Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson
A Palmerston North Crown solicitor breached his obligations in a murder case, an independent review into errors made by the lawyer has found.
High Court judge Rebecca Ellis ordered prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk in November to pay $20,000 in costs for failing to disclose information in a murder inquiry.
An independent assessment of the facts was launched and has been completed by former Court of Appeal judge Tony Randerson.
The issues stemmed from the prosecution of three men for the murder of Palmiro MacDonald in 2016.
The prosecution was conducted by Vandervolk between April 2017 and October 2020, with all the charges being withdrawn.
Two of the men later brought an application to the High Court against the police and the Crown, and were awarded $40,000 to be paid equally by the two parties.
The decision found Vanderkolk was at least partially responsible for three procedural issues relating to a witness, identified in the report as Witness A.
The first related to the disclosure of a letter to the defence between Witness A and police.
The second was the redaction of the name of another witness from a statement made by Witness A, with the redacted name having significance to the credibility of both witnesses.
The third was a meeting between Vanderkolk, his assistant prosecutor and Witness A, following which the Crown solicitor instructed police to omit the fact of his presence.
The third issue was found to be serious in nature, but Randerson found mitigating factors, such as an unprompted disclosure of Vanderkolk's presence at the meeting during one of the hearings.
Randerson accepted that Vanderkolk's decision was made on the spur of the moment and accepted that he had expressed deep regret of what occurred.
He found that the meeting breached the Crown solicitor's obligation to uphold the highest standards of personal and professional conduct and to act as a "minister of justice".
Vanderkolk has accepted the findings of the review.