NZ’s Most Contentious Police Operation
A new true crime podcast from RNZ. Image supplied.
Reporter
New Zealand is only one of a handful of countries in the world where ‘Mr Big’ police investigations are allowed.
Journalist and lawyer Stephen Price looks into the stories and failings of one of Aotearoa’s most controversial ‘Mr Big’ investigations in RNZ podcast Mr Lyttle Meets Mr Big.
In 2014, David Lyttle, a struggling builder in the little Manawatū town of Halcombe, answers a knock at his door. What happens then leads him into a shadowy criminal organisation that offers him friendship, a new job, and riches, in exchange for one thing: honesty.
Pressed by the organisation’s boss, David Lyttle confesses to murdering his friend Brett Hall three years earlier. He shows the boss where he buried the body parts. Then, his world explodes: he’s arrested and charged with murder. The whole thing was a police sting operation known as “Mr Big”.
And now David has confessed, or has he? The body parts aren’t there, and it starts to look like the confession doesn’t add up. The podcast contests the reliability of a confession which has been obtained by dangling prizes, and where it costs the suspect nothing to make up a story that the boss wants to hear.
This 11-part podcast follows the prosecution of David Lyttle through to the verdict and its aftermath, including a visit through the campsite in rugged bush land 30 km from Whanganui where David was building a house for his best friend Brett Hall who was dealing drugs, and told people he had a big deal coming up.
Mr Lyttle Meets Mr Big looks at the evidence pointing to David and a potential drug killing. Plus, the police’s astonishing failures to properly disclose evidence to the defence – even when that evidence pointed to another killer.
Mr Lyttle Meets Mr Big launches 14 June with a soundtrack and photography by Ebony Lamb.
Made for RNZ with the support of the Michael and Suzanne Borrin Foundation and Te Kauhanganui Tatai Ture, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Mr Lyttle Meets Mr Big is out on rnz.co.nz/mrbig and podcast platforms from Wednesday 14 June.
