Sir Thomas Murray Thorp (1 December 1925 – 17 October 2018) was a New Zealand lawyer and jurist who served as a judge of the
High Court of New Zealand.
Professional career
From 1963 to 1979, Thorp was the Crown Solicitor in
Gisborne. He sat as a judge in the High Court of New Zealand from 1979 until 1996. In the
1997 New Year Honours
The New Year Honours 1997 were appointments by most of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other countries ...
, Thorp was appointed a
Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, in recognition of his service as a judge of the High Court.
Thorp served as chairman of the National Parole Board and sat as a member of the
Court of Appeal
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...
.
Later life and death
After his retirement as a judge, Thorp wrote reports into some controversial matters.
In 1997, he reviewed
New Zealand's gun control measures, and recommended that all firearms be registere
He also wrote a report into the
David Bain case in which he said he was satisfied with the trial verdict.
In 1999, he wrote a report into the Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis case. Thorp expressed misgivings with aspects of the case. He could find no corroboration of the children's claims of sexual abuse. He said that section 23G of the Evidence Act should be repealed because it allowed an expert to say that there was no behaviour inconsistent with sexual abuse. His report recommended that the Justice Ministry obtain the opinion of Stephen J. Ceci with regard to the children's evidence. The Ministry has ignored this and other recommendations from Thorp's report. His report contrasts with that written by Sir Thomas Eichelbaum, which upheld Ellis's conviction.
In 2005, Thorp published a book entitled ''Miscarriages of Justice''. He researched 53 applications for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy and found that at least 20 applicants may have been wrongly imprisoned.
Thorp lived in the Auckland suburb of Parnell, New Zealand, Parnell. He died on 17 October 2018.
References
* Sir Thomas Thorp, Opinion for The Secretary for Justice re Petitions for the Exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy by Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis, Auckland, March 1999
* See http://www.peterellis.org.nz/docs/1999/Thorp/index.htm
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorp, Thomas
1925 births
2018 deaths
20th-century New Zealand judges
Knights Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit
High Court of New Zealand judges