In 1992, 46-year-old barrister John Burrett had not long opened chambers in Canterbury, Kent. That year there was a diary piece in The Times telling how he had bought a plane and would fly his clerk to chambers.

But then things went wrong. A decade later he was in prison in New Zealand.

In 2002 Burrett, then working in Upper Hutt, NZ, along with his nephew Matthew Payne and stepson Simon Philpott, plotted to kidnap for ransom wealthy New Zealand businessman Bill Trotter. Before the plan could be executed, a possum trapper stumbled across a wooden bunker in a forest outside Wellington. Inside was a message that read: ‘Welcome to your new home – maximum stay six days’. The bunker had air vents, provisions, beer and a block of cheese.

The police investigated and Burrett was traced through the cheese to the shop where he had bought it. After being watched going in and out of the bunker, he was finally arrested after a scuffle when a police dog bit him. He was in possession of a sawn-off shotgun and live ammunition.

Defending himself in a seven-week trial, wearing a bright orange hard hat (he said he couldn’t afford representation and was denied legal aid) Burrett claimed the kidnap plan was simply a game. He was acquitted of kidnap for ransom but received seven years for simple kidnap and possessing a shotgun. Payne, a trainee pilot, got five years; and Philpott, who had pleaded guilty, 30 months. Philpott had admitted the object was £1m rather than a bit of fun.

Burrett was disbarred in 2005 and deported to England in June 2007. He changed his name and also brought an unsuccessful libel action on largely technical grounds [King v Grundon [2012] EWHC 2719 (QB)]. It was ironic a possum trapper had found the bunker. Burrett had campaigned against the local policy of poisoning the creatures.

In 2009 he wrote a book One Game Too Many, complaining that the trial judge and indeed the whole of middle-class white New Zealand had been biased against him.

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor

 

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