I Am Innocent 2015 - NZ Herald online -
My name is Tania Vini. When I was just 15 me and my two best friends were sent to prison for a violent crime. I Am Innocent s1e1: Tania & Lucy, 2015
12 August 1999 8.30 a.m. Three Kings, Auckland: ‘A young 16-year-old Samoan girl was viciously assaulted near Three Kings; she’d been dropped off on her way to school … Five girls came toward her … Her eye is cut … and to stab her in the leg … ibid. Gary Gotlieb, lawyer
The police relied on identification from another witness. ibid.
The police never checked out the girls’ alibis, and if they had, there was no way they could have been at the crime scene. ibid.
The girls spent a total of seven months in prison … The Court of Appeal took a very unusual course and apologised for what had happened to the girls. ibid.
Tania Vini, Lucy Akatere and McCushla Fuataha were wrongly convicted in August 1999 for the aggravated robbery of a 16-year-old girl in Mt Roskill.
They served eight months in prison and were unable to finish school after being convicted of the gang attack and robbery.
They were acquitted in 2001 when the witness admitted she had lied, and the three were proven to have been nowhere near the scene. NZ Herald online article Belinda Feek 9th June 2022, ‘A roll call of the wrongly convicted and those who claim they are innocent’