additional reporting from Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung, DPA and German legal…

Seven Dutch citizens have brought allegations of extraordinary gravity against some of the world's most influential political and pharmaceutical figures. Their case asks whether the COVID-19 vaccination programme involved not merely errors of judgment, but deliberate wrongdoing on an international scale. As the proceedings reach a substantive hearing, the documents demand examination, not because the allegations have been proved, but because…

More than 28 years after Ben Smart and Olivia Hope disappeared in the Marlborough Sounds, Scott Watson's murder convictions are again before New Zealand's highest court. The Crown insists the case against him was overwhelming, but the Supreme Court must consider a narrower and fundamental question: whether admitting disputed identification evidence created a miscarriage of justice. Report by eLocal · Twenty-Eight Years Later, the Evidence…

Five operational 3D-printed firearms, two cut-down guns and ammunition were among items seized during a police raid in Canterbury. The discovery highlights the challenges facing New Zealand authorities as increasingly accessible manufacturing technology creates new opportunities for illegal firearms production. Major Police Operation in Kaiapoi · A 45-year-old man is facing 12 firearms-related charges after police discovered a substantial…

New Zealand's Serious Fraud Office has charged four people over an alleged bribery arrangement involving public housing construction contracts in Auckland. The allegations raise a wider question about how millions of dollars in public expenditure were monitored, and whether existing safeguards were sufficient to detect suspicious payments. Report by eLocal · Millions in Public Housing Contracts Under Scrutiny · The Serious Fraud Office (SFO)…

Former Auckland police officer Matthew Rogers has pleaded guilty to possessing objectionable publications but is asking the court to discharge him without conviction. His application places the consequences for his future employment against the seriousness of the offending and the higher standards the public expects from those entrusted to enforce the law Report by eLocal · A former Auckland police officer with nearly four decades of service is…

The death of three-month-old Ronin Stanley-Hunt has exposed a disturbing intersection between New Zealand’s methamphetamine problem, infant vulnerability and the ability of health and social services to intervene before tragedy occurs. His death followed that of his four-month-old sister two years earlier, with methamphetamine detected in both children Elocal by Report · Ronin John Tony Stanley-Hunt was found unresponsive at his West Auckland…

Nearly a month after a woman and two very young children were killed at a Rotorua home, a man charged with assaulting a person in a family relationship has been released on electronically monitored bail. Police have described the deaths as homicides, but publicly available information does not show that the man has been charged with causing any of the three deaths. Report by eLocal · Three deaths inside a Rotorua home on the night of 7…

An attempt by the US state of Tennessee to execute convicted murderer Christa Pike has ended with the 50-year-old alive but critically ill after receiving two injections of the execution drug pentobarbital. The extraordinary failure, Tennessee's second aborted execution this year, has forced the state to suspend executions while questions mount over its lethal-injection procedures INR Report: Based on reporting by Jonathan Allen for Reuters,…