There has been a breakthrough this week in a case involving the 2013 death of Christchurch woman Libby McKay.
Following approaches by TVNZ's Sunday programme, Chief Coroner Judge Deborah Marshall has announced she will review the coronial inquest file relating to the death of 27-year-old Libby Francis McKay.
Ms McKay died of a serious head injury sustained on her way home from a party.
Her boyfriend, Michael Brown, told police she'd fallen from his car while he was driving. Police said there was insufficient evidence to consider prosecuting anyone in relation to Libby’s death, and the case was referred to the Coroner.
Following Libby’s death, Mr Brown moved to Western Australia and then failed to return for the Coronial Inquest in 2015.
Police and the coroner accepted her boyfriend's story that Libby McKay had fallen from his ute in 2013. (Source: Other)
The Christchurch Coroner’s finding said Ms McKay died from a high impact head injury and that on the evidence available her injuries were consistent with her impacting a road surface.
He was critical of Mr Brown’s failure to appear and outlined that another inquest could be opened should he return or if new facts were discovered.
"I've never believed Michael Brown's version of events from day one, but that Coroner gave me hope", says Libby's mother Pauline Webby.
"Libby's body and clothing was virtually unmarked after the incident. If she'd fallen from a car doing 70 kilometres an hour like Michael Brown claimed, both her clothes and body would have been shredded."
Faced with what she describes as an "unhelpful attitude" from police, Ms Webby has spent five years and tens of thousands of dollars of her own money investigating Libby's death.
Now a report by Australian crash experts, which she commissioned to reconstruct Michael Brown's story, has concluded it was "untenable”.
Forensic testing they undertook on the clothing Libby was wearing on the night revealed that none of it had ever contacted the road.
The news that the Chief Coroner will take a fresh look at the case is "spectacular and exciting and we finally have a way forward", says Ms Webby.
Before the case can be formally reopened, an application would need to be made through the Solicitor-General.
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