After accusing the Crown’s first witness of double murder and insinuating sexual abuse, you wondered what he was going to do for an encore, but he merely suggested to the next witnesses — two St John ambulance officers — that they accidentally tampered with the crime scene, galumphing here and there, transferring blood and brain tissue from one place to another like a couple of fools who should be taken out and shot.
His job done, Hislop handed over to Burns for the remaining cross-examination of Crown witnesses that day. There wasn’t much to challenge. Friends of the Lundy family talked about a loving household, busy, active, normal.
The nice middle-aged woman who said Amber was the light of her parents’ lives was only on the witness stand for about 10 minutes. She used to live on the same street as the Lundy family. Her son was in Amber’s class, and her daughter was in Pippins with Amber.
She entered the courtroom with a young woman, who sat by herself in the public gallery: her daughter. She stood up when her mother walked back through the court after giving evidence. She touched her arm, briefly, and they left together. She had long, straight hair, and wore a summery dress. She looked about 22 or 23.
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A metaphor for the Crown case that first week seemed to present itself on a wall outside Courtroom 1. The strict policy that dictates that New Zealand courtrooms must only exhibit really terrible works of art was maintained at the Wellington High Court in the shape of two big painted oars fastened onto the walls on the ground floor. One was on top of the other, and one went one way and the other one went the other way. The artist was identified as someone called Denis O’Connor — possibly a joke, a sly reference to America’s Cup buffoon Dennis Conner — and the oar-inspiring caption blathered that his artwork ‘creates an embracing, calming quality’. My feeling was that the artwork created a mocking, not especially subtle commentary on the Crown case. It felt stuck up a faecal creek without a paddle; held fast, unmoving, oarless.
The defence made the early running with Hislop’s ‘carefully planned assault’ on the seething Weggery, and then with his even less civil treatment of former police computer ‘expert’ Maarten Kleintjes. Outside, it was a hot, bright day; inside Courtroom 1, with its colour scheme of dark chocolate and creamy vanilla, Hislop hoped to make Kleintjes melt. He sort of did, but mostly he didn’t, and at the end of it you wondered what it had achieved, other than making the 2002 conviction look like an absolute disgrace.
Back then, the Crown alleged that Lundy had fiendishly, and also rather brilliantly, managed to manipulate the clock on his home computer. They said he had killed his wife and daughter at about 7pm, but made it look as though the computer had shut down at 10.52pm, when he had an alibi. Kleintjes was very helpful with his support of that crackpot theory. He demonstrated how it could have been done, stated there had been ‘extensive manipulation of the time and date’. It created the impression that the cunning Lundy had rehearsed for the killing by fiddling with the computer on at least five occasions. The notion was rejected by the Privy Council, and formed one of the chief reasons why Lundy’s conviction was quashed. The theory was a nonsense. The clock showed 10.52pm as when the computer was closed down because that was when it happened. It’s also the last known time that Christine and Amber were alive.
What, then, would Kleintjes say now? He had since retired from the police; a lanky Dutchman, he had the possibly charming habit of saying ‘d’ instead of ‘th’.
Hislop: ‘You must have known that if the clock was accurate, Mark Lundy could not have carried out the murders?’
Kleintjes: ‘Dat’s not for me to decide.’
‘No, no, no. I’m not asking you about any decisions. I’m asking about what you knew. You’re not telling me you didn’t know the consequences that would have on the investigation?’
‘Oh, I knew de consequences.’
But he maintained that he never at any time actually stated that Lundy had manipulated the shut-down time on the computer. ‘I said it was possible to change it, but I didn’t say it happened. It was given as a possibility.’
‘Let’s see,’ said Hislop, ‘if the word “possibility” occurs in your conclusions in 2002.’ He leafed through a document. ‘There’s no reference to “possibilities” in here.’
‘Dere’s also nothing in dere dat says it actually happened.’
‘The prosecution said the computer clock was altered, and it was from your evidence.’
‘It’s not my evidence. I said it was possible to change it, but I didn’t say it happened.’
‘Sir, your evidence has changed.’
‘No, it hasn’t.’
After a bit more related back and forth, Hislop asked, ‘Are you deliberately dancing on the end of a pin, or are you telling the truth?’
‘I’m sorry,’ smiled Kleintjes, ‘you are getting so confused.’
He danced on de end of his pin until Hislop had finished with him, and there was a spring in his lanky step as he left the witness stand. Court adjourned, and Hislop said as we left to enjoy the summer’s evening, ‘Would you buy a used car from that man?’
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What would your family and friends and people who you work with do if your back was
