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POLICE LIES "RUINED MY LIFE"
New Zealand Herald, 13 Oct 1998
A Kerikeri woman plans to sue the New South Wales Government after being
jailed for 31/2 years on the fictitious testimony of disgraced Sydney
detectives. Now, 10 years after Suezanne Hayman was sentenced on a drug
importing charge, the NSW Criminal Appeal Court has overturned the
conviction because of a detective's confession in 1995 that the case was
"straight fiction." He told the Commission of Inquiry into Police
Corruption that evidence used to convict her was fabricated and that he
and other officers lied under oath. Suezanne Hayman, aged 48, served
3 1/2
years of a six-year sentence, then was deported to New Zealand. "It
affected my
children [then 16, 19 and 21] and still does ... I had lived in
Australia
for 14 years. My family were there and I had grandchildren there. How
many times was I going to be punished for something I didn't do?"
Two detectives arrested Suezanne Hayman in Sydney in 1986. She denied
conspiring to import heroin from Thailand in 1984. But, she said, the
police produced a confession they claimed she made but refused to sign.
"It was their word over mine and the jury believed them." Suezanne
Hayman's
two sons are now in New Zealand, her daughter remains in Australia. The
quashing of the conviction means she is entitled to go back to
Australia.
Instead she has briefed a lawyer and is planning to sue the NSW
Government.
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