R v Cameron
[2025] NZHC 1575
•13 June 2025
THE 1975 SUPPRESSION ORDER ENDURES IN ACCORDANCE WITH [29]–[30] OF THIS JUDGMENT. IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND CHRISTCHURCH REGISTRY
I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA ŌTAUTAHI ROHE
CRI-2024-009-7035
[2025] NZHC 1575
THE KING v
ELLIOTT ALFRED JAMES CAMERON
Hearing: 13 June 2025 Appearances:
B Hawes for Crown
C M Ruane for Defendant
D Nilsson for Media Entities (via VMR)Judgment:
13 June 2025
ORAL JUDGMENT OF DUNNINGHAM J
[1] NZME Publishing Ltd, Stuff Ltd and Radio New Zealand (the media entities), seek an order under s 208 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 (CPA) revoking a suppression order which prevents this defendant being named or otherwise identified in relation to a 1975 proceeding in this Court (then the Supreme Court of New Zealand).
[2] In that proceeding, the defendant, Elliott Cameron, who was then aged 27, was found not guilty of the murder of his brother on the grounds of insanity.
R v CAMERON [2025] NZHC 1575 [13 June 2025]
Background
[3] Mr Cameron was one of two children, the other being Jeffery, who was six years younger than Mr Cameron.
[4] Mr Cameron had a normal life until he was 15, when it was discovered he had a brain tumour and required surgery to remove it. This surgery caused a marked personality change and in due course he was admitted to what was then known as Sunnyside Hospital because of behavioural concerns, including demonstrations of violence and aggression.
[5] Following initial admission in 1969, he was in and out of that hospital. In 1975, while on leave from hospital, and living between his parents’ house and the university halls of residence in Canterbury, he shot and killed his brother with a rifle while his brother slept.
[6] Mr Cameron was charged with murder and an initial suppression order was made by the presiding Magistrate on 22 September 1975 “prohibiting publication of the name of the defendant, the deceased, and the defendant’s father”.
[7] Following a short jury trial before Wild CJ, Mr Cameron was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was committed as a patient to Sunnyside Hospital. On the application of defence counsel, Wild CJ made an order “continuing suppression of name and any information that may lead to Mr Cameron’s identification”.
[8] Mr Cameron has resided in various institutions ever since although, since 2016, his status as a committed patient lapsed, but he remained living at Hillmorton Hospital as a voluntary patient pursuant to the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act 1992.
[9] On 4 October 2024 he killed an elderly woman, Frances Phelps, at her home in Mount Pleasant, Canterbury. He was subsequently charged with murder, pleaded
guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years, on 10 June 2025.1
Jurisdiction for the application
[10] The application to revoke the 1975 suppression order is brought by the media entities. They have standing to do so pursuant to s 210 of the CPA.
[11] While as the Crown submissions point out, there is no explicit power under the Criminal Justice Act 1954 (under which the order would have been made) to review or revoke suppression orders, there is now jurisdiction to seek to revoke a suppression order under s 208(1)(c) of the CPA. That section simply provides that a suppression order, “if it is made permanently, may be revoked by the Court at any time.”
[12] While this does not provide any constraints on how the revocation power is to be exercised, there is useful guidance in case law. Specifically, all counsel have referred me to the decision in NZME Publishing Ltd v R, where the Court of Appeal explained the approach to revocation of name suppression as follows:2
Because of the principles of freedom of expression and the requirements of open justice, the Courts are slow to grant permanent suppression. … [T]he threshold of a permanent name suppression has always been very high. It follows that good reason must be shown for the revocation of a permanent name suppression order. The passage of time in itself will not be a good reason. Nor will the type of changed circumstances which is the ordinary concomitant of the passing of time. A Court necessarily has those matters in contemplation when granting permanent name suppression. It also follows, we think, that something out of the ordinary, in other words exceptional, will need to be shown to justify revocation of the order.
Submissions
Submissions for the media entities
[13] The media entities submit that the threshold for revoking name suppression has been reached in this case. In summary they submit:
1 R v Cameron [2025] NZHC 1505.
2 NZME Publishing Ltd v R [2018] NZCA 363 at [18] (footnotes omitted).
(a)Mrs Phelps’ murder in substantially similar circumstances to the 1975 killing constitutes a fundamental change in circumstances justifying the Court revisiting the original suppression order. The 1975 killing is directly relevant to Mr Cameron’s sentencing for Mrs Phelps’ murder and forms important context for valid public concern about the adequacy of supervision and care of people suffering from mental illness that may cause them to pose a risk to the public.
(b)There is no justification for continuing it. It cannot be said that publication now is likely to cause any of the adverse consequences enumerated in s 200(2) of the CPA necessary to trigger the jurisdiction to suppress, and the apparent purpose of the original order is now spent. Any interest in finality cannot outweigh the compelling interest in publication now.
Submissions for the Crown
[14] The Crown, after also referring to the decision in NZME, says that in the highly unusual circumstances of this case, it does not oppose the revocation of the 1975 suppression order, despite the fact that it appears the Crown was in favour of suppression being granted in 1975.
[15] Mr Hawes submits that there is a genuine public interest in the case. He accepts that this is not exactly the same as the public interest identified in the NZME case, because it does not involve a repeat criminal offender as such. However, the fact Mr Cameron has killed twice, once as a young man and now as a much older man, means there is a legitimate public interest in considering his circumstances, including his treatment and status since being remanded as a special patient. Mr Hawes submits that this cannot be considered properly without having the detail of why Mr Cameron came to be in a state-run facility in the first place.
[16] Furthermore, he says there is nothing in Mr Cameron’s present circumstances which justify the continuation of the 1975 order. The family members who were protected by the order are now long since deceased and there is no-one else known
who could be described as a victim of the 1975 killing. In addition, the victims of the current offending, Mrs Phelps’ children, support the suppression order being revoked.
Submissions for the defendant
[17] Mr Ruane, for the defendant, seeks to distinguish the defendant in the NZME case who, despite being granted name suppression because of his youth, went on to continue to offend. The first set of offending in that case was intentional and Mr Ruane points out that the defendant was properly held criminally responsible for it. In contrast, Mr Cameron was not held criminally responsible for the 1975 killing, by reason of circumstances beyond his control. While Mr Cameron was not considered to meet the criteria for insanity in respect of the 2024 killing, both s 38 reports made it clear he has genuine and longstanding mental health issues which are beyond his control. Publication of his name and the circumstances of the 1975 trial will leave him open to prejudice as being considered a “multi-murderer”.
[18] Mr Ruane submits that the public interest in Mr Cameron’s history can be met simply by publication that he has a longstanding history of mental health issues, he was a longstanding inmate of various mental health facilities, and he was a resident of Hillmorton Hospital at the time of his offending in 2024.
[19] In Mr Ruane’s submission, Mr Cameron should not be described as a “repeat offender” and the legitimate public interest in how those subject to residential treatment under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act, are managed, and how the risks to the public are met (or not met) can properly be dealt with in other ways, without requiring publication of the circumstances under which Mr Cameron was detained in 1975.
Discussion
[20] While there is no formal record of the reasons for the making of the 1975 suppression order, the media entities have helpfully provided a contemporaneous news report on the hearing which records the following:
After Mr Erber applied for a final order suppressing accused’s name, His Honour said that it would be proper to make such an order in the interests
of this young man and his family. Usually, he was reluctant to make such an order because the public were entitled to know what went on in the Courts but there were cases such as this in which the public had no interest.
[21]In other words, as one would logically infer, the order was likely made to:
(a)protect the family’s privacy interests in what was no doubt a traumatic and devastating event for the family; and
(b)assist in Mr Cameron’s rehabilitation and reintegration, if that were possible, given he was found not guilty of murder on the grounds of insanity.
[22] The first interest to be protected is now no longer relevant. Mr Cameron’s parents are dead and sufficient time has passed (around 50 years), such that the likely impact of publishing the facts surrounding the tragic death of Mr Cameron’s brother will inevitably be less traumatic for any more distant family members.
[23] The second interest is the subject of a change of circumstances which can readily be described as “truly exceptional”. Although Mr Cameron has gone 50 years without fatally attacking someone, and has acquired no convictions in the interim, all that has changed with the murder of Mrs Phelps. There is inevitably huge public interest from both her family and the general public in understanding whether the risk Mr Cameron posed could have been identified and whether he was appropriately managed. That also feeds into a wider question about how such patients in general are managed and treated. That discussion can only take place with the full knowledge of Mr Cameron’s past involvement in a killing and the ability to frankly discuss why, despite that history, he was no longer seen as a risk to the general public.
[24] In my view, there is a material difference between that discussion taking place with the mere knowledge he had been detained as a special patient under the Mental Health Act 1969 and institutionalised ever since, and knowing that the detention was ordered as a result of an unprovoked killing of a family member. I also note that there is a pending coronial enquiry and reporting on that will be hampered if it is not possible to refer to the facts of the 1975 killing.
[25]As Mrs Phelps’ daughter Karen says, in an email to Crown counsel:
[w]ithout lifting the suppression, the media cannot fully report this story. Without full reporting, we cannot have an informed public or hold institutions accountable.
[26] In short, the reasons for making the order including the need to protect Mr Cameron’s privacy and allow him to lead as normal a life as possible without the stigma of being identified as someone who has killed, were entirely spent at the point he attacked and killed Mrs Phelps. Instead, the public interest, including the principle of open justice, requires the full facts of Mr Cameron’s history to be disclosed, allowing a free and frank exchange of opinions on whether the risk he ultimately proved to be, could have been identified sooner and managed better. The revocation of the order is also required to explain why the purpose of protecting the community was so central to the sentence I imposed on Mr Cameron for the murder of Mrs Phelps.
[27] While I am sympathetic to the risk that Mr Cameron might be incorrectly identified by the general public as a “double murderer”, I expect, as Mr Nilsson submitted, the news media will correctly report that he killed his brother but was not found guilty of this murder. The mere risk that members of the public may not appreciate the difference between a homicide and the offence of murder is an insufficient reason to retain the 1975 suppression order when none of the grounds for making a suppression order still exist, and when the public interest in the proper management of potentially dangerous individuals with mental impairments points strongly in favour of publication.
Conclusion
[28] Accordingly, the order made by this Court on 19 November 1975 suppressing the name of Elliott Cameron and any information that could lead to his identification as the killer is revoked. For completeness, and responding to an enquiry by Mr Nilsson, this means that the 1975 trial can be fully reported. I note it was fully reported at the time, with the only omission being the identity of the defendant and his family members.
[29] This order is to take effect from 5 pm on Monday 16 June 2025, to give Mr Ruane time to take instructions from Mr Cameron as to whether he would seek to appeal the revocation of the order.
[30] If Mr Ruane informs the Court prior to that time that an appeal will be pursued, then the 1975 order will remain on foot until either the expiry of the appeal period under s 285(2) or, if an appeal is filed, until it is finally determined.
Solicitors:
Crown Solicitor, Christchurch
Copy to:
C M Ruane, Barrister, Christchurch
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