A MURDER CASE CONFOUNDED BY LIES

With two long-time crims as star witnesses, the prosecution case against
three men charged with murdering Hawke's Bay cannabis dealer Phil Cowan
always looked a bit shaky.

In the end, Justice Durie thought it was simply not a safe enough
foundation for the High Court jury at Wellington to base a verdict on.

The names of both witnesses were suppressed, and each was granted immunity
from prosecution for his part in the alleged killing of Cowan, but each
admitted lying about some things they had told the police, one
spectacularly so.

Delivering his decision to discharge Danny Condren, Bartley Kelly and Sonny
Crawford, the judge said he could not let their evidence be used to support
a verdict without other evidence.

With no body, and no blood at the alleged murder scene, the case could not
continue.

For a year, the police investigation into Cowan's disappearance seemed to
be going nowhere.

Then in April 2002 a prison inmate began protracted negotiations through
his lawyer about the conditions under which he would be prepared to help
the police.

Police backed him at the parole board and paid for motels while he talked
over with his family and perhaps non-existent girlfriend whether he should
take the life-changing step of becoming a police nark. He did talk to
police but, knowing they wanted Mr Cowan's body and knowing he could not
supply that information, he made up a gruesomely detailed story about
cutting up the body and, with Crawford, dissolving it in acid before
dumping what remained at sea.

The defence thought he found the idea in a Minette Walters thriller with a
dash of the television gangland drama The Sopranos thrown in.

Within days of the witness' release from prison, he was a mess. He needed
stitches after nicking his own throat, was checked out by psychiatrists and
while still in accommodation at police expense, robbed a chemist for drugs.
Police had already been suspicious of parts of his story and, back in
custody on the robbery charge, he was forced to admit the dismemberment and
acid plot had been fiction. But he stuck to the rest.

Police did some more digging and, about two months later, arrested the
unlikely grouping of Crawford; car-groomer and car-park
operator-with-a-history Condren; and skinhead methadone-taker Kelly.

They were headed to trial on the word of the first alleged witness alone
when another man came forward prompted, he said, by conscience and a
suspicion that Condren, Kelly and Crawford would blame the killing on him
because Condren thought the man fancied Condren's wife. Both made
spectacularly bad witnesses.

One - the dismemberment dramatist - was sullen and bitter, and refused to
meet the eye of the lawyers, and the other had an explosive temper that
defence lawyers made sport of igniting.

The two witnesses said Cowan had been hit with a hammer and kicked at
Condren's car-grooming workshop in central Wellington on March 25, 2001,
and they did not know what happened to his body after it was put in the
boot of his own car. But little else in their stories matched.

What would the jury make of them? It was all very well for defence lawyers
to label them criminals and unreliable, but the type of acts they alleged
would rarely be committed in the presence of Rotarians.

Each of the main players had his supporters. Condren had friends who
regularly attended the nine-week trial. Kelly's scantily clad young
girlfriend often spent time there. Since his arrest, a stencilled message
had repeatedly appeared on the Cuba St footpath in central Wellington
reading, "Bart Kelly is innocent".

A supporter of Crawford's was in the back row most days, leaving a Maori
bible on her seat when she could not be there in person.

The background to the Crown case was that Cowan, 26, had got into growing
cannabis in Hawke's Bay forests in a reasonably big way. He would sell most
of his crop in Wellington, where he had been a promising design student
before dropping out.

It was alleged Condren was one of his clients. Condren told police he had
bought small amounts from Cowan but was making too much money legally to
risk selling the drug. Police found a "tick list" of Cowan's clients,
including an entry "Danny $47,000". The defence said there was no evidence
that the tick list entry referred to Condren, but witnesses at the trial
said they had been buying cannabis from Condren.

Condren agreed Cowan had been at his workshop that sunny Sunday afternoon
but said he only returned some borrowed tools and left in a hurry.

It is the last reported sighting of Cowan but, depending on whose timing
you accept, there may have been one further contact. At 4.27pm, Cowan
called an elderly Hawke's Bay man who in his evidence vehemently denied the
testimony of so many others that he had been Cowan's cannabis growing
partner. Either way, nothing has been heard or seen of Cowan since.

NOW the case against Condren, Kelly and Crawford has collapsed, Cowan's
parents, accountant Simon and teacher Cathy, are no closer to finding their
son.

They sat through much of the trial with one of their surviving sons,
Hamish. The other son, Stewart, watched the early stages of the trial and
was due to return for the verdict.

Simon Cowan had said he had suspicions about his son but the depth of his
involvement in the drug world shocked both his parents. It must have been
hard for them listening to some of the evidence at the trial. Some
witnesses clearly had not liked their son much, describing him as greedy
and a user.

He stashed money and barrels of cannabis at the homes of friends, leaving
them to take the risk of discovery. Police believed he may have had up to
$150,000 in cash and up to $20,000 worth of cannabis in his car on the day
he disappeared. The car was found, but no money or cannabis.

Some witnesses seemed fond of the barefoot drug dealer who liked Mac's beer
but did not smoke his own goods. But even they spoke of a man with foibles.
He was mean with money to the extent of driving around Wellington looking
for an unmetered car park, and his idea of a nice meal out was fish and
chips. One man said Cowan's entire wardrobe was worth about $10. Another
said he did not pay much attention to personal hygiene.

He went to great lengths to hide his cannabis plots and planted a
potentially lethal mantrap at one. On the other hand, he would pick up
hitch-hikers and within minutes tell them about his cannabis business.

On one side of a sheet of paper he was calculating his assets, planning
investment strategy and noting to pay his taxes. On the other side he
reminded himself to let fate take its course, concentrate on his writing
and practise yoga.

Friends said he spoke of getting out of the cannabis business once he had
made enough money to invest. He wanted to write film scripts and buy a
piece of land where he could live communally with people who shared his
interests.