sent detectives<\/a> to Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria to follow up information that had come in after the reward was posted.<\/p>\nThey also sought new analysis of DNA recovered from a bayonet and woollen hat found at the murder scene in 1985.<\/p>\n
Police said today the investigation remained open, but they had no new update on the case.<\/p>\n
Police respond to the High Court decision<\/p>\n
Assistant Commissioner Investigations Corrie Parnell said the not guilty verdicts brought an end to criminal proceedings and police “stand by our decision to put this case before the courts”. <\/p>\n
“At the very outset, we must acknowledge two families that have being seeking justice since the very beginning: Alan Hall and his family, and the family of Arthur Easton, who was tragically murdered more than 40 years ago. <\/p>\n
Parnell said the Supreme Court acquitted Alan Hall for murder in 2022 and found a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred.<\/p>\n
“The onus was on the wider justice system to understand how this was able to occur over many decades. It is our view, after a thorough investigation decades later, that there was an end-to-end justice system failure, but we also recognised that individuals responsible for key steps in the case played a critical role and that needed to be answered in the courts.<\/p>\n
“Police accept that we had a part to play in this failure occurring. <\/p>\n
“The public places great faith and trust in police and the wider Justice sector to act on their behalf and ensure that criminal procedures are carried out fairly.”<\/p>\n
Parnell said legislation, systems and processes in the justice sector have advanced in the decades since this case was first prosecuted but “we acknowledge the Hall family have been left waiting for answers for a long time”.<\/p>\n
“We must also acknowledge the Easton family, who are still seeking answers as to who murdered Arthur Easton more than 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
“Police are awaiting the release of the Independent Police Conduct Authority\u2019s report into this matter, and we will be in a position to comment further at that time.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A High Court judge has found two former police officers not guilty of wilfully perverting the course of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-566453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566453","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=566453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/high-court-judge-dismisses-call-for-trial-of-two-former-poli-6ZQNJCDCEJEKBL7QL2V2COZF7Q.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Arthur](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/family-reveals-new-detail-in-murder-of-arthur-easton-YIQSPBASGNGLHAL6JCERFA4WFI.png\")
<\/p>\n