UC Connect: Dark Confessions - the Teina Pora case
Date and time
Location
Undercroft 101, Puaka-James Hight building
Ilam Campus University of Canterbury Christchurch, 8140 New ZealandDescription
Presented by: Tim McKinnel and Michael Bennett
He confessed to a crime he didn’t commit and spent 21 years in jail. How did it happen?
Teina Pora, a 17-year-old car thief, was wrongly convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Susan Burdett, who had been beaten to death with the softball bat she kept next to her bed for her own protection.
Tim McKinnel, an ex-cop turned private investigator, discovered the long forgotten case 18 years later, saw an injustice had been done and set out to win Teina Pora’s freedom.
Reaching from South Auckland’s mean streets to the highest court in the Commonwealth, this is the story of one of New Zealand's worst miscarriages of justice, and the long battle to win freedom for an innocent man.
This case is a fascinating insight into a range of issues from the psychology of false confessions, the safety of the New Zealand justice system and the role of media in raising public awareness of the injustice.
In this upcoming UC Connect public lecture, Tim McKinnel, the investigator who drove the successful fight to overturn Teina Pora's convictions, and Michael Bennett, author of the book on the case In Dark Places and writer/director of the award-winning documentary The Confessions of Prisoner T, will discuss the case.
They will also show excerpts from the controversial police interviews that lead to Teina Pora’s arrest and convictions, and answer questions from the audience after their talk in a Q&A session.
More information
Emily Byrne
Events Coordinator
Email: emily.byrne@canterbury.ac.nz
Website: www.canterbury.ac.nz/ucconnect
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