The country’s highest court has ended a mother’s decades-long battle for accountability for the fatal police shooting of her son.

Steven Wallace was 23 when he was shot early on April 30, 2000, on the main street of Waitara, Taranaki. He died in hospital a short time later.

Wallace had been on a rampage, breaking windows with a golf club and attacking a patrol car with officers in it when he was confronted by police. Senior Constable Keith Abbott shot him four times. One penetrated his liver, fatally wounding him.

On Tuesday, 23 years and a string of legal proceedings later, the Supreme Court, the final appeal court of New Zealand, dismissed an application by Wallace’s mother, Raewyn Wallace, to challenge a civil ruling related to his death.

While the senior court agreed the state’s obligation to investigate the fatal shooting of Wallace was an important matter, it was not satisfied the proposed appeal had sufficient merit to warrant the grant of leave.

The decision, issued by Justices Ellen France, Joe Williams and Stephen Kos, brings to an end a long haul before multiple courts for Raewyn Wallace.

She commenced civil proceedings against the Crown in 2014, alleging a breach of her son’s right to life under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Declarations were sought together with compensation.

This followed a failed private prosecution of Abbott by the Wallace family who charged him with murder after the police did not. In December 2002, a Wellington jury acquitted the officer, who claimed he shot Wallace in self-defence.

The civil claim was finally heard in the High Court in 2020 and ultimately upheld that Abbott had acted in self-defence.

His death has been the subject of extensive litigation. Most recently, the Supreme Court has declined an application to appeal an earlier decision. Photo / Mark Mitchell

But the court also found the investigation into Wallace’s death had not been compliant with the Bill of Rights and that the Solicitor-General failed to give adequate reasons for refusing to take over the private prosecution.

While declarations in respect of those two matters were made, no damages were awarded and the claim was otherwise dismissed.

Raewyn then turned to the Court of Appeal in an attempt to challenge the High Court’s ruling on the issue of self-defence, and the Crown cross-appealed the two findings in her favour.

In a double blow, the Court of Appeal rejected her appeal and further ruled in the Crown’s favour, overturning her previous wins.

In Raewyn’s latest move, she applied to the Supreme Court, proposing 13 grounds of appeal that challenged the Court of Appeal’s findings of law and fact.

The judges found only three of those raised questions of general importance.

Those were around self-defence in a civil context, the reverse onus in claims made under the right not to be deprived of life, and whether a private prosecution satisfied the Bill of Rights’ obligation to investigate.

However, in dismissing the appeal, the judges stated they were not satisfied the case was an appropriate one in which to address issues of principle.

They found most of Raewyn’s remaining proposed grounds were case and fact specific.

“...and they are unsuitable for consideration on a second appeal due to the constrained evidential and procedural basis upon which the case has proceeded,” the decision said.

Raewyn had argued that prosecution in the earlier trial of Abbott was under-resourced causing counsel to wrongly adopt an overly narrow approach, which the judges rejected.

“We are not satisfied that there is a proper evidential basis upon which the required inferences might be considered arguable,” the decision said.

“As to the Solicitor-General’s failure to provide reasons for refusing to take over the prosecution, the Court of Appeal’s decision related to a straightforward matter of procedure which arose in the distinctive procedural history of this case.

“No question of public importance is involved and we are not satisfied that there is any risk of miscarriage if leave is not granted on this ground.”

- Tara Shaskey, Open Justice