{"id":327647,"date":"2026-03-13T11:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/327647\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T11:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T11:52:12","slug":"top-auckland-criminal-prosecutor-natalie-walker-appointed-high-court-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/327647\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Auckland criminal prosecutor Natalie Walker appointed High Court judge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walker also led the prosecution during the 2021 trial<\/a> for the notorious cold-case Red Fox Tavern murder, ending a 33-year-old mystery.<\/p>\n

Walker is a graduate of the University of Auckland and graduated with a Master of Laws (Distinction) from the University College London. She also holds a Diploma of M\u0101ori Language Fluency from Te W\u0101nanga Takiura o Ng\u0101 Kura Kaupapa M\u0101ori o Aotearoa.<\/p>\n

Her legal career included spending six months as a junior barrister for the late John Haigh, QC, before joining the Auckland Crown Solicitor firm Meredith Connell and specialising in Crown prosecution work.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Walker left the partnership at Meredith Connell to establish Kayes Fletcher Walker alongside two other directors, including her husband, Ned Fletcher.<\/p>\n

She was appointed the Crown Solicitor at Manukau in 2015, the first appointment to that warrant.<\/p>\n

At the time, she said it was \u201ca really great time for South Auckland\u201d<\/a> because her appointment meant there would now be lawyers based in the community they were prosecuting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot all of them will live in South Auckland \u2013 we don\u2019t \u2013 but we\u2019re conscious of the need to try to have a number of staff that do know the community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are committed to bringing on, first and foremost, the best M\u0101ori and Pacific Island graduates from law school.\u201d <\/p>\n

Walker will take up her appointment on May 28 and will sit in Auckland, with her ceremony to be sworn in on June 4 at the High Court in Auckland.<\/p>\n

New High Court associate judge Christopher Gambrill worked as a commercial litigator with law firms White Fox & Jones in Christchurch and Simpson Grierson in Auckland.<\/p>\n

From 2005 to 2019, Gambrill was based in the United Arab Emirates, working with advocate and legal consultancy firms.<\/p>\n

Gambrill takes up his appointment on March 30 and be sworn in on April 17 at the High Court in Christchurch.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walker also led the prosecution during the 2021 trial for the notorious cold-case Red Fox Tavern murder, ending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17623,51,1558,1349,21137,2959,3958,45330,111,43,139,69,176430,3010,57698],"class_list":["post-327647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-appointed","tag-auckland","tag-been","tag-court","tag-criminal","tag-high","tag-judge","tag-natalie","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prosecutor","tag-top","tag-walker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}