1 My name is George Gwaze. I was tried in 2008 and again in 2012 for the rape, sodomy and murder of my adopted daughter Charlene. This is my story. (INTENSE MUSIC) (GURNEY RATTLES) (INTENSE MUSIC CONTINUES) (INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER) The police were bringing into the picture that, you know, the injuries were horrendous, as if there was an object used to inflict those injuries, and, uh, you know, asking me what I know about that. George, did you go into Charlene's room? He said, 'Your sperm has been found on Charlene's underpants.' And he told me I was going to be charged and from there I was going to the holding cells. (TAPE REWINDS) (PANTS) On January the 6th 2007, Sifiso woke up wanting to use the bathroom. I heard, um, uh, loud, heavy breathing from Charlene's room, where she was sleeping. She pulled her blankets off, and that's when we saw that Ch` Charlene was covered in diarrhoea. (TENSE MUSIC) I told my wife that, 'Look, quickly, let's dress up. 'We have to take her to the 24-hours clinic as soon as possible.' When Charlene arrived at the 24-hour clinic, she was virtually dead. She had no recordable blood pressure, and her pulse was really thready, she was deeply unconscious, and her temperature was over 40 degrees. ...urgent medical call stat to Resus. The nurse called an ambulance to send her to the Christchurch Hospital at 10 minutes past 7. I travelled with her in an ambulance, so as soon as we got to ED, Christchurch Hospital, they took over. Charlene was clearly in shock when she arrived at Christchurch Hospital. Uh, her` her body was basically shut down. Uh, and she had been` uh, there had been diarrhoea pouring from her. She'd lost a lot of fluid. And` And she was very unconscious. She had, you know, tubes, and, uh, you know, they were trying to resuscitate her with oxygen mask, uh, you know. You know, different, uh, nurses and doctors doing this and that and that. Charlene arrived in the intensive care unit at 11am. A large number of clinical staff raced to help, uh, with resuscitation. (MONITOR BEEPS STEADILY) I was living on my own here in Auckland, and my older sister, Lillian, called me. All she said is, 'Nyasha is very sick. Please pray for her.' When I went to the hospital, I didn't get to see Charlene, but, um, they were saying it was pretty bad. And they were saying that they were now taking her to Starship Hospital. I thought, 'Oh, that... (INHALES DEEPLY) sounds serious, 'but that means my mum is coming over to Auckland.' And she was going to fly over with Charlene and, uh, my brother Tafadzwa. I thought, you know, it would be proper for me to clean up... to clean up the mess before I go to Auckland. So we went` we went back to our place, and I decided, um, with the help of Lillian, that, you know, I better clean up, uh, the diarrhoea. All the bed linen, it had been soiled, and all the clothes, you know, she was wearing. Just after 1pm, there was a really significant change in the presumptive diagnosis of Charlene. Uh, some nurses saw what they described as a large tear to her rectum, and therefore they thought that the septic shock she was clearly suffering from, um, must have been caused from, uh, a tear to the inner bowel, and to have got this sort of tear, there must have been some form of violent, blunt trauma. (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) This doctor, she phoned, um, asking me if I'd seen any blood on Charlene's, uh, clothes or sheets, and it's like, 'No, I told you that I do not. I'm with Lillian here. 'We've both checked. There's no blood. 'The only thing which we have seen is, like, you know, all this faecal` faecal matter.' When we got back to the hospital, you could tell that, you know, things have changed ` their attitudes towards us. Charlene was deeply hypoxic. That means she wasn't getting any oxygen to her brain and her other vital tissues. And the original, uh, reason for this was thought to be septic shock. When they found that there was no tear to the bowel, the diagnosis then moved to potential suffocation. It appeared that Charlene had suffered a very severe sexual assault, and this would have been extremely painful and caused her to cry out, and so, uh, to` to prevent her making any noise, she may well have had a pillow or something put over her. NOTHANDO: At that time, none of the doctors were explaining to us exactly what the wound was about, and everybody was, sort of, in a room, um, just waiting to hear what was happening with Charlene. They did a large number of tests, and, um, one of those was that they looked for HIV. We were told by one of the doctors that, you know, her blood, you know, has been tested, and she has been found to be HIV positive, and that was a great surprise. We` I looked at my wife, and I said, 'Oh my God. That's terrible.' My thoughts was, 'How could she have got it?' And then the doctor was explaining that, uh, uh, you know, 'In this instance, what we can say is your daughter could have got this at birth.' NOTHANDO: I started crying, because I just couldn't believe everything that was being said. When Charlene's mother and father passed away, um, it wasn't made known to us that they had died of HIV. So in the meantime, the, uh, doctor and nurse from Starship had flown down in the helicopter. Uh, they came and looked at Charlene and examined her and decided that there was nothing that they could do up in Auckland, that she was, um, inevitably going to die and so there was no point in transferring her to Starship. Eventually I got hold of my brother, George Jr, and he said something like, 'She's on life support, and she's not coming to... 'to Auckland any more.' And it hit me then that life support means... it can be switched off. Late in the afternoon, about 4.15, the family were told that there was` uh, there had been found a se` severe injury to the anal and rectal region and that the police were now involved and there was going to be an investigation. They were saying, you know, it was a bad anal injury then. Well, I cast doubt on that. I said, 'How could it have happened?' To hear that they had seen a wound on her, it` it came as a really big shock. I just couldn't understand what they were saying. I insisted to this doctor that, 'Can I see the injury you're talking about?' Cos I knew there wouldn't have been an injury they are talking about, but she` she... she said, 'No, you can't.' I went home and stayed at home, because I was phoning, uh, back to Zimbabwe, you know, telling them about what had happened to our daughter, Charlene. And I heard a` I heard a knock on the door. And there were policemen. (UNSETTLING MUSIC) They asked me to accompany them to the police station, and, uh, I was, uh, taken into a room, where I was, uh, told that they're going to in` uh, interview me and, uh, whatever I say will be used in a court of law and all that. DISTORTED VOICE: For the benefit of the tape, can you please tell me your full name? George Evans Gwaze. They were saying, uh, 'Do you think there could have been intruders?' I didn't. 'I am the one who locks all the doors at night, 'and I check all the windows that I've closed,' so, uh, I don't think there could have been anyone who could have got into the house. And the police were bringing into the picture, that, you know, you know, the injuries were horrendous, as if, you know, there was an object used to inflict those injuries, and, uh, you know, asking me what I know about that. And I was saying, 'No, no, no. I know nothing about it. 'You are telling me about those wounds. I haven't seen those wounds. It's you who is telling me.' (ELECTRONIC CRACKLING) 1 (MONITOR BEEPS STEADILY) 10pm, there was a formal examination conducted of Charlene, um, and first of all, the paediatric surgeon, uh, looked at the anal and rectal area, um, noticed, um, uh,... the abnormal findings. Uh, there was some discharge coming from the anal region. Um, and he took a lot of` took some photographs and some swabs. Uh, and then the, um, Doctors for Sexual Abuse Care, um, doctor, uh, conducted a forensic examination of the genital region. They think it was around 23 hours. That's when they decided to show me the so-called injury. So they just, you know, rolled her on the side and showed me, but to me it didn't make any sense at all, because I was expecting that, you know, I will see a big... a big gash, but it was sort of reddish. You couldn't tell, really, what it was all` all about. You know, because I thought now I was going to see a big` a big thing. NOTHANDO: My initial interview with the police was actually at the Christchurch Hospital. Um, and this was around 11pm on the Saturday night. We were each called into different rooms to be interviewed by the police. Charlene's, uh` uh, condition was deteriorating, and this woman ` you know, the police ` you know, she couldn't let me go, because she kept on saying, 'I still have further questions to ask you.' So by the time, you know, she released me, it was between 10 and 15 minutes with Charlene, and she was gone. (SOMBRE MUSIC) Charlene died at, uh, 1 minute past 1 on the 7th of January 2007. When Charlene died, I was with the police. They were actually interviewing me at the police station in Christchurch. After the interview, I was taken to the hospital to meet others and see Charlene. But then that's when I was told that, you know, uh, our girl has passed away. (SOMBRE MUSIC CONTINUES) My wife was so distraught. Um... She couldn't believe what had happened, and everybody, you know, was so sad. (MUSIC SOFTENS) It was so bad, and I remember Nothando wasn't there. Nothando was at the hospital, but she was being, uh, interviewed. And George Jr was at the police station. (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) The detective that was interviewing me got a knock on the door, and he just walked back in the room and told me, 'Oh, by the way, your sister is gone.' That` Those were his words. I` I just couldn't believe it. I didn't think it would get that bad. I was devastated. Um,... it hurt so bad, and I just said to him, 'Can I please be with my family?' And at that point, he said, 'No, we have to finish this.' After the hospital, we were told that we had to talk to the police again. We were exhausted. We went to the police station. So, the forensic pathologist had been rung before Charlene died by some of the hospital staff and told that there was a case of rape and murder that was going to be referred to him. And after she had died, he turned up, uh, met with the... uh, some of the other doctors who'd been looking after her, and then at 10am, he started to perform the autopsy. The autopsy noted that none of the findings that they` that it had revealed could actually have been the cause of death, and they didn't find any specific evidence of suffocation. However, you don't always find evidence of suffocation at autopsies, so they couldn't actually rule that out. The next morning, we woke up, and in the newspaper, it was all... it was` that was the headlines ` that Charlene had been murdered and that there was a homicide investigation. I was picked up from the airport. I was surprised that I was taken to Lillian's house. I was told that the... house my parents had been living in was now a crime scene and it had been closed off to the family and the family had been asked to leave. And I just went and cried in my` you know, buried my head in my mum's lap, and I cried. It was reported in the media that the police had found, uh, no evidence of an intruder into the house and therefore the implication that, uh, it must be a family member who was implicated in this, uh, assault. On the 9th of January, um, CYFs got an order that I could no longer stay with my family, so I had to go and stay with another Zimbabwean family. SIFISO: It was terrible. It was terrible. At that time, I was still 12. (TENSE MUSIC) The police officers came, um, where I was staying. They said that, 'Because your sister died of HIV, you now need to get tested.' So my mum went with me to the hospital, and we also went with some police officers. While I was waiting for the results, it was excruciating, just because I thought that I might be in the same situation as my sister, that maybe in two days' time I might not be here and it's going to be two funerals, and I just felt like, 'I don't think my mum can handle this.' The nurse told me that I was HIV negative. (TENSE MUSIC PEAKS, FADES) So when they were now dropping off my mum, I wanted to say hi to my family, and the police officer said, 'No, you can't.' So that's when it became apparent to me that I'm actually no longer allowed to be around my family and I actually can't live with them any more. In her situation ` you know, she's lost, you know, both parents, and she has lost her sister ` she needed, you know, to be with the whole family ` with us. I felt like everything was just... crumbling, just because, um, I'd just lost my sister, and I needed my family to comfort me. I think after some days, I learnt about, uh, C-Y-F, that that's what they do if they suspect, you know, there's abuse of children in the family ` they remove the children. I know Charmaine was never abused, Charlene was never abused, but if it's the rule, how things are done, you have no choice. We only had two males in the house ` George Jr and me ` and the police was trying to make out who could have done that to Charlene. (ELECTRONIC CRACKLING) My son George Jr and I were the two main suspects for the rape and murder of my daughter Charlene. We have never been involved with the police before, even` I mean, take, for example, myself. I have never even had a speed ticket from the police. (TAPE REWINDS) (SOFT PIANO MUSIC) Before Charlene died, life had been tough, all right, but it was good. I grew up in Zimbabwe. I trained as a veterinarian. After a two-year stint in Botswana, I registered with the University of Liverpool in the UK for my Master's in Veterinary Science. Charlene and Charmaine were, uh, the daughters of, uh, my wife's sister. When their parents passed away, I actually took them as my own daughters, and I treated them as my own children. They treated us all equally. In fact, I think we were actually more spoiled than the others. Charlene came` joined our family when she was a baby. She couldn't pronounce her R's, and she spoke in a really tiny voice. So she'd say 'lowwy' or 'sowwy' even until she was 10, which I thought was super cute. Back home, things were not looking all right. NOTHANDO: There was shortages of food, fuel. People would line up to get money at banks. I needed my children to have good education, to continue with their education. Um` Um,... I decided, you know, I need to` to go somewhere, and I found New Zealand very attractive. For us, it was just the biggest thing ` you know, telling your friends that you're leaving to go to a better country. We were all in New Zealand for a year and a half before everything, you know, started, uh,... turning upside down. Charlene was, uh, you know, sickly at times, especially when it was cold. You know, she would cough. In 2005, um, Charlene was really unwell most of the time. She would complain a lot to my parents that she wasn't well, and as a result, she couldn't` she missed a lot of days at school. Um, but my mum and dad were constantly talking to her teachers and making sure that she could keep up with her schoolwork. As far as we were concerned, Charlene had died from natural causes, and we thought` naively thought that the sooner we answer the questions, and, uh, tell them everything they need to know, then they will quickly get to the bottom of this and realise that, 'Hang on. This child died from natural causes.' The police were at the funeral. The police were there. SIFISO: It wasn't a proper funeral. In my, uh, tradition, you know, when somebody passes away and before you bury him or her, you just have to view the body and give your last respects. But in this case, we were not allowed. NOTHANDO: They had her body sealed in a body bag, and that really hurt. It's something that doesn't happen in our culture. They said that her body had become infectious, therefore they had to seal the bag. Well, you know, hundreds of people die of HIV-related deaths in Africa and in other parts of the world, and their` their bodies are not sealed in body bags because they've become infectious. (SOLEMN PIANO MUSIC) On the 24th of January 2007, we were allowed to return at our family home. There was a lot of graffiti on the fence. Um, we had letters in our letter box of people basically telling us to go back to our country. (MUSIC CONTINUES) There was this, uh, woman across the road. You should just eff off back to your own country! 'Each time she would see you,' like, you know, you're outside ` she would start, uh` she would tell you, 'You murderers.' That's the word, you know, she` she` she was using to us. 'You murderers. You leave this area.' You should just piss off back to your own country! The police, um, the one who was interviewing me was` he kept on saying that, you know, um, 'If you don't tell us the truth, you are going to lose your grandchildren.' It was a torture to us all that, you know, all the children were going to be taken away from their, uh, parents, they were going to stay with foster parents. NOTHANDO: They were just stopping anybody and everybody that was black and wanted to get information from them. MAGGIE: That's when we decided we'd get a lawyer. There was a breakthrough in the evidence when they had found sperm on Charlene's underpants and then profiled that it belonged to George Sr but not George Jr. The 2nd of February 2007, that's a day I'll never forget. The police rung my father, and they wanted him at the police station for more questioning. We waited in another room. I sat down. The policeman said, 'This is what happened.' I nearly stood from my chair. I said, 'What?' He said, 'Your sperm has been found on Charlene's underpants.' Are you try`? Are you trying me or something? DISTORTED VOICE: I'm not trying you. I'm asking you... Yeah. '...how your DNA, or sperm, could end up in Charlene's underpants.' Never. I said, 'That's a lie.' And he told me I was going to be charged and from there I was going to the holding cells. My family, they were somewhere in the reception. I never said goodbye. I got a call from my brother. He just said, 'Disaster. They've arrested Dad.' And I could not believe it. And next thing we know, they had released his name. Within a short period, um, I had been asked to take over the case. I'd read what everybody else had read in the paper ` that this was a, um` an overwhelming case where a very serious sexual assault and violent crime had been committed. Um, that was being stated as fact by the media. And, uh, I met a man who was very calm, very quiet, very considered. Almost immediately, it was very obvious that he was very educated. And it just didn't fit. Nothing felt right about it. Straight away, um, he made it very clear that he had` hadn't done anything to Charlene. When I first saw him in prison,... (HAUNTING MUSIC) ...it was a sad sight. I mean, seeing, you know, somebody in those, uh, prison` prison garbs. Back home, he was never near police stations, but here we are now in this country. I couldn't control my tears. I'd cry. On February 7 2007, I appeared in Christchurch, uh, District Court on charges of murder and two of sexual violation of a child, and I strenuously denied the charges. (ELECTRONIC CRACKLING) They thought I was a suicide risk. I spent 97 days in solitary confinement, and I tell you it was hell. In this tiny room, you know, I was kept for 23 and a half hours a day, and I was only allowed 30 minutes into a 2m2 quadrangle. I was not a suicide risk at all. (COMPELLING MUSIC) I used to think, you know, if Charlene is looking down upon us from heaven, where she is now, she would want` she would be wondering, 'What the hell is going on down there with my father?' I never saw my Dad when he was in prison, because I didn't want to. I would have found it really tough seeing him in an orange jumpsuit, and I think it would have been really difficult on him as well, us seeing him like that. I did, you know, miss my family very, very, very much. It was troubling me all the time. You know, that` uh` 'How are they coping?' My mum had all the stress on her, and so she was working really hard at the same time, trying to keep up with what was happening, and as a result, she got type II diabetes, and it was` I guess it was triggered by all the stress that she was under at that time. The prayers, the trials, you know, everything, it was just too much. And I believe it made me sick ` you know, all what I went through. The first significant appearance was the depositions hearing on the 16th and 17th of July ` a two-day hearing. Uh, just a handful of prosecution witnesses gave evidence, and, as was expected, on the 18th of July, George was committed for trial in the High Court at Christchurch. On the 29th of August 2007, my father was granted bail. Um, it was hard, though, because it was on condition that he went to Auckland and not be with us, because he would interfere with the Crown's witnesses, who were us. So my dad was bailed to me in Auckland. (INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER) He had a curfew from 7pm till 7am. They would come and check on me ` whether I was at the, uh, address. They would flash a light in my face. You thought after the first one, you know, you would go and sleep and rest. But within a short time, you know, somebody comes, do the same thing, just to check on you. Waiting for the first trial, I didn't know what to expect, so it was something of a torture in my mind. The first trial began on the 28th of April 2008. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) I believe cause of death was consistent... The Crown case was based solely on what we say was a misdiagnosis of trauma. We were concerned that there seemed to be a major tear to the anal area that we believe to have been caused by a blunt object. That diagnosis of a significant wound completely changed the outlook, um, from what was a` a case of a girl with an infection who was unwell and being treated for toxic shock. Uh, suddenly it was a criminal case. Jonathan Eaton actually, uh, put forward the argument that this was not a case of whodunnit; this was a case of a child who died from natural causes. When you're HIV positive, you are susceptible to a large number of very unusual and also very severe life-threatening infections. The Crown case was that, uh, Charlene had been suffocated in order to silence her. But there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Nothando was 25cm, 30cm away from Charlene when the police said this incredibly violent act took place. So for the police's theory to be right, uh, Nothando held the key. I shared the bedroom with Charlene. I slept 30cm away from her. I did not see anything or hear anything that night. The police were told by the Crown scientist ` the ESR scientists ` that, um, sperm had been discovered in Charlene's underwear. Originally, they talked about` there was, uh, it sounded like, a large glob of semen on the` on the underpants. Now, there actually wasn't any semen found. Uh, there was just one small component of semen. It was the actual sperm, and they found evidence of DNA from sperm. What was found in the crutch of the underwear equated to one 100,000th of a single grain of sugar. They didn't consider how that DNA may have got there and when it may have got there and where it actually came from. There is, uh, a body of scientific literature that shows that this does not necessarily mean sexual assault ` that sperm can be transferred, when you wash clothes, from one item to another, and so there was also, um, an innocent explanation. (INTRIGUING MUSIC) The Crown theory was based on this extraordinary proposition that, um, what he had done was explained by some tribal ritual out of Africa where men who have the HIV virus purge themselves, or cleanse themselves, of the virus by, um, having sex with virgins. DISTORTED VOICE: ...if you had sex with a virgin, that it would drive the AIDS away,... Yeah. '...because virgins were prized.' Mm-hm. We did call one witness who was a doctor, and the doctor's brief evidence was a single page that had about three lines in it. Uh, and it was a doctor who said, 'I tested George Gwaze for HIV, and he's negative.' We raised George's good character on the basis that for someone to do this, they're an evil monster, an evil predator, and there was absolutely nothing to support that proposition at all, and all the evidence about George was completely to the contrary. On the 21st of May 2008, the jury went out to deliberate. Uh, and I think it was about five hours later. There's the knock on the door. Uh, we all reassemble. I was not in panic. I didn't panic at all. I just said, 'Well, this is the moment. Let's hear what will come.' To each charge, the jury replied, 'Not guilty, 'not guilty and not guilty.' And that was a really, really big moment for my family. Everybody jumped up. We hugged each other. You know, we sobbed with happiness that, you know, everything is now over. The truth has come out. You know, these people, they've done their job. They've considered, you know, all the facts, you know. There's no bias on` uh, that, you know, we are` we are black. I looked at the judge, and I looked at the jury. I took three steps, walked in front of me. I bowed my head, looking towards them, and I said, 'Thank you.' (EXCITED SQUEALING) The family's joy was` was short-lived, because, uh, I think it was about nine months later, um, we received formal notification that the` uh, the Crown were intending to file an appeal with our Court of Appeal. I remember I went to Jonathan's, uh, office and just to have a chat with him, as we used to do, and, uh, he told me that, uh, 'Look, these people actually have, uh, filed an appeal,' and, uh, that was what was going to happen. I` I` I broke down, you know, in front of him. Two of the jurors had actually written directly to the court, uh, concerned to hear that the Crown were appealing. I told my wife, and, of course, she slumped, and, uh, we had been thinking, you know, 'Now we are going to be leading a normal life.' The first trial has ended, but now this. You know, we are starting all over again. (ELECTRONIC CRACKLING) 1 So, the second trial was held in a bigger courtroom at the Christchurch High Court. You know, just looking around us, it just looked so much more overwhelming. This time we just had to make sure, you know` uh, you know, the, um` the scientific evidence, it was going to be explained in simple terms to the jury, which was done very, very, very clearly by, uh, Professor Sebastian. Dr Sebastian Lucas, uh, is an English histopathologist, who is basically the world expert in HIV. As a histopathologist, he would, uh, take specimens and then look at them under the microscope. Dr Lucas was trying to explain that, you know, uh, what the medical people were seeing on Charlene was not something that was` that had happened from outside but something that was happening from inside her ` you know, uh, the disease process. Sebastian Lucas found two main things. One was, uh, that this was the most florid case of HIV he'd ever come across and that it was present in all the tissues that he looked at. But also what HIV can also do, as well as cause infections, is that it causes white cells called lymphocytes to infiltrate into the tissues. This causes the tissues to break down, and so what you could see was` you could see the lining of her rectum, uh, sort of bulging out. Uh, but, secondly, the lining wasn't your normal, uh, pink. It was bright red because of this infiltration from the lymphocytes and the effect of HIV destroying the tissue from the inside out. Dr Lucas had also saw some very severe consolidation and inflammation in the lungs that he said even in itself could potentially be a cause of death. In addition to Professor Lucas, um, there were three other, um, English-based experts, and they all concluded that Charlene presented with all the symptoms of toxic shock, sepsis, uh, and that there was no evidence of suffocation. On May 25th 2012, at the end of the trial, the judge directed the jury that, uh, critical to the Crown's case was whether, uh, they believed an object had been inserted, um` um, into Charlene, uh, and if that was the case, then George would be guilty. But if they believed there was no evidence of` of this type of trauma being inflicted, uh, then they could not find George guilty. (SOLEMN MUSIC) The jury went to deliberate, but this time they were out for, uh,... considerably a longer time. You can't eat. You can't` You can't eat properly. You can't function properly, cos you're just in limbo. It took about, uh, two and after three days, I think, and, of course, I mean, uh, you know, many things will be going into your head as to why. I got a text from my sister that the verdict` the jury was` was out, and so I rushed to the court as quickly as I could. And they delivered that, you know, I was not guilty on all the charges. I was acquitted on all charges. Well, as usual, we jumped that, you know, this is the last of the last. I said to myself, 'Justice has been done.' After the, um, second 'not guilty' verdict, um, the CYFs order was lifted, and I was now able to see my dad and also go back home. (CAR DOOR SHUTS) I think that was going into the third or fourth year without seeing her or touching or even talking to her. We celebrated when she joined us into the house, and that was really a happy moment. We were so happy to see her with us again. Since the, uh` the second trial, um, George had applied to join the rest of his family as New Zealand citizens. Um, ultimately, we asked the Ministry of Internal Affairs just to make a decision, uh, and, uh, George was granted New Zealand citizenship. (APPLAUSE) From a legal perspective, when you reflect on a case like this, there was extraordinary naivety, uh, in terms of trying to work out a theory of this case, and that` that had real racial overtones. Uh, there's` There's an established phenomenon of tunnel vision. Once people had this image in their mind of this really terrible-looking, uh, rectum that they thought was a terrible, gaping wound, then they couldn't actually step back again to saying, 'Well, not all the evidence actually fits this. 'What about the diarrhoea, what about the fever, uh, what about the motive? 'Uh, what about, uh, you know, no blood?' Once the semen belonging to Mr Gwaze was discovered on the underpants of Charlene, the whole scientific investigation started to come off the rails. It was all about proving that this got there by way of a sexual assault and that the little girl died from suffocation in order to, of course, explain away the 7.5cm tear to her anus, which was never there. Where it's broken down is at no stage did anybody step back and say, 'There's a real feature in the case we don't have experience about, and that's HIV.' And the Crown were content to call the clinicians who were effectively the treating clinicians and repackage them as independent, objective experts. One of the expert witnesses for the Crown was also, um, a senior doctor who'd looked after Charlene, and so this presented a real conflict of interest, uh, for this doctor. By describing what she saw, um, in her role as a` an expert witness, as a great, gaping wound, uh, she is effectively, um, telling the jury that this is definitely a case of, um` of physical assault. (POIGNANT MUSIC) It has really affected my life and my family's life. It so stressed my wife that, you know, she had to... go down with diabetes because of that ` because it was so stressful to her. It has affected my profession. NOTHANDO: My father worked hard to be who he is, and to think that he can't get a job because of people that got things so wrong... And up until this day, no one cares. It's like no one cares. JONATHAN: I don't believe any review has been carried out either by the police or by the Canterbury District Health Board or by the Crown Solicitor's Office here in Christchurch as to what went wrong. MAGGIE: I think from the very beginning, um, we were viewed as some monsters from Africa. Just recently, someone walked up to my mum in Christchurch and said, 'That's the wife of that man who killed that little girl.' NOTHANDO: They think he was just let off, um, because of, you know, legal technicalities. My name is George Gwaze. I was tried in 2008 and again in 2012 for the rape, sodomy and murder of my adopted daughter Charlene. I am innocent.