Nark: Ambulance officer casts doubt on key evidence in deadly prison beating

An ambulance officer who attended the murder of Darcy Te Hira in Mt Eden prison in 1985 has cast doubt on key Crown evidence that the man convicted of killing Te Hira took the murder weapon with him after committing the crime.

Robert Ogier has spoken publicly for the first time, to the RNZ podcast Nark, saying he saw the paddle that was used to strike Te Hira lying on the ground in two pieces when he arrived on the scene.

The podcast is reinvestigating the case, which is now back before the Court of Appeal.

Ogier says the day of the murder, January 6, 1985, started normally: "Just another day on shift. I was on a life support unit. Call came in, off we went".

What was unusual was that the call came from Mt Eden prison, and the victim was a prisoner.

Ogier and his colleague Bruce Alwyn arrived six minutes after the emergency call was made; 10 to 15 minutes after Te Hira was found. They were met by a guard and entered the prison's lunchroom through the kitchen, Ogier tells the podcast.

"There were these big pots of porridge and there, the patient was lying on the floor… And appeared to be fitting, a bit like you'd expect for an epileptic fit".

One thing stood out to him when he entered the room, something that has stayed with him for the 40 years since.

"There was a broken paddle. Well, I found out it was a paddle. It was a broken stick, but it looked like an oar. So, it was a paddle, it was lying between the patient and the pot."

Paddles such as this were used to stir the giant pots by inmates employed to make food for Mt Eden's nearly 400 inmates. They were about 1.4 metres long.

Ogier, who had also been a police officer, says the paddle he saw was lying 1m-1.5m from Te Hira, and he "almost had to step over it".

"I thought he had been whacked on the head, obviously."

Inmate Ross Appelgren, serving time for multiple burglaries, was convicted twice for Te Hira's murder, but insisted he was innocent until his death in 2013.

Appelgren always maintained he was not in the kitchen when Te Hira was attacked

In an unprecedented legal action, his widow, Julie Appelgren, is going to the Court of Appeal to try to resurrect her husband's appeal, which has remained undetermined since 1994.

Julie says her husband was unable to progress his case when he was alive due to poor health and a lack of money.

Ogier's recollection is considered significant because it's at odds with the testimony given by the Crown's main eyewitness, a prisoner who claimed to have seen Appelgren commit the murder and leave the lunchroom with the main part of the paddle.

The witness, who's called Ernie in the podcast because he has permanent name suppression, testified he saw Ross Appelgren swing the paddle at Te Hira's head.

Afterwards, Ernie said he noticed a fragment of wood on the floor, roughly 45 cms long, which he believed had come off the paddle.

He said Ross had later confessed to murdering Te Hira over a dope deal gone wrong, explaining he'd boiled the paddle to remove any forensic evidence and thrown it out. Ernie said he himself had kicked the broken fragment of wood to the corner of the room and claimed another inmate later picked it up and put it in the rubbish bin. Ernie subsequently told police, through an anonymous note, to look for the paddle in the kitchen where it had been hidden.

Ernie stands by his account to this day.

Ogier, however, maintains the paddle - broken in two - was still in the kitchen when he arrived shortly after the attack.

"I could still see it. I would suspect everything that prisoner said that would benefit him".

Investigator Tim McKinnel, who's part of Appelgren's legal team, says Ogier is a "neutral, independent witness" and is further evidence "that Ernie's account of what he saw, particularly in relation to the supposed weapon, isn't true".

Appelgren's lawyer Kerry Cook says this evidence will be helpful when the case goes before the Court of Appeal, "to undermine Ernie's credibility".

RNZ sent a long list of questions about the case to the Police and Crown Law, which oversees prosecutions in New Zealand. Both declined to comment because the case was going back to the Court of Appeal.

The latest episode of Nark is out today, at rnz.co.nz/nark or wherever you get your podcasts. The series begins at 7pm Sunday on RNZ National.

Follow and Listen to the Nark podcast at rnz.co.nz/nark or wherever you get your podcasts.

• If you have any information on the Appelgren case/Te Hira murder, please email nark@rnz.co.nz.