Andrew L. Urban
April 5, 2026: Sorry, can’t resist the headline…. an eagle eyed reader of this blog living in Moscow alerted us to the 1990 wrongful conviction of David Tamihere for the 1989 murder of Urban Höglin and his girlfriend Heidi Birgitta Paakkonen. Tamihere has now had his convictions quashed by the Supreme Court, 36 years after he was found guilty of murdering the two Swedish backpackers in New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula.
This is a text book case of a circumstantial case leading to a wrongful conviction, including elements such as a key witness in the crown case, prison informant Robert Conchie Harris, who was found guilty of perjury in 2017. It’s yet another instance of the dangerous unreliability of prison snitches. For example, in Australia, the Robert Xie (according to our research wrongful) conviction, in the absence of actual evidence, also relied on the absurd and totally unreliable testimony of a snitch, which fooled the jury into disregarding his corroborated alibi. (The case is deconstructed in my book, FRAMED – how the legal system framed Robert Xie for the Lin family murders.)
Tamihere took the case to the Court of Appeal (Court of Appalling more like…) which in 2024 found there had been a miscarriage of justice because of Harris’s evidence but it did not quash its conviction because the court remained convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Tamihere was guilty.
The Supreme Court found the Court of Appeal did not have the right to make a call on Tamihere’s guilt after it had found the miscarriage of justice – that could only be made by a jury.
RNZ news report
Tamihere was released on parole in 2010, but his conviction stands.
The whole sorry saga of this case is reported in full in RNZ News
And the question remains: who murdered Urban (no relation) and Paakkonen?
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This book examines the trials and conviction of Robert Xie. After four trials there are many unanswered questions.
I applaud the author for asking the questions that need to be answered.The introduction issues the challenge “This book sets out to prove he was telling the truth.
Sadly, this is the task every accused who has been subjected to the carefully orchestrated media campaigns now faces. The golden thread our system was founded on “Innocent until proven guilty” no longer applies. Anyone with only access to media reports would have no concerns that Xie’s convictions were unsafe and unsatisfactory.
I am overwhelmed by the conclusion that Robert Xie’s convictions are unsafe and unsatisfactory and my doubt is more than reasonable; it is substantial.
Stuart Tipple
Former lawyer representing Lindy Chamberlain