Police face mounting pressure to apologise over so-called terror raids following the announcement the "Urewera Four" will not be retried over accusations of belonging to a criminal group which organised military-style training camps.

A crown application for a stay of proceedings was granted at the High Court in Auckland on Wednesday morning.

A jury could not reach a decision in March on whether Tame Iti, Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara, Urs Signer and Emily Bailey were guilty of the criminal group charge following their trial.

However, all four were found guilty of multiple charges of unlawful possession of a firearm.

They will be sentenced on those charges on May 24.

The "Urewera Four" were part of a group of 18 initially charged by police in 2007 following raids throughout the country.

About 300 police, including members of the Armed Offenders Squad (AOS) and anti-terror squads, were involved in early morning raids on the Tuhoe community in the Urewera Ranges.

With the court case now over, Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia says it's time police said sorry to innocent Tuhoe people caught up in the raids.

"There have been some discussions, I understand, between Tuhoe and the police about how that might happen," she told media.

"Lots of families within Tuhoe suffered hugely, we still have children that are traumatised by that particular event, I don't think it's hard to say sorry."

However, Prime Minister John Key does not believe an apology is necessary.

"I think you have to take a step back in fairness to the police and say that they genuinely believed that they were dealing with a situation where there was suspected serious terrorist activity," he said.

"It's easy for people in hindsight to say nothing occurs, but we've also in our history seen police officers lose their lives when they've gone into potentially dangerous situations and I think we've got to back our police to say they appropriately discharged their duties in a way where their safety has to be paramount."