Press

Press
03/04/20

Court hearings via video link, teleconferences and no access to prisons – legal professionals are essential services working through the coronavirus lockdown but it's not business as usual.

"I am still appearing in court during the lockdown, [but] there are only two courts running as opposed to the usual eight," Christchurch barrister Nicola Hansen said.

13/03/20

Keisha Castle-Hughes's on-again-off-again boyfriend Michael Graves has appeared in court today charged with assaulting the Whale Rider star.

He was remanded without plea for three weeks to give his defence a chance to see further police disclosure in the matter.

25/02/20

High-profile Botany MP Jami-Lee Ross has pleaded "not guilty" to charges of electoral fraud in the Auckland District Court. 

But he didn't leave it at that. Afterwards, he delivered another searing statement against his former party, accusing National of "manipulation and lies". 

2020

The Grace Millane murder trial (below) once again elevated criminal lawyer Ron Ron Mansfield to a lead role at the criminal bar.

Regularly appearing in high profile criminal cases like appearing for the ‘media personality’ in the Comanchero Motorcycle Gang bust, ‘the “designer drug” Operation Arc case and others.

19/11/19

The man accused of murdering British backpacker Grace Millane had no intention to kill her, his defence lawyer claims.

The Crown claims Grace, 21, was strangled to death by the man she met on Tinder in December 2018. The defence says her death was an accident during consensual sex.

19/11/19

The man accused of Grace Millane's murder won't take the stand and give evidence in his own defence, the High Court has heard.

The case, which is being heard in the High Court at Auckland, is now in its third week.

19/11/19

Some of the country's top legal minds will gather in the same courtroom for the trial of the man accused of murdering Grace Millane.

The man, whose name is suppressed, will face a trial at the High Court in Auckland from November 4.

He is charged with murdering the British backpacker in Auckland in December 2018.

Here is a round-up of the key players in court.

12/11/19

A woman who says she was suffocated by the man charged with murdering Grace Millane has been accused of lying.

The 27-year-old man denies murdering Ms Millane in his apartment after they met for a Tinder date last December.

He is on trial before Justice Moore and a jury of seven women and five men in the High Court at Auckland this month.

16/11/18

A high-profile lawyer has questioned a statutory order by the Chief Judge which is "undermining" the impact of ongoing Ministry of Justice industrial action.

20/02/2017

Kim Dotcom is still going to the United States, says the High Court, but in an exclusive interview the internet entrepreneur is claiming the latest ruling is a victory.

This latest legal milestone is this afternoon's ruling from Justice Murray Gilbert who had been asked to overturn a decision that Dotcom was eligible for extradition to face criminal charges in the United States.