A man who spent a year in prison on child-sex charges is now free after a prosecutorial botch led to a miscarriage of justice. Gerald Glen Wedlock, 65, appeared in the Dunedin District Court this week where the Crown opted not to pursue a retrial. Three charges of indecency with an under-12 and one of sexual violation were dismissed and — nearly one year into a five-year prison term — the man was released. It was all sparked by the recent release of a Court of Appeal ruling which was heavily critical of a “very experienced” Crown prosecutor for introducing a new theory at the final stage of the trial. The judgement outlined the case’s tortured history. It began in 2021, when the complainant went to police and complained that Wedlock had abused him 18 years earlier. Fourteen charges were laid and in 2024, a jury returned a mix of verdicts. Wedlock was found not guilty of four charges, three were dismissed mid-trial. They found him guilty of supplying cannabis and could not reach a decision on six of the counts. The following year, the Crown proceeded again to trial with four of those undecided charges. A “very experienced” prosecutor told the jury in his opening address that the alleged sex crimes happened when Wedlock and the complainant were living in the same house. It became a small, but crucial factor in the collapse of the case. Wedlock’s home had burned down in mid-2003, prompting him to move into another house for a couple of weeks. The complainant ended up living temporarily at the same property while one of his parents was overseas. He claimed Wedlock molested him several times while putting him to bed and described how the man exposed him to explicit material. The complainant also described one night when the defendant allegedly used a nightshirt as a blindfold to lead him out of his room and into the lounge. There, it was alleged, more invasive offending took place. However, the complainant’s sister and all others who were living at the property at the time — including Wedlock — said there had been no overlap in the two parties’ respective stays. Other children who lived there said the defendant would occasionally babysit, but they were never questioned about whether the complainant was there at those times. Similarly, Wedlock, who gave evidence in his own defence, was never cross-examined over whether the boy was there on those occasions. The critical issue came during the closing addresses — counsel’s opportunity to clarify all the evidence for the jury. The Court of Appeal’s Justice Collins, Mander and Becroft, in their recent decision, noted the Crown “clearly retreated from the original theory”. The prosecutor told jurors the complainant might have been mistaken about Wedlock living with him at the time; perhaps the alleged sexual assaults took place while he was babysitting. “The new alternative theory lacked a proper evidential foundation and should not have been advanced,” the Court of Appeal said. “[The complainant] never said that Mr Wedlock babysat him at [the] house, and he never said that the offending could have occurred while Mr Wedlock babysat.” Raising the new theory at the eleventh hour was “clearly unfair” to the defendant, the judges ruled. Wedlock’s convictions were quashed — aside from the cannabis charge for which he was found guilty — and he was removed from the Child Sex Offender Register. rob.kidd@odt.co.nz
