An update on this research:-
Liverpool Electoral Registers show "John Heims" formerly of court 2 house 5 Silvester Street living at court 6 house 5 Silvester Street in 1902-03. He is at the same address in 1903-04 but not there in 1904-05 and doesn't appear in any further electoral records. The only John Heim that appears on future registers is the son of John's brother Jacob Heim and Sarah Hutchinson. His nephew only appears on the records from the 1920s. Hines's first criminal conviction in Auckland, New Zealand was in November 1904 so by 1904 he had left his wife and children.
The New Zealand and Australian newspapers have interesting and disturbing articles covering criminal cases and a coroner's inquest involving Hines (the suspicious death of a woman he was living with in 1920). They reveal that Hines was not the loveable rogue that he tried to present himself as but rather a man who had a very violent criminal past. After over a decade in New Zealand, spent mostly up to no good or in prison, John Hines moved to Australia. He arrived in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on 18 August 1915 on the ship Somerset. The crew list names him as J Heim:-
J Heim; rank/rating, Fireman; age, 29; place of birth, Liverpool; previous ship, Ayrshire.
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14700447Blue
