When I was first charged with murder, Frank Hogan, who was David Hogan's grandfather and my ex-father-in-law, offered me money for my defence.
This was the first time he had spoken to me since I left his daughter, Erin Hogan, nine years previously.
Frank had banned David from his house after a series of thefts.
He was old-school: straight, hard-working, and honest as the day is long.
He spoke to me again at court in Invercargill, a few months later, when my warrant was being renewed.
Again he offered me money, shook my hand and wished me luck.
A few months after that, when Frank took sick, he asked to see me.
Prison staff escorted me to Invercargill's Kew Hospital hospice.
He told me then that he was tired and exhausted and he just wanted to die.
We never mentioned David's name.
We didn't need to.
Frank said, "Rex, all I want before I go, is to see you get out of there".
He died three days later.
My kids wanted me at the funeral with them.
The Prison Service agreed, but Sergeant Dave Evans vetoed it.
Someone who attended the funeral said that Evans was overheard telling Neil Hogan, "Oh, Haig is only trying to make out that he is a compassionate person, but we won't allow that".
I didn't go, but I didn't need to.
I had known Frank for over 30 years and I respected him. He was a good man.
Instead of the speedy trial I was entitled to, the process was dragged out for 14 months, giving the prosecution every chance to lash some sort of case together, while I languished in jail on remand.
In Invercargill I was in a prison cell that measured nine feet by five.
It had a concrete floor, a bed, a small metal bench and a chair.
My toilet was an eight-litre plastic bucket.
In this space I ate all my meals.
Every 24 hours, I was allowed an hour's exercise in a yard that was seven paces by two and a-half, and completely surrounded by wire netting.
I believe I would have been prosecuted by the SPCA if I had kept a dog in those conditions for 14 months.
There is no way I would have treated Sam, my golden Labrador, like that.
Exercise time was my only chance to talk to anyone else, other than visitors.
A group of us at the prison made a formal complaint about the medieval conditions in the remand block, which was built in 1905, with barely a coat of paint added since.
I was held there for the whole of 1995.
It was so disgusting, having to eat in the same tiny cell as the plastic bucket you had to use as a toilet.
There was not even a basin of water to wash your hands, and you had to sleep there as well, locked in after being fed, from 4pm until 8am - 16 solid hours.
I had asked for a bucket and some disinfectant to wash my hands but got no response.
I then asked to see the remand manager to complain about the lack of toilets or proper exercise.
He at once became abusive, and threatened to send me up to Paparua Prison in Christchurch that same day.
He refused outright to discuss my grievances.
In later years, I found out how to complain to the ombudsman, telling him the conditions breached the Public Health Act, because we were forced to eat and defecate in the same space.
Worse, we could not even flush anything away, but had to have the smell with us all night.
I said it was degrading, inhuman, and unhygienic, and that none of the remand blocks - at Addington, Dunedin or Invercargill - had proper toilets.
In theory, remand inmates are presumed to be innocent, but as far as I could see we were treated far worse than the sentenced inmates, who at least have organised activities and work.
We had no toilets - just buckets - no proper exercise, no proper phone access to lawyers or family.
I could not get to a photocopier to prepare my defence case.
Visits were frequently blocked.
It was all just one long battle.
At Addington Prison, in Christchurch - where I was sent after my conviction, during the paua trial, and twice during pre-trial hearings - the food was absolute crap, with no nutritious value whatsoever.
The place was built as an army station over a hundred years ago.
It should be demolished, or given to the Historic Places Trust.
It was an oppressive, decaying, rat-infested s . . . hole.
There was a police informer there who spent weeks in his cell, refusing to go into the yard for fear of being outed and bashed.
The cells stank of urine, which had soaked into the sponge mattresses.
They had two 20-litre plastic s . . . buckets, so at least your cellmate did not have to defecate on top of your own waste, but it was indescribably disgusting and dehumanising hearing someone else defecate two metres away from you, then having to sleep, with all that filthy mess right there at the end of your bed.
There were also the junkies, who would spit on the walls.
The saliva dried into hard, crusty lumps that couldn't be mopped off.
Obviously commercial steam or hot-water blasting was needed, but it was never used.
Rats scratched under the ancient wooden floors at night, which was hardly conducive to a sound night's sleep! Then, when you actually got to court, you could be kept waiting all day in a concrete cell for a 10-minute court appearance, with just a sandwich to eat at lunchtime.
Once, after three weeks at Addington, I asked for a mop and some disinfectant, but I got nothing, just as at Invercargill.
I came close to emptying the entire crap bucket over the head of the screw who refused this request, telling me "he didn't have the time".
I was then moved in with a junkie, who had been there for five weeks and had not once left his cell.
It was absolutely filthy.
Everything on the table was stuck to it by spilt food.
The floor was sticky, and both p . . . buckets had brown stains, high up.
There were cigarette butts, apple cores and orange peel strewn everywhere.
He finally got sentenced and left.
I cleaned that cell spotless.
It took me three hours.
I then had a shower and lay down, blissed-out to feel clean again.
That lasted about 10 minutes.
I was told to pack my gear as I was leaving for Invercargill.
I trooped downstairs with around 20 others who were also being transported, and it was a bloody circus, with six vans going in all different directions.
No-one told us which van to get into, so I just jumped into the nearest one, hoping it was going to Nelson.
However, I ended up in Dunedin overnight, as Colin Withnall had arranged to see me there.
Time and again it struck me that if private enterprise functioned as incompetently and unstrategically as the justice system does, their fees would need to increase by around 75%, just to make ends meet.
I SPENT a few weeks in Dunedin Prison and was then sent down to Invercargill for the MAF depositions hearing [on charges of conspiracy to seize paua].
That began on January 23, 1995, and ran till February 3, when it was adjourned until February 27.
It then resumed and went through until March 10.
As a remand prisoner, I was taken to the court every morning under prison escort.
The witnesses were flown into Invercargill from all round New Zealand, but the prosecution struggled to demonstrate that they had enough evidence to take their case to trial.
Hogan was among those charged by MAF.
I had not seen him since my arrest, nearly four months earlier.
I looked straight at him, but his eyes would not meet mine.
It sent shudders through me to see him sitting there, calm and expressionless.
In the courtroom, Hogan sat right behind Erin, brandishing a pocket knife near her head.
I was horrified, and I told the cop sitting beside me.
He jumped up, hustled Hogan outside and took the knife off him.
After that, I asked my lawyer to make sure he was searched every day before coming into court.
Erin's lawyer struck me as a very strange woman.
She was constantly twitching her nose and sniffing, so she reminded me of a seal coming up from a 1000-foot dive.
She was also very annoying.
She repeatedly cross-examined witnesses whose evidence had no bearing on Erin's case, creating a marathon of a hearing.
Judge Anderson kept reminding her it was a depositions hearing, not a jury trial, but she would just snort at him and say, "I am well aware of that, Your Honour".
One day, thoroughly exasperated at the length of time she was taking to cross-examine an unimportant witness, the judge snapped at her, "How much longer is this going to take?".
She turned and hissed through her teeth at him, slowly and clearly: "As long as it takes, Your Honour".
She then calmly carried on for another 15 minutes.
Erin lost her house and car to this woman.
Her legal bill totalled $43,000, whereas the other lawyers involved charged from $12,000 to $17,000.
The Law Society later cut her bill almost in half, to $23,000, but it was still a lot more than anyone else had to pay.
As I see it, lawyers like that give their profession a bad name.
Erin was in an extremely vulnerable position, facing five years in jail for something she had nothing to do with.
Although she was acquitted, MAF refused to pay any of her legal costs.
As well as the $23,000, she lost more in wages, and suffered huge stress.
As far as I can see, there is very little justice under New Zealand law.
However, I did later hear that this lawyer had been disbarred, so perhaps there is some, now and then.
Some of MAF's method's for gathering so-called "evidence" against us were staggering: officers sitting in cars and trucks for up to 15 hours, waiting for someone to drive past; thousands of hours of overtime by [MAF investigator Geoff] Clark's troops, while he relaxed at home, presumably.
The hearing dragged on for three weeks, with the lawyers the only winners.
Three of the defendants, including Hogan, eventually pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
MAF have consistently refused to say just how much the whole debacle cost them.
A ministerial inquiry was later ordered, but nothing was ever reported back, as far as I am aware.
Bail was continued for all of us until trial on these charges, but I was to remain in custody, having been denied bail on the murder charge.
IN April I was bundled back to Invercargill from Dunedin for the murder depositions, to begin on Monday, April 3.
On Sunday, the night before, Sewell had been at the Invercargill Police Station with Detective Sergeant Brian Hewett, where he told Hewett that he "suddenly" remembered that I had told him I was going to kill Mark - as I was walking out of the wheel-house, leaving him in charge.
That same night Sewell had also spoken to Tom Roderique, Mark's father.
Three days later, when cross-examined by Colin, Sewell was asked if he'd made this new statement before or after he talked to Tom Roderique.
He said that he didn't know.
For the first time, I was actually witnessing what Hogan and Sewell were prepared to swear to.
I sat there in amazement, as Hogan told lie after lie about my killing Mark Roderique, followed by Sewell, who did the same.
The depositions ended, and on Friday, April 7, I was committed to face trial for murder.
It still felt like a bad dream but further astonishing news would break that day.
Incredible as it seems, seven months before this, two people had independently told the Invercargill police that David Hogan had boasted of having "killed someone at sea".
The first of these, David Barr, spoke to the police on September 6, 1994, six days before the Crimewatch programme aired on September 13.
Barr was an associate of Hogan.
His first statement was recorded by Brian Hewett, and told of Hogan having boasted some time during August 1994 that he "blew the c . . . away".
According to Barr, Hogan told him to keep his mouth shut or he would be marked out himself - that there was a "$50,000 contract on him".
Eight days later, Anton Sherlock, also an associate of Hogan, went to Hewett and made a three-page statement about Hogan telling him he had "shot someone at sea" and thrown the body overboard.
Sherlock also stated that Hogan had threatened to kill him if he said anything.
Anton Sherlock was to be my main trial witness.
Colin believed he would be a strong witness for us, that we would be able to throw Hogan's accusations back at him with Sherlock's help, backed up by Barr, suggesting that Hogan himself had killed Mark "at sea" and had boasted of having done so.
But by the time of the depositions hearing Sherlock had disappeared.
At the depositions hearing, Detective Sergeant Dave Evans was obviously worried sick about it.
He has what I see as a rather childish habit of trying to eyeball you, presumably to intimidate you.
He had tried it on me back at the MAF hearing and he did it again now, staring me out while answering Colin's questions in cross-examination.
When he left the stand he tripped over a chair and stumbled out of the courtroom.
Anton Sherlock's body was found later that day, Friday, April 7, with his head smashed in, and weights tied round him, so he could be thrown into the Lumsden River for his body to submerge - the very method Hogan had accused me of using on Mark.
I was still a remand prisoner when the paua case came up for trial for the first time.
The first MAF trial began in Invercargill on July 10, 1995, and it ended on July 26 with a hung jury.
There would have to be a retrial, but it would not now take place until after the murder trial, which was scheduled for October/November.
At the time of this first trial, we heard that large catches of undersized paua were being regularly flown out of Fiordland.
The reason for this was rumoured to be that everyone knew that "Clark's army" was tied up in Invercargill, prosecuting Haig!
In September I was taken back to Christchurch for the pre-trial hearing in the case of The Crown against Haig for the murder of Mark Roderique.
It was my first experience of seeing trial judge Justice Hansen in action.
Colin urged him to throw out the case.
As he pointed out, there was absolutely nothing to support their wild accusations: no body, no forensic evidence, no weapon and no motive.
But Justice Hansen refused to do so, ruling that Hogan and Sewell's story, while improbable, could not be said to be impossible, which meant it must be up to a jury to decide.
Lyall's evidence about my "admission" at the flat was ruled to be inadmissible, because he and Evans had kept questioning me after both I and my lawyer clearly told them I would not answer any more questions.
So the jury would never get to hear how I had "confessed" I was wearing my rig boots when I threw Mark overboard! Justice Hansen also ruled out three hearsay witnesses, whom he regarded as untruthful and unreliable.
He criticised the Crown for dredging up these witnesses at such a late stage when they ought to have been made available for cross-examination at depositions.
However, a week later the Court of Appeal would reinstate them - on a Crown application.
The Court would allow them to testify to what they said Mark Roderique told them before he disappeared.
Although Justice Hansen ruled that the case must go to court, he gave the Crown Prosecutor, Alistair Garland, a hard time.
He asked, "Mr Garland, can you give me a brief account of what actually happened?".
"Yes, Sir," came the reply, "Haig started an argument with the deceased."
"Hold on," said His Honour, "Haig had nothing to do with that argument, isn't that right?"Garland stammered and mumbled and Colin jumped in.
"That's right, Your Honour. Haig had nothing to do with the argument and David Hogan has admitted under oath that he started it."
"That's correct, isn't it, Mr Garland?" said the judge, and Garland shuffled wildly through his papers and was then forced to agree.
It was really funny, and left me thinking, "My God, this is the type of judge I've been dreaming of!"
Rough Justice: The Rex Haig Story is published by Longacre Press, pbk, $35.
