About this title.
Ten Minutes to Midnight is an account of how two French agents who participated in the planning of the Rainbow Warrior bombing, Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur, were allowed to leave New Zealand, less than one year into a ten year sentence. Colin challenged the government at the last minute to prevent their departure by legal action using the process of the then rarely used process of a private prosecution. A photocopy of the Criminal Record Book from the Auckland District Court is included as an appendix. Ten Minutes to Midnight has been sold on Amazon.com for over $100.00 and is now considered a collector's item. The University of Auckland has used material from this book in the Law Faculty. The author was gratified that Associate Professor Bill Hodge, under whom he studied international law, supported the action in a TV interview at the time when he said, "A prosecution is a prosecution, is a prosecution".There are only around twenty copies remaining.
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About this Author.
Colin, who was born in Essex, England, has always been a controversial figure whether as a protester against nuclear weapons, conditions for the politically oppressed in Chile, Indonesia and elsewhere. He speaks five languages including Russian, French and Spanish. He lived in Spain for two years and this included writing articles for Guidepost and interviewing filmstars and royalty amongst others. In his travels around the Mediterranean he visited the suggested sites for Atlantis sought out characters from Durrell's Alexandria Quartet in that sensuous city. On his return to England, he wrote 'New Atlantis, the Secret of the Sphinx' and this was published in 1976, the year he came to live in New Zealand permanently. He has a son, Simon from his first marriage and a daughter, Tara, from his second marriage. He married Yvonne in 1987 and they live at the edge of the Manukau Harbour in Auckland. He has travelled widely in the Pacific including around the rim of Australia's coast. He now works as a barrister and his legal circuit is centred in South Auckland mainly in criminal and immigration cases and he has frequently appeared in media interviews, perhaps the most controversial the so-called burqa case where he challenged the right of women witnesses to appear in New Zealand courts dressed from head to toe in the all-enveloping burqa.
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