q My name is Aaron Lance Farmer. On the 18th of May 2005, I was convicted of rape and sentenced to eight years in prison. This is my story. Copyright Able 2015 (SCREAMS) (SCREAMS) (GASPS, WHIMPERS) SOLEMN MUSIC I was sentenced to eight years. Eight years. (SIGHS) It wasn't good. It didn't make me feel good. I mean, it's a long time. He said, 'Mum, they've found me guilty.' I said, 'They couldn't have. Aaron, you've got it wrong.' He said, 'No, Mum. They've found me guilty.' I said, 'Oh my God, son. What are we gonna do now?' TAPE REWINDS TROUBLING MUSIC Love motorbikes. I like riding. It's how I get around. It used to be my only means of transport. ENGINE HUMS Aaron's always liked bikes. He grew up on them. He did. He grew up on bikes. It was away from the world that Aaron had to live in, and the world that Aaron had to live in didn't work for Aaron, cos Aaron was different, and the world doesn't make room for different people. Sally! Come here, you monsters. Hello. I do have the odd condition ` paranoid schizophrenia, uh, Asperger's, autism. Let me just` Ah! Hang on, let's have a look. It'll fit. I'm on medication, regular medication. I've had a few runs in Sunnyside Hospital. Sometimes it was, um, entertaining. Sometimes it wasn't that great. That should do. Well, I'm on the benefit. Have been for years. I don't sit on my arse and do nothing like some people. (SIGHS) I do a few big road trips on the bike every couple of months. ENGINE REVS I go down south. I've got people to stay with down there, old friends I've known for a few years. I met Aaron through another friend of mine in Ashburton. We just got together and did things together and, uh, go out places and driving here and there. I've known Aaron, oh, since the early '90s, and we just used to do a lot of things together. He's quite into his motorbikes, and so was I at the time. We just sorta hit it off, and, yeah, he's a good guy. TAPE REWINDS About 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock at night, I went for a cruise around town. In Christchurch, if you don't know the place, there were two vans that would deliver hot food and drinks. Uh, basically homeless and stuff and people with low budgets. Used to be a congregation of people at both of the vans. FOOTSTEPS A young woman was, uh, at a bar in central Christchurch. Her friend left early, and then about 2am, this young woman left. (EXHALES) BIKE ENGINE REVS BIKE ENGINE SLOWS, RUMBLES And a man on a motorbike rode past her, circled her twice and stopped, took off his helmet and asked her if she was all right. She said yes. SCUFFLING, SCREAMING MUFFLED SCREAMING And then he came and attacked her and raped her. TENSE MUSIC I stopped at Star Mart. TENSE MUSIC CONTINUES I was getting a coffee milkshake. I have bugger all money. I got a coffee milkshake, caught up with a few people. ENGINE HUMS Was trying to locate the van, which I was still trying to find for a couple of hours, and it wasn't where it was s'posed to be. Pulled over, asked someone if they had seen it. But she hadn't. CARS PASS SPROCKET WINDS MEN LAUGH, CHAT Aaron! Aaron! Aaron, what's goin' on here? Hey! I ran into Peter Burgess well after midnight down near the... Manchester St, yeah. Me and my workmates, we finished work one night, and we decided to go through to Christchurch to... go and spend the evening up there and come across Aaron looking at the` the sprocket on the big wheel of his motorbike. Uh, well the bike needed some work. Uh, the chain was coming a bit loose. But, um,... he suggests we go see the Mobil at Madras and borrow a few tools so I can tighten the chain. We had a yak to him on the side of the road for maybe a half an hour or an hour or so or whatever time went by, and then we went home. (SCREAMS) SCUFFLING HISS! MAN YELLS ENGINE STRAINS The complainant says that her attacker had trouble starting his motorbike after the attack. (GASPS, SOBS) Eventually, it did start, and he rode away. Shortly after the attack, uh, the police saw Aaron's picture on the various security cameras in the area, tracked him down through the number plate on his motorbike and wanted to interview him. I went to go see about medication at Sunnyside Hospital, and one nurse said the police were looking for me. I went to some tiny little police station in Sydenham, and they asked what they wanted me for, and they said an attack on a female. Aaron, being a reasonably relaxed and naive individual, went and spoke to the police, and he did that without any legal advice. I interviewed for hours. They were accusing me of raping a female. They claimed that she, um, identified me from a bunch of photos. I told them I didn't do it, and they still persisted. He voluntarily gave a DNA sample, again without legal advice. They were asking me to give a DNA sample, and I thought, 'Well, if I volunteer one, they'll rule me out. Done. It's over with.' No. It didn't work that way. SOLEMN MUSIC It was just over a week later the police called me into the cop shop for another interview. < When you went into town, what were you on? What were you riding? Trail bike. Suzuki TS185 VR. Colour blue. < OK. Know the registration off the top of your head? < OK. Know the registration off the top of your head? 87UCB. < OK. < OK. Memorised the thing the day I got it. < And what time would you normally get home? Sometimes I don't finish up till early hours of the morning. < Now, as we've been talking about what you did on the night,... < Now, as we've been talking about what you did on the night,... Yep. < ...there seems to be a point where you can talk clearly about the times and what you did up to a point. < There's a bit of a gap. < And then we have` You were able to quite categorically say what you did beyond that point, OK? < Unfortunately, the time we're talking about is that time where you can't account for specific times < or what you were doing during that time. (SCREAMS) They kept coming at me for more and more questions. < How do think then that this woman who was raped picked your photo and said, 'That's him'? I don't know. They just kept comin' at me. < How do you think woman's feeling right now? I didn't do anything, and this is starting to piss me off. They had my DNA from her. < Aaron, the police cannot alter your DNA structure. No. But some` No. But some` < No. Listen to me, please. < The ESR who do the testing cannot alter your DNA structure. < We` No one can alter the DNA structure of the samples taken from this woman. (SIGHS) You're seriously lookin' at me for this, aren't you? I didn't do it, and yet you're looking at me and nobody else. < We're talking about a woman who has identified you. < We're talking about the way that she was approached. < You'd been doing that to a woman during the night. < We're talking about forensic evidence. < We're talking about her being able to describe your clothing and motorbike. (SIGHS) < Just one of those things, at my end, is enough. TENSE MUSIC Nine months after all that, they came and arrested me and charged me for a crime that I didn't commit. We get these two blasted coppers turn up down the driveway. They'd flown up from Christchurch to arrest him. And I said, 'You've got the wrong person,' and he said, 'Oh, mums always say that.' Then they marched him off, and I said, 'You're not taking him to the station unless I go with him.' And they said, 'He's over 18. You can't go. Can't go.' ARCHIVE: A 34-year-old sickness beneficiary has been arrested and charged with the sexual violation of a woman in Christchurch in September last year. Basically, the police were trying to paint the picture that I was stalking females. They seemed to get this idea I was stalking females and stuff when they used my pattern for hunting down the street vans for hot drinks and free food to make it look like I was stalking females,... when that was completely` they got it` they really twisted the whole story around. TENSE MUSIC They said that I look like the attacker ` Caucasian male, uh, long brown hair, riding on a trail bike in the area. They said the DNA sample I gave didn't rule me out as the offender. The Crown reckoned that I had a big window of opportunity to commit the attack. Being in court and going up for it and knowing you didn't do it, I mean,... you keep waiting for it to just be over and you're free to go, sort of thing. But that's not what happened. I asked him if he wanted us to go down there and he said no, said, 'It'll be fine.' We all believed this, because we knew it was wrong. We never believed that he would be found guilty. Do you the jury find the defendant, Aaron Farmer, guilty or not guilty on the charge of rape? We find the defendant guilty. It was a Friday. It was gonna be a long weekend, you know, three-day weekend. Jury was out for a few hours and they came back with a guilty verdict. Well, the phone rang and it was Aaron. And he said, 'Mum, they've found me guilty.' I said, 'They couldn't have.' He said, 'Yeah. They've found me guilty.' I said, 'Aaron, you've got it wrong.' 'No, they've found me guilty.' And I was, like, in shock. DOOR CREAKS, SLAMS And then I was led off, and, yeah, locked up. FOOTSTEPS RETREAT UNEASY MUSIC They allowed me to make one phone call. I made it to my mum, and, yeah. I told Mum, 'They found me guilty.' I just didn't know what to say. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I did not know what to say. And Aaron, he was just` you could tell by his voice, he was so unbelieving that he didn't believe what he was saying either. KEYS RATTLE LATCH CLICKS He was sentenced the standard, uh, sentence for a rape, which is eight years. It's a long time to be sitting in a concrete cell as a convicted rapist. Uh, it's a terrible time. First few days, I was kind of in shock, and... (INHALES) when I got a piece of paper from my lawyer saying I had no grounds for appeal and he'd signed off, I was like, 'OK. Where do I go from here and what the fuck I do? How`? What's`? What's next?' KEYS RATTLE, DOOR SLAMS First nights weren't so great. Uh, it was scary for a while, but you know, just gotta get through it. In some cases, you see someone bloody go over and smack someone in the face. You saw nothing. That's the best way to play it. You see nothing. In some cases, you` most cases, you keep to yourself and you survive. Oh, I got a phone call from Aaron one day, and I was in the kitchen doing the dishes at the time. And,... yeah. He said that, um, he's been convicted. So I said` I was going, 'What? They said what? How can that be DNA evidence if it's not yours?' He said, no, the guy that interviewed him said they had DNA evidence on` of Aaron's on him` on the lady` on the girl that, um` who got attacked. So, yeah, um... Well, I said, 'Well, that can't be true. 'If he hadn't done it, how can there be DNA evidence?' And then he said, 'Nah, they're framing me.' I'd just lost my son... to something that I knew was wrong. That's what got me and it got him. It was wrong. Here it was. This whole situation was wrong. Um, the` the lawyer had failed him dismally. He didn't do his job properly. And he rung me from jail. And, um, yeah, Aaron was very, very, very, very sad, um, quiet, and, um... Yeah, I hadn't heard him like that for a long time, so... Um, yes. And then he just started gettin', um, less and less, um... He was withdrawing himself after a while, so... The calls were gettin' further and further apart. BIRDS CHIRP I started writing letters. I decided it was time he came home. I started pushing. 'I want him home. I want him transferred.' And I gave 'em good reasons. I thought, 'Well, if I can get him closer to home, then we can talk and then we can work out a battle plan.' Cos that was one thing for sure ` there was gonna be a battle plan. Finally, we got him transferred to Whanganui. And then Ian and I went up and saw him twice a month. He would talk to me, but you could see it was getting more and more hopeless. And then one day, he just stopped talking. Well, I felt like nobody was listening, so why say anything? UNEASY MUSIC There was some competition between one bunch of guards in one place. If they get me to say something, it'd be a chocolate fish for them. They get a chocolate fish` The one who could get me to say somethin' gets a chocolate fish. Yeah. No one collected. Eventually, Aaron ended up in a unit in` in Whanganui who had a guy that was managing it` He was amazing. He really was amazing. He'd talk to us. He'd tell us things. If Aaron stopped eating, he would tell me. And if there was something else that was going on or going wrong for Aaron, he'd say, 'I just want to talk to you before Aaron comes out.' All this. And he would tell me things. He was amazing man. I'd never hit this before. It was all, you know, 'them and us' attitude. Um, this guy was real. And I said to him` I was mad as hell, and I snapped one day, and I said, 'He needs a lawyer!' And I walked out the door. Oh, that's right, I said, 'He needs a lawyer. You find him one.' TENSE MUSIC It came to me as an assignment from, um, a legal services agency. When I arrived, he was in, uh, the maximum security wing out there, so it's a bit of a process to get in there. There are gates` electronic gates to be opened and things. And the receiving, uh, prison officer, before I saw Aaron, said to me, um, something to the effect of, 'You know, he's not gonna talk to you.' (LAUGHS) Um, and I said, 'Really?' and he said, um` what I understood was that, um, Aaron, when he had been convicted, had, as a protest against the conviction, refused to talk to anybody ` prison officers, anyone. And so he said I may not` may not get much out of him. And, um` And that's exactly what I encountered when I spoke with Aaron. Good morning, Aaron. Good morning, Aaron. DOOR SQUEAKS So, um, I went in to see him and, um, he had taken a vow of silence as a protest against his, uh, wrongful conviction. Yeah. The lawyer had come to the prison and wanted to talk to me. I, um, wrote some notes. You know, didn't talk to him, just wrote some notes. I knew he was hearing what I was saying and understanding it, and I got his contribution to the discussion in writing. It didn't faze me. My` My main objective was to make sure he understood me and I understood him. And if I could do that within` with him, uh, retaining integrity with what he'd promised himself that he was gonna do, which was not talk, then that was fine. That didn't bother me. Aaron's guilt or innocence wasn't my primary focus. My focus as an appellant lawyer was whether or not he'd had a fair trial. And I was particularly interested in the Crown and defence closings which focused on a window of opportunity within which it was alleged that Aaron had committed, uh, the rape. And,... uh, when I went back through the defence file, or, you know, the rest of the file, um, I found a statement from Peter Burgess, which pretty much seemed to close that window, and it surprised me that he hadn't been called at the trial. At the time this female was attacked, I was with Peter Burgess. First lawyer didn't really properly attempt to contact Peter Burgess or call him as a witness. A key witness that could've fuckin' saved me from being locked up, my lawyer didn't call. Had have I brought to court, that` that` I probably would've swayed the jury... to say he was not guilty. But I was not asked to go to court or anything. I was just left out of the story, sort of thing. I had his, uh` where he worked, which was easy to find in Ashburton. At that time, he had worked there for 26 years or thereabouts. So I just phoned his work, and the supervisor put him on the phone, and I spoke with Peter Burgess. Lance, um, obviously gave me a call. He was a defence lawyer, um, asking about Aaron Farmer, how I knew him. And I said, well, what happened that night and how we were minding our own business to start off with, that we came across Aaron. Aaron was on the side of the road, obviously, looking at his bike. And then if Peter Burgess was with him for 30 minutes or thereabouts, which is what he said, then the 40 minute window of opportunity disappeared completely, and on that basis, um, he had an alibi. He` He couldn't have been in Sydenham committing a rape when he was talking to Peter Burgess in Manchester St. BELL CHIMES Aaron was brought to the High Court in Auckland, which is where the appeal was held, and I went down to the cellar area at the court to talk with him. And` And, uh, I said to him, um, 'Now, Aaron, I know why you've not wanted to talk,' and that I respected that, but, uh, that day I needed him to talk and I needed to hear` hear him, I needed to hear what he had to say, um, cos up to then, he hadn't spoken a word to me. And, um, I said, 'When we get upstairs, you'll be giving evidence, and I need to hear you talk.' And so he spoke to me for the first time in the cells at the, um, High Court in Auckland. The key points that I recall the trial lawyer saying in the appeal, uh, about why he didn't call Peter or didn't even contact him, was he... did not consider his evidence sufficiently, uh, exact about timing to call him as a witness for timing. LAUGHTER, CHATTER From where I stood, uh, Peter was a very important witness. The findings were that the appeal was allowed and a retrial was ordered. So the, um` Aaron's conviction for rape was quashed, um, and the Court of Appeal, uh, ordered that there be a second trial. I'd been inside for over two ye` two years and three months. My conviction was quashed and a retrial was ordered, and I got released the next day. Now, kind of in shock, but, yeah. TENSE MUSIC Mum actually got a phone call, I think, um, 'Come and pick me up.' And that was, like, yeah, only the night before or that morning or something. 'Come and pick me up.' I was being released. Prison rang me that` one morning and said, 'Aaron has a Court of Appeal. He's being released this morning. 'Can you come and get him?' I said, 'Yep!' like a shot. I wasn't a Christchurch lawyer. I needed to find a decent lawyer for him in Christchurch to make sure that he had the best opportunity, uh, at a retrial, so that's how I came up with Simon. Simon Shamy rang me one day. I just got this phone call and he said, um, 'Good morning, Mrs Farmer. 'I'm Simon Shamy.' He said, 'I'm going to be doing Aaron's case in Christchurch.' I spoke to Bev, uh, and I organised to get bail. A bit difficult being home, you know, a bit different again, trying to figure out what the` how we were` how we were going from there. SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC Brought him home, and then we were peaceful, and, I dunno, about four nights later, we get this bang on the bloody door, about 2 o'clock in the morning. 'Who the hell's that?' I said. Out we got. Woke Ian up. Woke me up. There's policemen on the other side. I said, 'What are you doing here?' 'We've come to bail check on Aaron.' 1 o'clock in the morning, they'd come crunching up the driveway and bang on the door to make sure he was home. And, obviously, um, Aaron's parents aren't terribly young, uh, and with that happening all the time, it was causing quite a problem, so we had to try and get that curfew taken out of his bail. Eventually, we went up to the High Court on appeal, and the High Court judge deleted that curfew condition. We organised that I'd fly up, um, to where they lived and` and meet with Aaron in person. On the way in to the airport, I had talked very seriously to Aaron. I said, 'Aaron, this is our last chance. If you don't talk to him, we're sunk. 'You've got to talk to him.' He was a very angry young man when I first met him. He was kinda fuming and didn't wanna talk, and, uh, he was, basically, I think, thinking it was pointless speaking to another lawyer. Uh, and so it took a wee while to get him going. And eventually I sort of said to Aaron, 'You know, I can only be as good as you'll let me be. 'You've got to trust me and let me help you in this,... 'because I think there's been something go horribly wrong, and you've gotta talk to me about this.' And eventually, I think after a cup of tea and a cream bun, uh, Aaron started talking to me. And, uh, yeah, we talked, I took some notes, and, uh, once he started talking, he didn't really stop. I ended up talking to Simon because he actually seemed to be someone who would get somewhere and seemed to be motivated to do a job and actually get the right answer, get the right result. Well, the first thing I had to do was look at the evidence of the first trial, and the more I looked at it, the more I went, 'It just doesn't stack up.' Once I became aware, obviously, there was an alibi or there was someone placing Aaron in a different part of the city, then the timing of that placement became relevant, and then the timing of the attack became very relevant. We didn't know exactly when the 111 call was made, so I had to get that from the police, write to the police and get that. And once I got that, then I had a definite point as to where we could go back from. PHONE: Police. Where is your emergency? Well, my friend's just come home from the club, and she's a real mess, saying she's been raped. She's saying she's been raped? Yep. Yep. Do you know whereabouts this happened? Uh, walking down Colombo St. And about how long ago? And about how long ago? Oh, oh, could've been 10 minutes ago, half an hour. We have a 111 call at 2.53am, and she says it took about 10 minutes after the attack to get back to where the call was made, and she was at that place for, at most, 10 minutes before making the call. Then that puts the end of the attack somewhere between about 2.33 and 2.38. And then we have Aaron, of course, uh, at a petrol station, according to the service station attendant, at 2.40. Uh, and then we have his alibi witnesses saying they were with him till about 2.30, but obviously the jury in the first trial never got to hear any of that. Obviously, they left me off` out of the picture altogether, even though I was a perfect alibi, cos we definitely saw Aaron. Me and my workmates, we saw Aaron that night at` at that time... at 2 o'clock in the morning. We saw him on the street off Manchester St at the Avon River bridge. Well, he can't be at two places at once. That's obvious. It's almost impossible for him to have left his friend, got the bike going properly, uh, and ridden the other end town, committed the offence after driving past her twice, put everything back on and then been back at the Mobil service station where he was seen by the attendant at 2.40am. Then it became obvious there were problems from the Crown's case in that it just didn't look like Aaron. The attacker was described as wearing a grey and white top and black dress pants. I was wearing a one-piece bike suit. It's hard enough to get your bloody, uh, wanger out to take a piss than bloody attack some female in it. The attacker's helmet was white with blue stripes. My helmets were plain white. The attacker's bike had white mudguards. My bike was a bright blue and black trail bike. Her attacker had trouble starting his motorbike. Aaron had problems but a very different sort with his bike. It wasn't a problem with the motor starting or running. It was a problem that the chain on the sprocket of his motorbike wasn't fitting well, and he needed that tightening up. The, uh, attacker smelt of alcohol and cigarettes. I hardly drink, and I don't smoke. (SCREAMS) HISS! MAN YELLS During the attack, she burnt her attacker's face with her cigarette that she was carrying, and this caused the attack to stop. Um, so Aaron, of course, is shown on camera footage after the time of the alleged, uh, attack, but he's got no burn on his face. And obviously no one who saw him in the subsequent days mentions him having a cigarette burn on his face. I had no marks on my face when I was interviewed, because I wasn't the person who attacked her. < ...that could explain why your DNA has ended up here. The police weren't terribly accurate, uh, in some of the things they said to Aaron. < There's only one way that that could happen, isn't there? The DNA was inconclusive, uh, because there wasn't enough of the sample under either the complainant's fingernails or in her cervix. Um, so it really was neutral in terms of the first trial. Simon, um, called me up to his office and showed me the piece of paper about the, um` uh, about some stuff on DNA testing, some new testing that was being done. DNA analysis had progressed significantly since the first trial, and although there wasn't sufficient sample to definitively say whose DNA it was, it was sufficient to eliminate somebody from the DNA profile. So Aaron was` his DNA and the DNA, uh, from the complainant was re-compared by ESR, and that showed there were differences between Aaron's DNA and the DNA of the man, uh, whose DNA was under the complainant's fingernails and in her cervix. So that showed reasonably conclusively that it couldn't have been Aaron who was the attacker. And when eventually the Crown gave me the results, uh, it became pretty clear that it wasn't Aaron. So that was the silver bullet, really. ENGINE HUMS So added to the alibi and all the other differences, uh, that led to the Crown agreeing that the charges could be dismissed. I was rapt for Aaron, and so I rang them and let them know and said, 'This charge is gonna have to go away now.' And, uh, it did. So on the fact that it was, you know, case dismissed, um, the feeling was like, 'Where does that leave me?' Cos it didn't actually leave me with a guilty or not guilty verdict. It was 'case dismissed', withdrawn. I mean, where does that leave somebody? < Think they're gonna put water meters in here eventually. < Think they're gonna put water meters in here eventually. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) BEV: It was amazing. But Aaron said, like, 'Now what do I do?' It's sort of, like, here you are, you're on` you're on a high, going forward all the time, then suddenly, the wave's dropped, and you're sort of standing there. What are you gonna do now? I wanted it definitively proved and stuff that I didn't do it, cos I knew I didn't do it, and I just wanted to prove first of all that I didn't do it, and that was it. We had to get Aaron into an exceptional category where, effectively, we could prove beyond reasonable doubt that he was innocent. So, of course, that's very difficult, but we had the DNA. So we went through the process. Uh, the Crown law, representing the government, opposed compensation and said, 'Oh, look, you know, you can't be sure.' And, uh, eventually, uh, Robert Fisher QC, who was appointed by the government to look into it, he reached the conclusion that Aaron had proved his innocence beyond reasonable doubt and awarded Aaron some compensation. TV: Aaron Farmer today received an apology and more than $350,000 in compensation. TV: He served two years, three months, after being found guilty of raping a 22-year-old woman in Christchurch in 2003. Today the government formally apologised and acknowledged there was a wrong to be put right. We have a very strong and fair justice system in NZ, but occasionally, uh, it gets things wrong. And it's an important point today that the Crown fronts up > and fairly compensates Mr Farmer. HOPEFUL MUSIC Then all of a sudden, I see this article on the front page about Aaron Farmer. I knew that he wouldn't be wanting to do that crime, cos he's not that way inclined to do a rape. Aaron was nowhere like that and never would do that. This is the house I bought with the money I got from compensation. Still isn't finished. It's a work in progress. HOPEFUL MUSIC CONTINUES Kinda changed me a bit. You know, I'm more bitter, a little more angry, but,... yeah. Well, he's a very trusting kind of person, and he's a very literal sort of person, so he very much trusted the police, he very much trusted the whole system, saying to himself, 'I'm innocent. What have I got to lose? I'm gonna help and cooperate. 'I'll give my DNA, I'll make a statement, I'll leave it to my lawyer.' And, uh, unfortunately, the system failed him. REPORTER: Police also admitted fault. At the time, they lied, telling Aaron his DNA had been found on the victim. We know that our interviews are subject to scrutiny. Uh, they're gonna be checked by the courts, and the courts have told us, 'Don't mislead suspects.' So to do it is just dumb. The only reason I fought was because they were wrong. If it hadn't have been Aaron and I'd had been close to somebody else, I'd have still fought. If they're wrong, they're wrong. ENGINE HUMS I got angry. I ended up with high blood pressure, heart condition. It's all stress cos, that's what caused it. Uh, with Ian, it cost him two heart attacks. Never be over. No, it never is. It never is. It's never over, because the damage, it's done. It'll be with him for the rest of his life now, cos... being in jail for a thing you didn't do, well, that's gonna take a toll whether you like it or not. I think Aaron, um, isn't so trusting of the system any more. Um, I think, emotionally, it's been a real hard toll on him. Um, I think it's made him a little bit dis` more distant from people as well. I don't know what the real reason is, you know. May have seen me as an easy target. I don't know what the excuse was, but,... (SIGHS) yeah. Still would like the actual cops to explain why they followed through on stuff when there wasn't any evidence, really. There was no evidence, cos I didn't do it. Certainly, the flags` the red flags were there that Aaron was a` was a vulnerable, um, person, and perhaps some care needed to be taken with how you take instructions from him, how you run his case. Um, and, uh` And as a` as a defence lawyer, you've gotta be on your guard... that you don't let the personal characteristics of your client, um, influence the way you do your job. In other words, that you properly assess the evidence, properly assess the witnesses who are available and make sure they get a fair trial, which is really what your job fundamentally is. It's impacted hugely on his parents. They've had graffiti sprayed on their fence about rapists. They've been stopped in shops and told that, you know, 'Your son's a rapist'. Uh, Aaron's been talked to like that. Aaron's down in The Warehouse, and his cousin and wife turned up in The Warehouse, and they made a big scene, and they were telling people in the shop that Aaron was a rapist and all this stuff. This is our own cousin. One of my sibling's sons... told, uh, other people that he was, uh` that he was a rapist and everything. People's normal reaction is if the police have moved in, then there's something going on. Therefore, they must be guilty. That's how the` That's normal human reaction. It's been a huge thing. And even since, uh, he was discharged, people have said, 'Oh, you got off on a technicality.' And that's why it was so important to Aaron and his mum and dad, more than the money, for the police to acknowledge that he was innocent. Because even after the discharge, the police were still very quiet about it. So part of the package that Aaron got was something from the police saying they accept he is innocent, so that when the people say, 'Oh, you had a smart lawyer. You got off on a technicality,' he's got something from the police that says, 'You are innocent.' Well, the fact is I was locked up for a crime I didn't do, which means someone else did it, which means they're still out there, cos it's now case closed. From what I was told before, it's case closed, ain't going any further with it, which means someone out there attacked this female and got away with it. My name is Aaron Lance Farmer. On the 18th of May 2005, I was convicted of rape and sentenced to eight years in prison. I am innocent. Captions by Jake Ebdale. Edited by Ashlee Scholefield. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015