Bradley Robert Edwards?
 Innocent or guilty?
Was Bradley Robert Edwards arrested for political purposes and to cover up for powerful and well connected people involved in organising and carrying out the Claremont Serial Killings and other abductions and murders in Perth and Western Australia in the last 30 years...
Please take the time to read and view all the information on the
www.awn.bz
www.nyt.bz
www.inlnews.com
website regarding the Claremont Serial Killings and decide for yourself..



  
 

 

 





 

Claremont Serial Killer - Jane Rimmer Mystery Man footage

Former Western Australian Supreme Court Chief Justice
David Kingsley Malcolm backs crime review

28 October 2006

Comment by Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj27.pdf

The former Chief Justice of WA, Professor David Malcolm, says there should be major public inquiries into mistakes in the justice system.

"The wrongful conviction of an innocent person is a major catastrophe," he said.

There were public inquests into deaths caused by medical mistakes, and major inquiries into events such as transport accidents.

"The public demands to know what went wrong," he said.

Professor Malcolm, of Notre Dame University, was launching an Innocence Project in WA.

Volunteers and law students will examine cases of doubtful convictions to see whether there are grounds for lawyers to take the cases to the Court of Appeal.

They will look only at cases where there is a denial of criminal wrongdoing not

at taking appeals on legal technicalities.

Professor Malcolm said that the Crime and Corruption Commission might be the appropriate body to investigate wrongful convictions.

The aim would be to establish whether there are systemic problems, or whether the error was caused by an individual making a mistake.

Although the Innocence Project in WA is not formally functioning, they have 22 cases that people want investigated.

The project in WA will be modelled on the Innocence Project in Queensland that is based at Griffith University.

The director of that project, Lynn Weathered, said that the Queensland project looked only at cases where DNA evidence was available.

The United States Innocence Project based in New York has steered 184 DNA exonerations through the courts saving a total of 2500 years in prison.

She said the flip side of innocence was that the guilty go free in the community, and, when finally caught, had often committed other crimes.

In WA, inquiries have been held into only one wrongful conviction: that of Andrew Mallard.

No inquiries have been held into other cases.

 

              







 

Western Australian Police and Liberal Government so not deny the accusations by USA media investigators of presenting  false evidence to the public and Australian media in the Claremont Serial Killings investigation to falsely arrest Bradley Edwards for the Claremont Serial Killings for the main purpose of using the arrest of Bradley Edwards to help win the March state election in Western Australia.
SEE 
www.nyt.bz/missingmurdered_westaust

www.nyt.bz/claremontserialkillings

New book and film includes some of the information about the Claremont Serial Killings

A new book is being published and a film of the same name is being produced in Australia entitled " Missing Abducted Murdered In Western Australia"
which exposes those named by witness statements as being involved with the carrying out and organising the Claremont Serial Killings and other serious crimes committed in Western Australia and how and why the Western Australian Police and Liberal Government covered up the truth from being exposed and those involved protected from investigation and arrest and how they used their powerful connections in the Western Australian media to help present false and misleading information about the Claremont Serial Killings and other serious crimes committed in Western Australia 
Western Australian Police issued a false statement to the media that a group of boys saw Ciara Glennon stop and lean over to talk to people or a person in a Holden Station Wagon when one of the boys have stated that all they saw was the back lights of a car and did not in anyway see Ciara Glennon or any girl leaning over with her hands on her knees talking to a person or people in any car on the Stirling Highway, Claremont.
The Western Australian Police Service helped by their powerful connections in the Western Australian media have for 20 odd years presented a false impression to the Western Australian public that the last time Jane Rimmer was seen alive was at around midnight outside the Continental Hotel in Claremont, when it was well known by the Western Australian Police and the Western Australian media and the Western Australian Liberal Government that the last known sighting of Jane Rimmer was by four 21 year old university students was at around 12.30 am when Jane Rimmer was hitchhiking on Stirling Highway near Loch Street and was staggering and looking quite drunk.
The university students told the Western Australian Police about seeing Jane Rimmer hitchhiking on Stirling Highway near Loch Street at around 12.30 am the mornings Jane Rimmer disappeared and this sighting of Jane Rimmer was publicly reported in a community newspaper thus the other main media outlets in Western Australia would have also known about the university students reporting their sighting of Jane Rimmer hitchhiking on Stirling Highway near Loch Street at around 12.30 am the morning Jane Rimmer disappeared and eventually murdered with her body bring found in bushland.
There is evidence presented to USA media investigators that shows involvement of Western Australian Police and powerful well connected business people being involved with the Claremont Serial Killings and other serious crimes committed in Western Australia.
The Western Australian Police also failed to more closely look at and investigate the names and identities of the man and woman that traveled by taxi with Sarah Spiers to South Perth by taxi who the USA media investigators say were involved in picking up Sarah Spiers in a  taxi they already were in, when they convinced Sarah Spiers to get into their taxi  before the taxi Sarah Spiers had ordered that arrived only a few minutes later to find Sarah Spiers already gone.

Important Vital clues missed in hunt for Claremont Serial Killer/s

West Australian Newspaper

With Important Vital clues missed in hunt for Claremont Serial Killer/s

NYT.bz Investigator’s notes attached
For more information in the Claremont Serial Killings and other abductions and murders in Perth and Western Australia please see the following links:
http://www.awn.bz/RomualdZakHospitalMurder.html
http://www.awn.bz/ClaremontSerialMurdersP1.html
http://inlnews.com/ClaremontSerialMurdersWA.html
http://inlnews.com/ClaremontSerialKillings2.html
http://inlnews.com/DrKarlO_Callaghan-Police.html

http://www.nyt.bz
http://www.nyt.bz/ClaremontSerialKillings.html
http://www.nyt.bz/ClaremontSerialKillings2.html
http://www.nyt.bz/MissingMurdered_WestAust.html
http://www.awn.bz/LenBuckeridge_SPKoh_BGC.html
http://www.awn.bz/ClaremontSerialKillerCSK.html
http://www.awn.bz/CSK_websleuths.html
http://www.awn.bz/CSK_websleuths_2.html
http://www.awn.bz/ClaremontSerialKillings2.html
http://www.awn.bz/ClaremontSerialKillings3.html
http://www.awn.bz/ClaremontSerialKillings4.html
http://www.awn.bz/DavidCaporn_MallardCase1.html
http://www.awn.bz/PoliceRoyalCommissionWA1.html
http://www.awn.bz/WAPoliceCSK_Incompetance.html
http://www.awn.bz/ClaremontSerialKillings5.html
http://www.awn.bz/ArgyleDiamonds_WA_Police.html
http://www.awn.bz/MissingMurdered_WestAust.html
http://www.awn.bz/KarlO_Callaghan_WAPolice.html
http://www.awn.bz/WesternAustralianPrisons.html

Vital clues missed in hunt for Claremont serial killer

Sunday, 1 January 2017

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/vital-clues-missed-in-hunt-for-claremont-serial-killer-ng-b88342709z

                           

                    The scene at the Continental Hotel in Claremont the Saturday night

          

          
          
          
          
          

    Public Claremont Murders Arrest Media Conference 
    by Western Australian Police Commissioner 
    Dr Karl Joseph O'Callaghan on the 22nd of December, 2016
      Published on Dec 22, 2016
 
       

   
   

   Homes of Bradley Robert Edwards Searched | 9 News Perth January 2017

 

   Claremont Serial Killer Investigation | 9 News Perth

   

 

 The Girls Who Knew Too Much - Murder Stories

    Published on Sep 29, 2016

  This episode is about the murder of Sallie-Anne Huckstepp and the disappearance and presumed murder of Juanita Nielsen.

    This is a run-of-the-mill crime documentary although it concerns the unrelated murders of two women. Actually, the second of these is
    technically not a  murder because the body of Juanita Nielsen was never found and no one has been convicted of her murder.

   The programme begins with the shooting of small time drug dealer Warren Lanfranchi by police officer Roger Rogerson. On the face of it,     this was an  unavoidable or regrettable but justifiable homicide in the line of duty, but due to Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, an entirely different      picture emerged. She was a woman who had begun the descent into heroin addiction and prostitution at a young age. She also became     a police informer, and it was this that almost certainly led to her death at the age of thirty- one.

    Juanita Nielsen led an entirely different lifestyle; although coming from a fairly privileged background, she became a social activist, and        it is this that led to her disappearance and death. The innuendo is that she was murdered at the behest of a wealthy property developer.

     This is a somewhat disjoineted documentary, and is really two programmes; it would have been best to treat it as such. It is also clear           that the programme makers would have liked to have said a lot more but felt constrained by the law of libel.

This is a most important article detailing what the new set of police in charge of the Macro Task Force say are the three main clues that those previously in charge of the Macro Task Force missed when investigating the Claremont Serial Killings over the last 20 years.

1.  Drivers License of Karakatta Cemetery Victim is alledged to have been handled by the rapist and found by a local girl a year or so later.
Note: This alleged clue seems extremely suspect because a driver's license found a year later could have been handled by anyone over that year. It would be easy for the police ot plant someone’s DNA on this drivers license.

2. Fibres from a car seat allegedly found on the body of Jane Rimmer that matches a certain type of model car such as a Holden Commodore station wagons or sedan could have come from hundreds of actual cars, including an unmarked police car.

Police used Holden Commodores all the time in the 1990's as unmarked police cars.

It is doubted that any fibres from a Holden Commodore car found on the body of Jane Rimmer could to be easily be used as proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Holden Commodore station wagon that Bradley Edwards used in 1996 and 1997 came from Bradley Robert Edward’s particular car.

It could have been one of hundreds of Commodore cars including an unmarked police car driven by a policeman on or off duty, or driven by a friend of the policeman who borrowed the car such as a girl friend.

In fact a witness has made a sworn statement that she was the girlfriend of a particular Western Australian Police officer …. and that the particular police officer used to supply her illegal drugs such as crystal meth, heroin, cocaine, marijuana and alcohol … this girlfriend of this particular Western Australian Police Officer  was allowed by the Western Australian Police and the particular police officer to drive the particular police officer's unmarked police car at any time of the day or night …. speeding while drunk and high on illegal drugs without fear of being charged with any criminal offences.

In fact when the girlfriend of this particular police officer was picked up by police speeding …  way over the legal blood alcohol limit and high on illegal drugs ... as soon as the police realised that the car was an unmarked police car normally used by this particular police officer, the police would immediately let the girlfriend of the particular police officer go …. and allowed her to drive away drunk and with on illegal drugs uncharged with any criminal offences.

3. The police allege that there is some sort of DNA evidence that was originally missed or overlooked that were found on the body of Ciara Glennon.

Any alleged DNA evidence that has now been claimed to have been found on the body of Ciara Glennon after twenty years could well have been planted and falsified by the police.

DNA of a person found on an item that is on the body of a deceased murdered person some twenty years later usually by itself is not sufficient to convict a person of a murder of that person.

There are all sorts of possible explanations as to why a person's DNA has been found on an item that was attached to or on the body of the deceased murdered person.

A lot depends on what type of item that the DNA was found on or if the DNA was found on the skin or under the finger nails of the deceased murdered person …. such as showing the DNA of a person under the finger nails of the deceased murdered person … which would strongly suggest that the deceased murdered person scratched the attacker at the time of the attack.

Such DNA evidence would be a lot stronger against an accused person whose DNA matched DNA found under the finger nails of the deceased murdered person.

It is noted that the police indicated that there was no DNA evidence found on the bodies of Ciara Glennon or Jane Rimmer which maybe be because the murderer or muderers or original abductors were careful not to leave any DNA evidence on the body of the deceased murdered person or on any items of clothing or other items left on the bodies of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon,
Or
it could have been because of the amount of time between the time of the abduction and murder and the time the bodies were found was long enough for the weather and elements to have destroyed any possible DNA evidence..

One would find it extremely difficult to believe that the person or people involved in the abduction and murder of Ciara Glennon, who committed this horrendous crime, were not clever and calculating enough to have worn gloves and other DNA leaving protection at all times when touching Ciara Glennon or any of Ciara Glenons belongings, jewlery, rings, watch, clothes etc., before or after Ciara Glennon disappeared and eventually murdered.

The person or people involved in the abduction and murder of Ciara Glennon and Jane Rimmer was or were very clever …. cunning … well planned …. and obviously had a good knowledge of the way police investigate crimes …  as the person or person seemed amazingly confident about being able to commit these horrendous serious crimes and not be discovered and arrested  …

…..  either because the person or people involved made sure no possible clues were left for the police investigators to find or discover and there are no witnesses left alive that could talk or if still alive would be game to talk ... for fear of their family or themselves also being murdered as well..
.. or  …. the person or people involved in committing these horrendous serious crimes or ordering these crimes to be carried out ... knew that they were protected by the Western Australian Police from being investigated and prosecuted for criminal behaviour ... either because the person or people were Western Australian Police or the person or people knew that they were extremely confident of never being investigated or charged with any criminal offences because of some specific control, influence, or power they had and have in the police, courts, legal, business, media, finance and/or political systems of Western Australia.

 

The scene at the Continental Hotel in Claremont the Saturday night

Detectives missed three early opportunities that could have led them to the Claremont serial killer in the 1990s, according to The Post newspaper.

The western suburbs paper, which has followed the case closely for 20 years, yesterday reported that the missed leads included clues left on the driver’s licence of a 17-year-old girl who was abducted and raped in 1995, a crime which police now believe was committed by the same offender.

They also included car upholstery samples recovered from the body of second murder victim Jane Rimmer sent to the wrong Chemistry Centre department in 1996 and lost, and a “critical item” overlooked from the body of third victim Ciara Glennon.

The 17-year-old was abducted from Rowe Park opposite the Claremont Showground subway in February 1995, and raped at Karrakatta Cemetery.

Post editor Bret Christian wrote that her attacker handled the victim’s driver’s licence, which was later found discarded by a young local girl.

He reported that detectives investigating the sex assault did not doorknock in the area. It was not until more than a year later when Macro task force investigators looking for the killer of Sarah Spiers and Ms Rimmer did, and obtained the licence.

The second reported missed opportunity was when car upholstery samples recovered from the body of Ms Rimmer were lost. They were found when the Chem Centre moved to Bentley in 2011. When tested, the samples revealed crucial clues.

The third reported missed opportunity was when a critical forensic item from the body of Ms Glennon, murdered in 1997, was overlooked. It was tested in Britain well after 2004 and revealed “the breakthrough clue”.

A WA Police spokeswoman said: “As this matter is now before the courts and there remains an ongoing investigation WA Police will not be making any further comment”.

Further Comment by an investigator for the NTY.bz Claremont Seial Killers Investigation Team (NYT_CSKIT)


A photo of the Hungry Jacks sign were boys were sitting just after 12 pm eating  Hungry Jacks Burgers when they saw Giara Glennon walking past on Stirling Highway on early Sunday morning the 15th of March, 1997.

1.The Western Australian Police Macro Task Force deliberately misrepresented the truth the the Western Australian Public and the Western Australian and Australian newspapers and TV Networks by always for the last 20 odd years saying that the last known sighting of Jane Rimmer was on the video footage taken just after midnight on the 9th of June, 1996 on the famous video footage talking to a man outside the Continental Hotel in Bay View Terrace, Claremont, Western Australia ... when as per the report given to the Western Australian Police by four 21 year old university students ... they saw Jame Rimmer hitchhiking on Stirling Highway at about 12.30 am on the 9th of June, 1996 near the corner of Stirling Highway and Lock Street, Claremont, and was heading towards Nedlands of Perth and not heading towards Mosman Park of Wembly where Jame Rimmer lived ...

2. The Western Australian Police Macro Task force deliberately misrepresented the truth the the Western Australian Public and the Western Australian and Australian newspapers and TV Networks by always for the last 20 odd years saying that the circumstances of the last known sighting of Ciara Gllenon was that the boys sitting on the bus stop opposite Hungry Jacks actually saw Ciara Glennon leaning over on her knees talking to the drive of a light coloured vehicle on Stirling Highway, Claremont, when the boys has stated that they never saw any vehicle after seeing Ciara Glennon walk past them, and that they only say that back-lights of a car that looked like the can may be be putting its breaks on ...but never actually saw Ciara Glennon standing taking to anyone in the car ..... this the re-enactment on the TV program of the last sighting of Ciara Glennon was deliberately false .....
The question remains if why did the Macro Task Force lie about the about last sightings of Jane Rimmer and Ciara Glennon?
This is a question that the Commissioner of Police for Western Australian should answer to the Western Australian-People and the new Labor Western Australian Government and to the people of Australia as well.
]The other very disturbing thing, is that there was so much evidence offered by the public over the last 20 odd years to the Macro Task Force appointed by the Commissioner of the Western Australian Police Service to investigate the Claremont Serial Killings ..that the Macro Task Force have not bothered to properly investigate and when they bothered ot investigated it was a long time after the crimes have been committed ... making it harder to collect the important evidence needed to apprehend the person to people involved in the Claremont Serial Killings..
For example there person who saw a taxi driver early in the morning without lights near were the body of Ciara Glennon was found aboit the time Ciara Glennon went missing ... who said there was  a person sitting on the back of the taxi.... this is important independent evidence that fairly well proved beyond reasonable doubt that there was a taxi involved, a person who had access to a taxi involved and that there was at least two people involved in the abduction and murder of Ciara Gennon....which fairly proves that the police are wrong in saying that Bradley Robert Edwards committed the abduction and murder of Jane Rimer and Ciara Glennon all by himself .... the evidence that a taxi was seem with a person int he back about where the body of Ciara Glennon was found about the time that Ciara Glennon was abducted .... fits in with the statement by Noel Geoffrey Coward who said that there was this guy called Tony who was a taxi driver and a woman involved who sat in the back of the taxi where the bodies were dumped...

 

  Crime Investigation Australia 
   Claremont Serial Killings
   Channel Nine year 1999 TV Special Hunt for a Killer The Claremont Murders

    

   Killer's Confession | 9 News Perth

   
    Richard Edward Dorrough before shooting himself, at a shooting range,

  admitted to murdering three woman but did not name his victims

   

Mallard trio face discipline

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj54.pdf

Three of 10 people who were in the firing line over the Andrew Mallard case had misconduct opinions delivered against them this week. Four were against Mal Shervill, the officer­in­charge of the investigation, and two against David Caporn, who worked on the case. Both were detective­sergeants at the time, and are now assistant commissioners. There were also two opinions of misconduct against Ken Bates, who prosecuted Mr Mallard at his 1995 trial for the murder of Pamela Lawrence.

The opinion in Mr Bates' case related to the way he conducted the trial, and his presentation of the murder weapon evidence and lack of disclosure of tests conducted with a weapon on a pig's head. Acting Commissioner John Dunford recommended disciplinary action against all three.

One of the most dramatic allegations made at last year's Corruption and Crime Commission hearings has not resulted in adverse finding against anyone. This was that jewellery from murder victim Pamela Lawrence's shop was planted on Mr Mallard during an undercover operation.

Judge Dunford said there were circumstances to suggest Mr Shervill arranged for an undercover officer to give Mr Mallard some jewellery from Flora Metallica, with the intention that it be found on him and link him to the crime. Mr Shervill submitted that the jewellery given to Mr Mallard was a brooch unconnected to the crime scene, and that had police wanted to plant evidence on Mr Mallard, they would have made a better job of it. Judge Dunford concluded that the commission was unable to form an opinion on whether the jewellery given to Mr Mallard was the same jewellery collected from the shop by police, or if it was, whether it was the result of any improper conduct by police. One of the misconduct opinions against Mr Shervill was that he requested a chemist to delete all references to salt­water tests on Mr Mallard's clothes.

This could have influenced the trial outcome, Judge Dunford said. Other points made by Judge Dunford were: ­

Train videos were examined only for signs of Andrew Mallard, not for another suspect who could have been Simon Rochford, despite information from an eye­witness, Lloyd Peirce. Mr Peirce, who saw a man running from the direction of Mrs Lawrence's shop, was antagonised when he himself was "in effect accused of being the murderer". A warrant against Mr Peirce contained false information, but the officer involved should be given the benefit of the doubt.

There was no justification for not following up Mr Peirce's information, which might have changed the whole investigation. ­

Mr Mallard stole a chalice from Iona Presentation College in Mosman Park and returned next day posing as a detective investigating the theft of a chalice. He called himself a con­man and a flim­flam man. ­ Mr Mallard's "confessions" were a tangle of stories in conflict with the known facts, possibly untrue; contradictions; and third­party admissions immediately retracted. At no point did he directly admit harming Mrs Lawrence. Police refused to accept Mr Mallard's denials.

 Mr Mallard was clearly suffering from some form of psychiatric condition. Detective­ Sergeant Caporn knew he was given to fantasy and was a known liar, but interviewed him over a lengthy period. Of his story of the murder, Mr Mallard said he had "made it all up" and "maybe I'm psychic". ­ The circumstances of the interviews did not amount to misconduct under the CCC rules. Mr Mallard was not cautioned until after he had made "admissions". ­

Nobody seemed to consider that Mr Mallard was right and two alibi witnesses wrong about the time he returned home. Police always maintained there was an unexplained 90­minute gap in his movements. ­ There was no forensic evidence to link Mr Mallard to the crime scene. ­ A letter Mr Caporn wrote to the prosecutor to have Mr Mallard committed to Graylands psychiatric hospital was not honest or impartial and could constitute misconduct. ­ Problems of police not disclosing evidence continued up to 2006. Mr Shervill told the Commission it was not the practice of the police in 1994 to disclose exculpatory matters or prior inconsistent statements of witnesses to the defence. There is no longer any excuse. ­ In 1994­5 there seemed to be an attitude that case investigators looked only at those matters that tended to inculpate the person to be charged, and ignored matters that exculpated or cast doubt on their guilt. ­ Mr Bates listed to Mr Mallard's trial jury 12 or 15 things known by Mr Mallard that only the killer could know.

 All could have been obtained from media reports or guessed. ­ When charges against Mr Mallard were finally dropped, comments in court that he was still a prime suspect were inappropriate. The general public would understand it to mean "we know he did it, although we cannot prove it". The Director of Public Prosecutions has apologised for the comment. ­ Similarities between the murder of Mrs Lawrence and Simon Rochford's girlfriend, Brigitta Dickens, were overlooked, even though Mr Mallard and Mr Rochford, the man believed to have killed both victims, were charged by the same officers within a day of each other. The autopsies were carried out by the same pathologist, Dr Clive Cooke.

Bungled justice can't fix itself

21 October 2006

Comment by Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj26.pdf

Eight years ago a reporter named Colleen Egan decided to take up the case of Andrew

Mallard, then an extremely unpopular cause in the western suburbs.

Last week Mr Mallard enjoyed final exoneration in the court of public opinion.

The Police Commissioner, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General apologised to him for his wrongful conviction for the murder of Mosman Park jeweller Pamela Lawrence.

Not long before, our state's new Chief Justice, Wayne Martin QC, took a public swipe at the "advocacy roles being adopted by sections of the media".

Some media outlets assumed the role of "prosecutor, defender, judge and jury," Mr Martin said.

The trend was "disturbing and something which has the potential to greatly reduce public confidence in our justice system".

The stark, cold fact is that had Ms Egan not taken up Andrew Mallard's case, he would still be in jail.

That would be much more disturbing than some imagined attack on "the system".

Jim McGinty, the Attorney General, says that the exoneration of Mr Mallard shows that the legal system fixes itself by correcting its errors.

It shows the opposite. It was only outside influences, starting with Ms Egan and ending in the

High Court in Canberra, that fixed it.

The High Court pointed to devastating errors made on the prosecution side all of which helped point to Mr Mallard's "guilt".Chief Justice Martin made his attack during the height of local and national publicity about the Phillip Walsham case.

Three young men are serving life sentences in Hakea Prison for murdering Mr Walsham by throwing him off a footbridge.

Mr Martin says that half a dozen cases over 45 years do not point to systemic problems.

But these are just the bad ones we know about the disasters that have finally been fixed, in the legal sense.

They have not fixed the lives that have been cruelly destroyed.

Prominent criminal lawyer Tom Percy QC estimates there are between 40 and 80 Andrew Mallards rotting in WA jails.

Some shocking mistakes have put them there.

What is disturbing is the exposure of flaws in the investigation and prosecution of the wrong people in the cases we know about.

Are these same standards letting real criminals roam free?

Mr McGinty says there is no need for an independent Criminal Cases Review Commission like the UK's, which has had 199 convictions overturned in the British court of appeal since it was formed in 1997.

The CCRC has its own lawyers and investigators, completely separate from the rest of the police and judicial system.

Where a case has merit, they take it to the appeal court.

A win means that the wronglyconvicted person is automatically entitled to compensation, unless he or she is responsible for their situation.

Then an independent panel assesses how much, away from the grace and favour of the Attorney General the only system that exists here, in the rare cases where compo is paid.

Britain's CCRC does away with the need for journalists and lawyers working thousands of hours for free to take up doubtful convictions.

This will keep happening here, to Mr Martin's ire, as long as there is no alternative. Mr McGinty says WA does not need a CCRC.

That function was performed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, he said.

This is the same body accused of obstruction in the Mallard and other cases, with a stubborn refusal to admit error.

Opposition justice spokeswoman Sue Walker has a different view to Mr McGinty.

The Member for Nedlands was once a DPP lawyer.

She said the CCRC was good idea, in principle. She wants to look at the detail.

 

She has also been pushing for a Judicial Commission to oversee judges, as exists in NSW.

An experienced criminal lawyer told the POST that WA does not have more or less problems with policing or prosecution than any similar jurisdiction.

The problem here, he said, lies with those judges who tolerate intolerable behaviour by people appearing before them.

A Judicial Commission not only gives the public an avenue to monitor and make complaints about judges, it also keeps track of sentencing statistics so that sentences can be passed in a consistent framework.

More work and, yes, more money is needed to make us a more civilised society.

Names like Button, Beamish, Mickelberg, Christie and Mallard that seemingly took forever to clear should not have come to mean a running sore in our justice system.

 

Not guilty, juror wrote

9/6/2007

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj37.pdf

An extraordinary insight into the mind of the jury at last year's Phillip Walsham murder trial was revealed in the Court of Criminal Appeal this week.

"I cannot find it in my heart to find them guilty," a jurorwrote to the trial judge. "These men are not guilty."

She also expressed doubts about the integrity of the prosecution evidence she had heard, and hinted at a different mindset by the other jurors.

The woman juror wrote two letters to the trial judge asking to be discharged from the jury because she had made up her mind that the three charged men were innocent.

The other jurors were not of the same mind, she said.

Justice Eric Heenan then told lawyers for the prosecution and defence about the letter, but not its contents.

He urged the juror to reconsider quitting, then discharged her from the trial.

This week lawyers for the three convicted men argued that they should have been shown the letter during the trial.

They could have taken action, including examining all jurors to see whether they were able to reach a fair verdict according to their oath.

The defence may have applied for the entire jury to be discharged.

Lawyer Malcolm McCusker QC said this week that at the time of the second letter, the prosecution case had closed and crossexamination of the accused men had not finished.

There were more defence witnesses to be called.

Mr McCusker said the juror revealed that she was being influenced by a prior personal experience.

She wrote: "I too have a young son who fell foul of the law."

At the age of 17 he had felt obligated to "accept responsibility due to circumstances". He was eventually exonerated.The juror wrote that spaces are filled when evidence is weak.

"I feel that is happening in this (Walsham) case," she wrote.

Appeal Court judge Justice Christopher Steytler said: "She is saying, 'I don't care what anyone says, I am not going to convict these people'."

Mr McCusker said the juror's personal experience had made her more sceptical.

However, Chief Justice Wayne Martin said the judge had acted correctly at the trial, given the contents of the letters.

The two other appeal judges agreed.

 

 

Crucial 15 minutes will decide trio's fate

 9/6/2007

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj36.pdf

Star witness for the prosecution, Claire Pigliardo.

 

State prosecutor Bruno Fiannaca.

After nine years, an inquest, two trials and a fullscale appeal hearing, one of WA's most controversial and harrowing murder cases may well run on the rocks over timing.

The Court of Criminal Appeal wrestled this week over the comings and goings of people and cars in a crucial 15minute period in the early hours of Saturday, March 1, 1998.

The three judges must now decide whether in that time three men had time to drive away from Stirling Station, smoke cigarettes, return to the station, walk Mr Walsham up the footbridge and throw him off.

If they didn't have time, that's the end of the case.

Two complex trials lasting a total of 16 weeks, and two years in jail for the three men will come to a sudden

end in that event.

Even on the best timing put forward by the prosecution case, there would be no time for the men to return,

Malcolm McCusker QC, lawyer for one of the men, told the appeal court.

"They couldn't have got there on time the

evidence is just totally against it," he said.

Justice Geoffrey Miller said that if the time differences were split seconds, there would be resonable doubt

that the men could have committed the crime and they would have to be aquitted.

Mr McCusker said there was no motive for the men to murder Mr Walsham and no opportunity, because they could not have returned to the scene after attending a rendezvous with other young people on a street corner in Odin Road about four minutes' drive away.

State prosecutor Bruno Fiannaca.

There were independent witnesses to that gathering, who said the men were there for nine or 10 minutes adding

a few more minutes to the prosecution's shortest possible elapsed time.

"If that is accurate, it's all over," said Mr McCusker.

"They can't possibly have got back."

Mr McCusker said the prosecution's shortest interval did not take into account another time of more than a minute.

The times were calculated using ambulance, taxi calls and mobile phone calls.

If the judges decide that the men had the time to get back, they then must decide whether they would have made the trip out of continuing hostility towards Mr Walsham.

If they were not hostile, as lawyers for the three men say is proved by the evidence, then "that would be the end of it".

One of the appeal judges, Justice Geoffrey Miller, agreed.

"Even if they did have the opportunity, that is the prime ground and all the other things fall away," he said.

Central to the prosecution case against the three men was their "animus" or hostility towards Mr Walsham.

They had been involved in a chase with tyre levers after two of Mr Walsham's friends, who had left him sitting, very drunk, on a bus stop seat at the end of the Stirling Station footbridge over the freeway.

The friends escaped. Two of the convicted men had returned and in anger, each kicked Mr Walsham once in the head.

The three then left in a car. There was no evidence they had returned to the station.

Mr McCusker said all the evidence pointed to the fact that the men had calmed down and were contrite and apologising to their friends about the attack on Mr Walsham at an Odin Road rendezvous with other friends.

Mr Walsham was found dying on the freeway onramp 15 minutes after the men had left.

The prosecutor said that they had maintained "animus" towards Mr Walsham and had returned and murdered him by throwing him off the footbridge.

A year ago, after a 10week retrial, the jury agreed.

The convicted men's lawyers say the jury may have been influenced by emotive language by the trial judge, who suggested to the jury, without any evidence, that the accused men still regarded Mr Walsham as a "worthless junkie" and a "punching bag".

The men were sentenced to life imprisonment with a 10year minimum.

 

Judges set to review entire trial evidence

 20/12/2006

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj31.pdf

Three judges will be asked to rule that the jury in the Walsham case got it wrong, the Court of Criminal Appeal was told on Monday.

Lawyers for three men now serving life sentences for murder were given leave to appeal on their main ground that the verdict of the jury in April this year was unsafe and unsatisfactory.

If the lawyers succeed with this argument, the men would be released from jail and there would be no retrial.

At a pretrial hearing, Chief Justice Wayne Martin said the men were convicted after a complex 10week trial.

The summing up for the jury by the trial judge, Justice Eric Heenan, occupied 170 pages of transcript, he said.

A number of the 18 grounds of appeal related to alleged errors in the summing up.

Justice Martin said that it followed that the entire trial evidence would be reviewed by the three appeal judges.

He said many of the other grounds of appeal would be incorporated in the first "unsafe" ground.

He gave the men leave to appeal on 10 grounds, and referred eight others to the three other judges who will hear the appeal in June next year.

Reference was made in court to a letter from a juror at the trial, which forms one of the grounds of appeal.

During the trial, a juror wrote to the judge and was discharged.

Defence lawyers say in the appeal papers, that they should have been made aware of the contents of the letter at the time.

They allege that the discharged juror was of the opinion that the three men were innocent, but all the others thought they were guilty.

At that stage the defence case had just begun.

Lawyers for the convicted men say remaining jury members should have been discharged, or questioned in open court to see whether they could reach a true verdict in accordance with the evidence.

The prosecution did not oppose this ground of appeal, but asked for and was given a copy of the juror's letter.

He dismissed one ground of appeal entirely.

 

Mallard to get millions? Don't bank on it

14 October 2006

Comment by Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj25.pdf

Andrew Mallard cannot expect the million dollar payout Lindy Chamberlain got for her wrongful conviction for the murder of her daughter Azaria.

There was no similarity between the two cases, Attorney General Jim McGinty said this week.

Mrs Chamberlain spent three years in jail in the Northern Territory before

being released on appeal. She and her husband were paid $1.3 million in 1992.

Mr McGinty said he was sympathetic to the idea of compensation for Mr Mallard.

He had had grave doubts about the case since John Quigley (a lawyer and Labor MP) and others had come to

him and outlined the case, he said.

Damage had been done to the justice system by Mr Mallard's wrongful conviction.

"It's a shocking situation," he said.

But he did not think there were systemic problems with the process.

"From time to time you get injustices," he said. "We have certainly had a spate of them."

But people could take comfort from the fact that the system had corrected its errors, he said.

It was quite clear Mr Mallard was wrongly charged and convicted.

"We can never fully compensate Mr Mallard for the 12 years he spent in prison," he said.

The benchmark for Mr Mallard would be the compensation paid to John Button.

He received $400,000 compensation and $60,000 to repay costs associated with his defence.

There would be a process of consultation with Mr Mallard on his circumstances, as had occurred with Mr Button.

Compensation is very rarely paid in Western Australia for wrongful convictions.

There is no right to compensation, and no right to recover legal defence costs.

Mr Button had to prove he had been psychologically affected in order to get compensation.

It is entirely in the hands of the Attorney General whether or not to make an "act of grace" payment.

In the UK, this power has been removed from the political arena.

There, it is assumed that compensation is automatically due, and the amount is set by an independent board.

UK defendants also do not have to organise and finance their own appeals.

There, doubtful cases are referred to a review board, which reinvestigates cases and takes them back to court if required.

Mr McGinty said that such a review panel was not planned for WA.

In WA, this crucial role was carried out by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, he said.

Mint swindle libel suits wrecked health and cash

14/2/2009

 By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj56.pdf

The massive human and financial costs that grew from a corrupt police officer's libel suit were revealed in the Supreme Court this week. Pushing libel actions against author Avon Lovell and defending counter­suits have cost the WA Police Union $850,000, including a $275,000 settlement payment to Mr Lovell in 1996. Most of it went to lawyers.

Mr Lovell is now on the edge of bankruptcy and police and a former police union official named in the suits have had their health badly affected by the stress. Mr Lovell told the POST he was "on the bones of his bum" but was now free to finish a book "exposing the WA legal system as a vehicle for oppression".

Self­confessed perjuror Tony Lewandowski is dead, as is his boss in the notorious Perth Mint swindle investigation, Don Hancock, who was blown up by a bikie's bomb. Three Mickelberg brothers ­ Ray, Brian and Peter ­ were wrongly convicted of tricking the Perth mint out of more than $600,000 in gold in 1982. Whoever committed the crime used stolen cheques and an elaborate system of phone calls and couriers booked to call at a rented office in Hay Street, Subiaco, opposite Princess Margaret Hospital. This week three judges of the Court of Appeal ruled against Mr Lovell's bid to reopen his $5 million claim against the Police Union, its then president Ric Stingemore, law firm Kott Gunning and six police officers involved in the original investigation. The court ruled that Mr Lovell was beaten by the statute of limitations, which prevents civil actions being pursued after six years. But it was the human and financial details that emerged in the judgment that again proved the saying: "He who goes to law holds a wolf by the ears". Tony Lewandowski was the first detective to go to law with his lying statement of claim in 1985.

It said there were untrue assertions in Mr Lovell's book, The Mickelberg Stitch, that Mr Lewandowski and Mr Hancock had faked evidence against the Mickelbergs, then lied in court to help convict them. But in 2003 Mr Lewandowski sensationally recanted, swearing affidavits and giving evidence in court to three appeal judges that he and Mr Hancock had "stitched" the Mickelbergs and lied in their jury trial and to judges in subsequent appeals. All along he and Mr Hancock were backed in their legal actions by the police union and the other young officers, who have maintained that they gave truthful evidence in court.

This week the latest set of appeal judges said Mr Lewandowki's confessions had implicated only Mr Hancock, not the other officers. Nobody predicted that Mr Lewandowski's writ for libel against Mr Lovell would see much older and now ailing officers still fighting in the courts 24 years later. Most had retired, some were sick, their illness magnified by the stress of massive payouts hanging over their heads. Mr Lovell said in evidence he had been coerced into settling with the police and their union in 1996 because he had not then heard Mr Lewandowski's admissions.

But this week the Court of Appeal ruled that the six­year clock for the statute of limitations started ticking with that 1996 settlement.

 The court rejected Mr Lovell's argument that there was an ongoing conspiracy to deprive him of his rights dating from the first 1985 court action, lasting right up to when Mr Lewandowski confessed in 2003, Mr Lovell had claimed the people he was suing had until 2003 "fraudulently maintained false evidence". He said this was an unlawful use of the court's process. But the court ruled that Mr Lovell maintained this more than a decade earlier ­ he just did not then have the detail of Mr Lewandowski's admissions. The court also criticised Mr Lovell for filing his latest appeal four years out of time. The appeal judges said Mr Lovell had had no formal employment since 2004 ­ "his income is small and intermittent and he has few other resources". He had to represent himself in court. Justice Neville Owen said: "Given all that has happened in relation to the Perth Mint swindle and its aftermath, I have sympathy for the situation in which (Mr Lovell) finds himself and his determination to pursue a remedy." But, the judge said, he was bound to deal with the legal process. The court also considered the public interest in allowing the case to proceed. "The continuing threats of litigation by the applicant (Mr Lovell) is having a serious effect on the union's ability to manage its budget and resources," Justice Owen wrote. The union had said it might not be able to continue to pay to defend the officers. In addition, the deaths of detectives Hancock and Lewan ­ dowski meant that the defence of other officers would be prejudiced because their evidence was no longer available. The judge said Mr Stingemore now suffered from cancer and was on daily medication.

"The legal proceedings (by Mr Lovell) since 1990 have had a considerable impact on his mental health,"

Justice Owen wrote. "The stress has exacerbated his condition."

The surviving officers are now aged 56, 57, 59, 67 and 73. Their ailments listed in the judgment range from clinical depression, epileptic seizures, osteoarthritis and growths on the vocal chords. As for Mr Lovell, the effect of the court decision would be serious, Justice Owen wrote.

 "It will be very difficult for (him) to seek redress against these (officers). "That has to be balanced against the prejudice pointed to by the (police) and against the general history of litigation between the parties.

"The public interest in finality of litigation comes into play." Justices Christopher Steytler and Christopher Pullin agreed. Mr Lovell said he had been "down" after the decision, but he had done everything he could and would now return to his trade. "I argued that I was the good guy and that I should be allowed to proceed in the interests of justice," he said. "But they stuck to the letter of the law. "Now I'll go back to what I do best. There will be two quick books ­ the first a big critique of the judicial system, and there's a screenplay waiting in Holly ­ wood," he said. The two surviving Mickelberg brothers, Ray and Peter, were given long jail sentences but were exonerated in 2004 by the Appeal Court after Mr Lewan ­ dowski confessed.

They are pursuing actions for damages against former police officers and the state government.

Mint swindle libel suits wrecked health and cash

14/2/2009

 By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj56.pdf

The massive human and financial costs that grew from a corrupt police officer's libel suit were revealed in the Supreme Court this week. Pushing libel actions against author Avon Lovell and defending counter­suits have cost the WA Police Union $850,000, including a $275,000 settlement payment to Mr Lovell in 1996. Most of it went to lawyers.

Mr Lovell is now on the edge of bankruptcy and police and a former police union official named in the suits have had their health badly affected by the stress. Mr Lovell told the POST he was "on the bones of his bum" but was now free to finish a book "exposing the WA legal system as a vehicle for oppression".

Self­confessed perjuror Tony Lewandowski is dead, as is his boss in the notorious Perth Mint swindle investigation, Don Hancock, who was blown up by a bikie's bomb. Three Mickelberg brothers ­ Ray, Brian and Peter ­ were wrongly convicted of tricking the Perth mint out of more than $600,000 in gold in 1982. Whoever committed the crime used stolen cheques and an elaborate system of phone calls and couriers booked to call at a rented office in Hay Street, Subiaco, opposite Princess Margaret Hospital. This week three judges of the Court of Appeal ruled against Mr Lovell's bid to reopen his $5 million claim against the Police Union, its then president Ric Stingemore, law firm Kott Gunning and six police officers involved in the original investigation. The court ruled that Mr Lovell was beaten by the statute of limitations, which prevents civil actions being pursued after six years. But it was the human and financial details that emerged in the judgment that again proved the saying: "He who goes to law holds a wolf by the ears". Tony Lewandowski was the first detective to go to law with his lying statement of claim in 1985.

It said there were untrue assertions in Mr Lovell's book, The Mickelberg Stitch, that Mr Lewandowski and Mr Hancock had faked evidence against the Mickelbergs, then lied in court to help convict them. But in 2003 Mr Lewandowski sensationally recanted, swearing affidavits and giving evidence in court to three appeal judges that he and Mr Hancock had "stitched" the Mickelbergs and lied in their jury trial and to judges in subsequent appeals. All along he and Mr Hancock were backed in their legal actions by the police union and the other young officers, who have maintained that they gave truthful evidence in court.

This week the latest set of appeal judges said Mr Lewandowki's confessions had implicated only Mr Hancock, not the other officers. Nobody predicted that Mr Lewandowski's writ for libel against Mr Lovell would see much older and now ailing officers still fighting in the courts 24 years later. Most had retired, some were sick, their illness magnified by the stress of massive payouts hanging over their heads. Mr Lovell said in evidence he had been coerced into settling with the police and their union in 1996 because he had not then heard Mr Lewandowski's admissions.

But this week the Court of Appeal ruled that the six­year clock for the statute of limitations started ticking with that 1996 settlement.

 The court rejected Mr Lovell's argument that there was an ongoing conspiracy to deprive him of his rights dating from the first 1985 court action, lasting right up to when Mr Lewandowski confessed in 2003, Mr Lovell had claimed the people he was suing had until 2003 "fraudulently maintained false evidence". He said this was an unlawful use of the court's process. But the court ruled that Mr Lovell maintained this more than a decade earlier ­ he just did not then have the detail of Mr Lewandowski's admissions. The court also criticised Mr Lovell for filing his latest appeal four years out of time. The appeal judges said Mr Lovell had had no formal employment since 2004 ­ "his income is small and intermittent and he has few other resources". He had to represent himself in court. Justice Neville Owen said: "Given all that has happened in relation to the Perth Mint swindle and its aftermath, I have sympathy for the situation in which (Mr Lovell) finds himself and his determination to pursue a remedy." But, the judge said, he was bound to deal with the legal process. The court also considered the public interest in allowing the case to proceed. "The continuing threats of litigation by the applicant (Mr Lovell) is having a serious effect on the union's ability to manage its budget and resources," Justice Owen wrote. The union had said it might not be able to continue to pay to defend the officers. In addition, the deaths of detectives Hancock and Lewan ­ dowski meant that the defence of other officers would be prejudiced because their evidence was no longer available. The judge said Mr Stingemore now suffered from cancer and was on daily medication.

"The legal proceedings (by Mr Lovell) since 1990 have had a considerable impact on his mental health,"

Justice Owen wrote. "The stress has exacerbated his condition."

The surviving officers are now aged 56, 57, 59, 67 and 73. Their ailments listed in the judgment range from clinical depression, epileptic seizures, osteoarthritis and growths on the vocal chords. As for Mr Lovell, the effect of the court decision would be serious, Justice Owen wrote.

 "It will be very difficult for (him) to seek redress against these (officers). "That has to be balanced against the prejudice pointed to by the (police) and against the general history of litigation between the parties.

"The public interest in finality of litigation comes into play." Justices Christopher Steytler and Christopher Pullin agreed. Mr Lovell said he had been "down" after the decision, but he had done everything he could and would now return to his trade. "I argued that I was the good guy and that I should be allowed to proceed in the interests of justice," he said. "But they stuck to the letter of the law. "Now I'll go back to what I do best. There will be two quick books ­ the first a big critique of the judicial system, and there's a screenplay waiting in Holly ­ wood," he said. The two surviving Mickelberg brothers, Ray and Peter, were given long jail sentences but were exonerated in 2004 by the Appeal Court after Mr Lewan ­ dowski confessed.

They are pursuing actions for damages against former police officers and the state government.

'Prejudice sent trio to jail'

9/6/2007 By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj35.pdf

Two lawyers for the jailed men Simon Watters (left) and Malcolm McCusker QC.

Prejudice may have led a jury to convict the "Walsham

Three" on the "flimsiest of circumstantial evidence", a lawyer for one of the jailed men said in court this week.

In a stinging address opening an appeal for the three men, Malcolm McCusker QC, said the murder trial of the three men had been based on prejudice, conjecture

and speculation.

The three are in jail for life for the murder of Phillip Walsham (21) in 1998.

The jury found they had murdered Mr Walsham by throwing him off the footbridge at Stirling Station, seven metres to the road below.

They are Salvatore Fazzari (28), Jose Martinez (29) and Carlos Pereiras (27).

One of the three appeal judges, Justice Geoffrey Miller, said this week that the prosecutor at the murder trial last year had "intrinsically linked" an assault on Mr Walsham by two of the men with his later death.

Mr McCusker agreed: "The problem of prejudice was highlighted by the way the prosecution dwelt on that ad nauseum.

"A major problem is the conduct of the prosecutor in this and other respects." This led to a

miscarriage of justice, he said.

The prosecutor had made an "absolute welter" of this issue, Mr McCusker said.

He said the core of this week's appeal was that the jury had got it wrong.

He said the jury could not have reasonably reached a guilty verdict on the evidence they heard.

There are 19 other detailed grounds of appeal, all of them opposed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Mr McCusker said an explanation for the jury's verdict was flimsy circumstantial evidence, coupled with the way the trial was conducted.

"The jury was told that if the men kicked him (Mr Walsham), they could have come back and killed him," he said.

Mr McCusker's submissions highlighted words spoken to the jury by state prosecutor Bruno Fiannaca at last year's trial: "They are the ones who showed a preparedness to use violence earlier.

"On that basis you could conclude that they were the ones who would be committing the crime later on."

Mr McCusker said this was an invitation to the jury to apply "forbidden reasoning".

He read out other examples from the trial transcript.

Mr McCusker said such statements by the prosecution required a very, very strong direction to the jury from the trial judge.

The judge, Justice Eric Heenan, had given the jury an inadequate direction on this point, Mr McCusker said.

His direction was not sufficient to overcome the prejudicial nature of the argument.

"He should have said that you must not conclude from the assault that the accused are guilty of the offence (murder)," he said.

"That's part of the reason why this was a miscarriage of justice."

Mr McCusker told the appeal court that after the assault on Mr Walsham at a bus shelter opposite Stirling Station, the men had left and did not return.

Fifteen minutes later, Mr Walsham was found dying on the freeway onramp

some metres from below a footbridge.

A witness on her way home from a party, Clare Pigliardo, had said at last year's trial that she saw three or four people on the footbridge above.

One of them had done an "athletic backflip" off the bridge, the witness said.

Mr McCusker said this witness had not identified any of the people as the convicted men, and was unclear whether they were men or women.

There was no forensic evidence linking Mr Walsham to the footbridge, although he had been bleeding, and none on the convicted men.

Justice Miller said that Ms Pigliardo's evidence had been clear and direct that she had seen people on the bridge and that one had fallen to the road.

The jury would be entitled to accept her evidence as accurate if necessary, Justice Miller said.

"We say it's worthless," Mr McCusker said.

Ms Pigliardo had not said that she saw the man thrown or pushed.

"Mr Walsham had previously attempted to commit suicide at a railway station," Mr McCusker said. "Ms Pigliardo might have got it wrong."

The trial judge had refused the defence permission to call to court an expert witness who would give evidence about the reliability of Ms Pigliardo's evidence and the fact that she had undergone hypnosis by police.

"She said the body bounced, and that is very strange," Mr McCusker said.Her evidence was contradicted by a delivery driver who saw a body on the road at an earlier time.

This driver, Joseph Leone, had been on his way to work at about 2.28am, while Ms Pigliardo had been returning from a party at about 2.38am.

Because of the times and the position of the body on the road, the evidence of both could not be right.

Mr Leone had said he stopped his car in front of the apparently uninjured man and blown his car horn.

"It may be that the jury did not accept Mr Leone's evidence," said Justice Miller.

Ms Pigliardo had described about four men walking briskly up the stairs of the footbridge.

She saw no struggle. The men were at "talking distance", she said in evidence.

If these people were the convicted men escorting Mr Walsham, they would have convinced a man who was so drunk he was "legless", had been kicked, and on

the prosecution case hit with a tyre lever, to accompany them up the stairs willingly, Mr McCusker said.

"What's he doing walking briskly up the footbridge? It doesn't make sense," he said.

Over an eigh tyear period Ms Pigliardo had changed her story about the number of people she had seen on the footbridge.

Mr McCusker said: "The judge should have warned (the jury) that it would be dangerous to rely on her evidence."

The appeal papers listed more than 20 other people in the vicinity that night, and the court had heard evidence of assaults and confrontations by various gangs in the station area late at night in the months and years before Mr Walsham's death.

A taxi driver gave evidence that he saw five "shitheads" at the station at 2.30am just

eight minutes before

Ms Pigliardo saw the group of men on the footbridge, and after the convicted men had left the area, Mr McCusker said.

"It's a dangerous place at night," Mr McCusker told the appeal court.

The prosecution had not begun replying to the appeal case at the time of going to press.

Was Walsham hit by passing car?

 9/6/2007

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj34.pdf

New evidence about what happened to Phillip Walsham the night he died was not heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal this week.

Leading United States pathologist Daniel Spitz examined autopsy reports and photographs of Mr Walsham's body after last year's trial of the three men.

He concluded that Mr Walsham's injuries were consistent with him being sideswiped

by a car.

He also said that most of his injuries were consistent with a fall from a seven metre

high bridge.

No pathologist who has studied the case believes that both things happened to Mr Walsham.

Dr Spitz said Mr Walsham's broken pelvis, internal injuries, fractured skull and deeply cut hand were characteristic of a sideswipe by a car.

On two points his report differed from evidence given in court by Perth pathologist Karin Margolius, who told last year's trial Mr Walsham had most likely fallen from the bridge.

Ms Margolius said Mr Walsham's skin had none of the characteristic "brushburn"

marks associated with a pedestrian being hit by a car.

She also said the hand injuries were likely to be caused by Mr Walsham's arms flailing about when his body bounced on the road.

An eyewitness, Clare Pigliardo, said she had seen Mr Walsham's body bounce at least a metre off the road after it fell from the bridge.

She said its movement was not caused by it being hit by a car she saw passing under the bridge at the time.

Dr Spitz's report said bodies do not bounce after a fall.

His report also said that photos of Mr Walsham's skin did show brushbur marks.

The judges refused to hear his evidence by videolink from the United States, saying they would publish their reasons later.

During preliminary court discussions about his evidence, judges expressed concern that Dr

Spitz's opinions did not constitute fresh evidence under the law because they would have been available at the time of trial.

 

Were 'lies' harmless or deliberate?

9/6/2007

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj33.pdf

 

The jury in the Walsham trial was wrongly told that some of the accused men had implicated themselves in a murder when they lied to police and gave a false alibi, an appeal by the men was told this week.

Melbourne QC David Grace said that lies by the accused men were put forward by the prosecution as "compelling evidence of the accuseds' guilt".

Some of the initial lies, corrected voluntarily by the men within days, related to the assault on Mr Walsham.

Mr Grace said those lies and others about events 15 minutes before Mr Walsham was found dying could be explained by the fact that the convicted men were ashamed and embarrassed by their actions at that time.

The trial judge had wrongly applied the law, he said.

The lies did not indicate a consciousness of guilt to murder, he said.

The murder trial judge, Justice Eric Heenan, should have ruled that these lies could not have been considered by the jury in reaching its guilty verdict, Mr Grace submitted.

"He (Justice Heenan) gave no indication to the jury about how they could make the ultimate finding," Mr Grace said.

"It was an unsafe, prejudicial and risky route. The judge shouldn't leave the jury in that position."

Lies in such circumstances were significant under the law, only if the truth implicated the accused men in the murder.

"It is our submission that none of the lies could amount to a consciousness of guilt," he said.

"They wanted to distance themselves, not because they were guilty, but because they were not guilty."

Another alleged lie was when one of the accused men forgot to tell the police that he had gone to Odin Road and MacDonald's fast food shop in Tuart Hill before returning home.

"He says he simply forgot. He didn't think it was of any significance," Mr Grace said.

He said the men were young, 18 and 19 at the time, and had had no previous dealings with the police.

Mr McCusker also submitted that it was wrong of the prosecution to have put forward as a false alibi a visit to McDonald's.

The prosecution said that visit happened before Mr Walsham's death.

The defence said it happened afterwards, and its timing removed any possibility that the men had murdered Mr Walsham.

But, Mr McCusker said, the men did not know when first questioned by police what time Mr Walsham had been found dying.

They said they visited McDonald's after the Odin Road meeting, which had come after the assault.

Mr McCusker said: "They did not give the visit as an alibi.

"They simply said that they first went to the Odin Road Fulmar Street intersection and then to McDonald's."

 

Pathologist got it wrong: US expert

 20/12/2006

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj32.pdf

A US expert on pedestrian accident injuries has given a written opinion that the WA pathologist in the Phillip Walsham case got it wrong, a defence lawyer told the Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday.

"His report says these injuries are consistent with a motor vehicle accident and not consistent with a fall from a bridge," said Malcolm McCusker QC, counsel for Sam Fazzari.

"He has given a report to the effect that Dr Margolius is wrong," he said.

Dr Karin Margolius carried out the autopsy on Mr Walsham three days after he was found dying almost under a footbridge at Stirling Station in February 1998.

Three men are serving life sentences for murdering Mr Walsham by throwing him off the footbridge.

The other convicted men are Jose Martinez and Carlos Pereiras.

Dr Margolius gave evidence at the trial of the three men that began this March.

She said in court that she believed Mr Walsham's injuries were sustained when he fell from the footbridge.

She placed this scenario at the top of the scale.

She said she was not completely excluding a car crash but would place it at the bottom of the scale.

"What would make me more comfortable is if someone witnessed it," she told the jury.

Mr McCusker also said that the American, Assistant Professor Daniel Spitz, had ruled out another vital opinion by Dr Margolius.

"This (Dr Spitz's submission) is that the abrasion to his (Mr Walsham's) shoulder was not consistent with being struck by a tyre lever," Mr McCusker said.

But the convicted men have a hurdle to jump before the evidence of Dr Spitz can be heard in the WA Court of Criminal Appeal.

On Monday, Chief Justice Wayne Martin agreed with a prosecution application to exclude Dr Spitz's report.

A mistake in Dr Margolius's original autopsy report had affected the worth of Dr Spitz's report, Chief Justice Martin said.

The defence had been notified of the mistake, which said brushburntype

abrasions, typical of pedestrians hit by motor vehicles, were behind the right ear, not the left ear, as stated in the original autopsy report.

This reduced the value of Dr Spitz's opinion, because he said injuries to different sides of Mr Walsham's body were explained by the car crash scenario.

Mr Martin said the defence could have found an expert such as Dr Spitz during the trial.

During the trial, and after hearing Dr Margolius's evidence, an opinion was obtained from a visiting Dutch forensic medical examiner, but she lacked access to her files and other research material, which were in The Netherlands.

She was not called as a witness.

The DPP also opposed a second report by this medical examiner, Dr Selma Eikelenboom Schieveld, and Mr Martin also excluded her report from the appeal on Monday.

Mr Martin said the defence was obtaining evidence after the trial had ended "in order to undermine the verdict of the jury".

He said the areas of expertise covered by the two witnesses were "fairly well traversed" and available to the defence in time to give evidence at the trial.

Prosecutor Bruno Fiannaca said that if the overseas experts were allowed to give evidence at the appeal, the prosecution would lead evidence in rebuttal from Dr Margolius and possibly obtain an opinion from another expert.

Mr Martin said that although he had ruled out the two reports, he would leave it open to the defence to reapply to the three other judges of the Court of Criminal Appeal, who will hear the full appeal next June.

 

Police are making changes: crime expert

 9/9/2006

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj24.pdf

Professor David Barclay

WA police are making a big effort to improve the way they investigate serious crimes and correct miscarriages of justice, says an international forensic science expert.

Professor David Barclay has reviewed the Claremont serial killings and the murder of Mosman Park jeweller Pamela Lawrence in 1994.

The completed report on the Lawrence murder clears Andrew Mallard, who served 12 years in jail for the crime.

Professor Barclay has had an insider's view of the way our police work, and has been hired to advise them on improvements to investigation techniques.

Changes made to police forces in the United Kingdom had greatly reduced the chances of wrongful convictions, he said.

Witness and confessional evidence should always be backed up by physical evidence, Professor Barclay said in a recent interview for ABC television

Scientists should be involved in all stages of the inquiry, sitting in with other investigators and contributing to discussions about all aspects of cases.

Professor Barclay has retired as head of physical evidence for the UK National Crimes and Operations Faculty.

He has participated in hundreds of cold case reviews of murders and rapes, with about a two thirds success rate.

 

"It does seem to me that WA police are trying to leap forward now to change their systems," Professor Barclay said.

"They've had me back to look at a current cold case and the way they've set up a cold case unit."

A new Special Crime Squad was established in Perth last year to review cold cases which remain unsolved or in which the original defendant was acquitted.

"I'm currently attached as an adviser to a (WA) cold case unit, as part of the major crime squad and that unit includes crime analysts, scientific support staff, myself and detectives all in the same room, all working together," Professor Barclay said.

"It's exactly the sort of integrated approach that I would recommend and that we now use in the UK."

WA was "just catching up".

During the '90s, a UK police district, South Wales, was successfully reformed after a spate of nine miscarriages of justice where the wrong person was jailed.

"That happened in the UK," Professor Barclay said, "and it's happening now in the United States and it may be happening in Western Australia because the police investigative techniques used to rely on identification evidence and confession evidence and writing things up in notebooks and so on.

"And the courts don't like that anymore; they tend to rely on physical evidence.

"There are opportunities to inadvertently or deliberately manufacture confession evidence, to put words in people's mouths and sometimes that's really quite innocent on the part of the police.

"So that sort of evidence is now thought to be pretty unreliable in the UK and we've moved over to concentrating on physical evidence.

"I wouldn't say there's anything particularly sinister about it, it's just that that's the same sort of process that we could point the finger at in the UK going back 15 years.

"It's happened definitely now in the United States with the Innocence Project, and it's happening in Western Australia.

"And I think Western Australia is making particular strides, efforts to close that gap, to learn from the lessons that we went through in the UK, the pain that we went through in having to move our systems to an integrated and physical evidence based approach.

"I think eyewitness identification and sequence of what happened has been comprehensively discounted across the world now, by lots of academic surveys.

"Physical evidence is anything that is physically left at the crime scene, and that includes pathology, fingerprints, blood like DNA and interpretations of those; blood pattern analysis and so on.

"So really any observation, interpretation or physical thing that's left at the crime scene which might be associated with either the offender or the sequence of events.

"In Western Australia at present, and throughout the time of the Claremont case, individual scientists, however competent, tended to be doing their tests in isolation in the laboratories.

"Most scientists are very intelligent, bright people who are interested in detecting crime. They're actually very useful just to sit in, in investigations, because they contribute in all sorts of ways, not just in the tests that they do.

"There are three types of miscarriage of justice really, and the most important one is the one where you never find out who did it, because that's a miscarriage of justice, there's no justice at all for the relatives of the victim.

"And of course that also applies if you get the wrong person, because you haven't detected the crime properly.

"And there's another type which is when the conviction is overturned later on technical grounds.

"And that can happen when everybody knows perfectly well that the real offender has been brought before the courts and originally convicted, but they're off because there was some technical breach of judge's rules or whatever.

"The most sinister one is where the wrong person has been convicted and that conviction has been helped along by actions of the police deliberately.

"That may be quite sinister, they may have wanted to fit him up right from the start but it's more likely to be that they're pretty sure he did it, and they helped the confession along or inadvertently give clues to him about movements or whatever.

"It's very rarely a sinister conspiracy from the start, things just run off, they decide somebody's done it and then go after that person to find the evidence that will convict him."

Professor Barclay said most of the nine wrongful convictions in South Wales happened in the 1980s and were detected in the 1990s.

"Appeals went through the courts," he said. "And when those appeals went through the courts it became obvious.

"If that person hadn't done it, the evidence in some areas was so conclusive against them, it must have been fiddled. Statements must have been invented by the police."

Professor Barclay said that in the UK two autopsies were conducted.

The defence had access to independent forensic experts, paid for by the government.

If a murder was unsolved after 28 days, a complete mandatory review of the crime was made from scratch by officers not involved in the original investigation.

If the offender was still undetected after six months, another review would be conducted by officers from another force, with "no contamination of thoughts" from the original officers.

(The full text of the interview can be seen under Beyond Reasonable Doubt David

Barclay interview. at: abc.net.au/austory.

Walsham- The key questions that remain unanswered

26/8/2006

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj23.pdf

 

Where it all happened on the night of February 28, 1998.

Distances shown are approximate because there are no "crow flies" road routes between vital points.

 

The Phillip Walsham murder case hit the national television airwaves again this week, with accusations that the full story had not been presented.

POST editor Bret Christian covered the whole 10 week trial. To see his reports, click on the

link at the top of the website postnewspapers.com.au.

He agrees with the men's supporters that there are still many worrying questions about the

investigation and the trial.

Three men are in jail for life for murdering Phillip Walsham by throwing him off a footbridge on to the road below. A lot of people say they should not be in jail.

These people do not argue that the jury made a wrong decision; instead, they argue that the

jury was not given all the evidence.

Senior police say the jury was presented with all the relevant evidence and that many media

reports have been advocacy rather than journalism.

Below are the key points in dispute.

Catastrophe

1. Police say two of the men kicked Mr Walsham; all left immediately in a car but returned 15 minutes later to hit him with a tyre lever and throw him 3.7m clear of a footbridge to plunge 7m on to the road, killing him.

Defence say: Not true. The men were at least 4km away at the crucial time, and did not return.

They admit kicking Mr Walsham but say something else catastrophic happened to him 15 minutes after they had left. They say the surviving evidence points to the likelihood that Mr Walsham wandered on to the road and was struck by a hit and run car.

 

Witness

2. Police rely heavily on the evidence of a witness who said she saw a group of people on the bridge, and a man fall from the bridge.

Defence says: Her mother and sister sitting with her in a car at traffic lights 92 metres away do not say they saw anything like that. They do not corroborate her evidence. They say she said there was a man on the road.

They do not say she said the man had come off the bridge.

She has changed aspects of her evidence several times.

She also says she had been drinking vodka and it was night time.

Bleeding

3. Police say this witness describes a group of men walking together up the stairs to the bridge just before he left the bridge. She saw no physical interaction between the men.

Defence say that even if this happened, the witness saw nothing that identified any of the convicted men on the bridge. There was no DNA from the men or Mr Walsham on the bridge, and none of the men's DNA on Mr Walsham or his on them, although he was bleeding.

Tyre lever

4. Police say pathology evidence is that injuries indicate Mr Walsham was hit once on the back with a tyre lever.

Defence say the injury has no particular shape and does not match a tyre lever. Mr Walsham worked in a heavy metal factory and may have been injured at work that day. The police (State) pathologist says the injury was 624 hours old at the time of his death too old to have been inflicted by the convicted men.

Mr Walsham was wearing a new Tshirt, which bore no weapon mark, even when magnified 50 times.

Bounce

5. Police say Mr Walsham's injuries show he fell from the bridge and "bounced" as described by the witness in the car.

Defence says: Human bodies do not bounce when falling vertically. They say bodies bounce after being hit by cars.

Bus seat

6. Police say one of the men kicked Mr Walsham in the face and left him sitting on the bus seat. They left the station to meet friends on a street corner 4km away, then returned and threw him off the bridge.

Defence agree the men did kick him, and left the scene but say they did not return. They say police could not

produce anybody who saw a return journey; saw them present at the footbridge or saw them leaving.

Fulmar Street

7. Police say that the time available to attend the meeting at Fulmar Street and return was tight, but just enough for the men to return and throw Mr Walsham off the bridge.

Defence says the time that elapsed in travelling to and from the meeting and the length of the meeting was too great. In the time available 15 minutes there was no opportunity for them to travel and commit a murder.

Friends

8. Police say the witnesses who gave evidence about the length of the meeting at Fulmar Street were friends of the accused and were lying.

Defence accept the witnesses' evidence that they would not lie to conceal something as serious as a murder, nor would they risk perjury charges that would end their own substantial careers.

Grudge

9. Police say one of the men confessed to the crime several years later.

Defence says the witness who gave this information had a grudge against the accused man. Other people present do not corroborate the story of this witness.

Lies

10. Police say two of the men lied about the assault when first interviewed, and this indicates guilty consciences for murder.

Defence say that eight years ago one of the men initially denied involvement in the assault but, unprompted, confessed later the same day.

The other initially claimed he kicked Mr Walsham after being provoked by him, but quickly admitted he was not provoked. Defence say that lies about the assault are not proof of consciousness of guilt about Mr Walsham's death, which occurred after a 15minute interval.

Nightclub

11. Police say the men lied about their visit to McDonald's Tuart Hill, giving this as a false alibi. They say the men were at McDonald's at 1.30am, not around 2.38am when Mr Walsham met his death 6km away.

Defence say phone records and nightclub security tapes would show they were still at Northbridge after 2am and could not have reached McDonalds until at least an hour after the time police say they were there.

 

These records are missing.

The three men also say that a man they met and identified at McDonald's could validate their alibi, but he was not interviewed by police until six months later when he had forgotten details.

Video records show this man at the McDonald's drivethrough at 1.30am but he stated he often stayed there for well over an hour.

Lie detector

12. Police say two of the men failed lie detector tests. The tests were not produced in court because courts take no notice of them.

Defence say the tests have no validity because they were conducted in highstress

conditions after hours of police interviews, contrary to rules for such tests.

Moved body

13. Witnesses say Mr Walsham was seen lying on the road north of the bridge and that he was found dead south of the bridge a very short time later.

Impact

14. Police pathologist says the injuries to Mr Walsham are most likely to have been caused by a fall, least likely a car impact.

Defence say a medical homicide investigator consulted during and after the trial says the injuries were caused by a car impact, not a fall from seven metres.

Time lapse

15. Police and defence agree the men were initially convicted of assault but cleared of murder in 1998.

Police say the men were charged with wilful murder six years later because new evidence had become available.

Defence say no new evidence pointing to their guilt was extant when they were charged with murder in 2004.

Defence says his time lapse caused injustice, because the opportunity to preserve vital evidence that would prove their innocence had by then vanished.

Missing evidence

16. Defence say important evidence was not given to the jury.

This includes:

1. Videotapes from surveillance cameras at the station. Police say the cameras did not work that night.

2. Photographs from a camera used by a policeman at the scene. Police say there was no film in thevcamera.

3. Blood spatter photographs from the scene that would distinguish between a fall and a car impact. The lack of film stopped these pictures being taken, say police.

4. Fingernail cuttings and scrapings from Mr Walsham's body which could possibly show DNA from anybody who had attacked him. These have been located and tested since the men were convicted.

5. Xrays of his injuries. Police say they were not lost, but are the property of the Health Department. The Health Department says it cannot find them.

6. Notes from police timetrials of the journey between the station, the street corner meeting andMcDonald's. Current senior police say these trials did not happen in the year of Mr Walsham's death, 1998. But during the 2005 court hearing two detectives spoke about timetrials they conducted in 1998.7. A man with the convicted men said he visited the toilet at McDonald's. The camera that would have shown the time of this visit is either faulty or the tape missing.

8. Videotapes from Redheads nightclub that would have put beyond doubt the time of the McDonald's  visit were either not seized by police or are missing.

9. Police did not consider that a car might have hit Mr Walsham until the fourth day after his death. By then the scene had been contaminated by passing traffic. No search was made for a damaged hit-run car.

Hanratty's ghost haunts the Walsham case

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj22.pdf

 

The ghost of a smalltime crook named James Hanratty haunts those of us who have serious concerns about mistakes in WA's criminal justice system.

The worry goes like this: what if hard evidence emerges down the track to prove the police and prosecutors were right all along in some of WA's doubtful conviction cases?

Hanratty (25) went to the gallows in England in 1962, vehemently protesting his innocence.

He was hanged for the murder of scientist Michael Gregsten and the rape and multiple shooting of Gregsten's mistress Valerie Storie at Deadman's Hill in Bedfordshire the  infamous A6 murder.

Hanratty's family and supporters took up the condemned man's deathwish to clear his name.

The case became a cause celebre as the years and the campaign rolled on.

Hanratty's outspoken supporters figured it was a similar case to the posthumous exoneration of Derek Bentley, whose name was cleared 45 years after he was hanged for the death of a policeman.

But it was not to be. DNA, which was unknown forensically until 20 years after Hanratty's execution, put his guilt beyond doubt in 2001.

His family clings to the theory that the DNA came from crosscontamination of exhibits.

But the appeal judge said there was no doubt.

Hanratty's DNA was a perfect match with the DNA found on Ms Storie's briefs and a handkerchief wrapped around the murder weapon, a .38 revolver.

Earlier this year, scanning the eyes of the jury for clues in the jarrahlined Court 3 for much of the 10week trial over the death of Phillip Walsham, my mind sometimes wandered to those 12 English jurors who convicted the cocky young Hanratty all those years ago.

Did they hear the full story? Were the allegations true that the police fudged and hid evidence to make sure he swung?

If so, karma got him, in a rough justice sort of way.

But other questions raised their ugly heads.

Did Hanratty's judge send the jury out of the courtroom while he resolved seemingly endless arguments from lawyers in the jury's absence?

Since the conviction of three young men for Walsham's murder, the loudest voices have been those that say:

"The critics and do-gooders should shut up.

"Twelve impartial jurors heard all the evidence over 10 weeks and decided the three men were guilty. End of story."

But even that jury will be surprised to learn of the evidence it didn't hear.

The judge banned a professor of psychology, Professor Don Thomson, from giving evidence.

He had a fascinating story he wanted to tell the jury a story that may have made jurors look in a different way at the reliability of evidence of the state's star witness.

Dr Thomson's evidence was about the suggestibility of witnesses who are interviewed many times and have made many statements over a long period, especially where the story has evolved.

And especially when the witness volunteers for hypnosis by a police hypnotist, as did Clare Pigliardo, then a 19yearold psychology student.

Ms Pigliardo was one of three people in a car stopped at a red light 92 metres from the footbridge, but the only person who said she saw Mr Walsham "backflip" from the bridge.

Another witness who did not give evidence was Dr Thomas Gibson, a professor of biomechanics.

He was to say that tests he conducted showed that men of the stature of Sam Fezzari and Jose Martinez in 1998 could not have thrown Mr Walsham 3.7 metres out from the bridge.

Dr Gibson was not called to court by the defence after it became evident that the trial would be bogged down in unwieldy detail as the prosecution insisted on calling as witnesses all people present at the tests.

Car crash expert Robert Davey was also barred from giving any evidence that related to injuries suffered by pedestrians hit by cars.

It was a defence contention that rather than being thrown from the footbridge, Mr Walsham had been hit on the road by a car and flung under the bridge, where he was found very shortly afterwards (POST, 5/8).

The prosecution said the three men had murdered Mr Walsham by throwing him off the footbridge. The jury agreed.

But at the first trial last year, which ended in a hung jury, state pathologist Karin Margolius said Mr Walsham's legs would have been broken had he been hit by a car.

They were not broken, she said.

Mr Davey obtained an autopsy report of another pedestrian death in WA where the victim's legs had not been broken.

The pathologist in that case was also Dr Margolius.

The trial judge this year stopped Mr Davey from presenting any evidence of a medical nature to the jury, including the unbroken leg comparison.

While the jury was out of the courtroom, Justice Heenan ruled that Mr Davey was not qualified to give evidence of this kind.

The defence was further frustrated by the fact that the xrays of Mr Walsham's leg bones after his death have been lost.

Police have accused an ABC Australian Story series on the Walsham case of errors of fact (POST, 5/8).

One of the "errors" was a statement that the xrays were lost.

But a Health Department letter to the defence says that the xrays have been mislaid.

Checks by the POST have revealed that other socalled errors in the program criticised by police have turned out not to be errors.

Appeal papers have yet to be lodged on behalf of the three convicted men.

The team preparing the appeal is convinced they do not have another James Hanratty on their hands.

More like a Derek Bentley, John Button, Darryl Beamish, Peter and Ray Mickelberg, Andrew Mallard and Rory Christie, they say.

 

Car killed Walsham, says forensic expert

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj21.pdf

 

A pedestrian crash test using a biomedical dummy. The dummy impacted the leading edge of

the car, the head dented the bonnet, there was impact with the sunvisor and roof, and the

dummy landed heavily on the road, then bounced balong the road. In this test at 56kmh the body was projected "down range" 27 metres.

In happier times ... Sam Fazzari (left) his girlfriend Mirella Scaramella, Carlos Pereiras

and Jose Martinez the men are now in jail serving life sentences.

Scene of the tragedy ... an aerial view of the

Stirling Station footbridge.

An international forensic expert says there has been a miscarriage of justice over the death of Phillip Walsham.

The injuries to his body were not consistent with a fall from a sevenmetre high bridge, but with an impact with a car, says homicide investigator Dr Selma Schieveld.

She says she is convinced Mr Walsham was hit by a car travelling at high speed ("Is there a mystery hitrundriver out there?", POST, 24/6).

"If you look at the injuries it's a classic high velocity impact," she said.

"The injuries are so extensive and so severe there is far more evidence for a high speed impact with a motor car accident than a fall from a sevenmetre bridge."

Three men are serving life sentences in jail for murder throwing Mr Walsham off the footbridge at Stirling train station onto the road below eight years ago.

They are Jose Martinez (28), Sam Fazzari (27) and Carlos Perieiras (28).

"I really believe this is a miscarriage of justice," Dr Schieveld said. Her professional experience was challenged this week by senior police.

In her home country, men had recently survived falls from eight and 10metre structures, she said.

Dr Schieveld was a forensic medical examiner and coroner for the city of Amsterdam, examining hundreds of people involved in traffic crashes, pedestrian impacts with vehicles, falls and murder victims.

She visited complex crime scenes and studied blood bpattern analysis and time of death and injury pattern recognition.

She now operates an independent forensic services company, and is on the board of the International Homicide Investigators' Association.

 

Her statements on ABC television and radio this week about the Walsham case contradict much of the murder trial evidence of Dr Karin Margolius, a state pathologist,

who conducted the autopsy.

Dr Margolius gave evidence at the trial of the three men this year that a bridge fall was the most likely scenario, and a car impact the least likely (POST, 24/6).

Dr Margolius said in court that she could see no primary vehicle impact site on Mr Walsham's body. Dr Schieveld said that after examining pathologist reports and postmortem

photographs, Mr Walsham's multiple skull fractures were similar to those seen in severe motor vehicle accidents.

She said it was remarkable that there were three primary impact sites the

skull, pelvis and ribs.

There were severe injuries to the internal organs, including the liver and both lungs and bowel. Both legs were injured.

"They are on different sides of the body," Dr Schieveld said. "They are far better explained with high velocity injury due to a car accident than from one fall from a sevenmetre bridge.

"A fracture is good enough for me to call an impact site.

"Sometimes (in car impact) you do not see any (external) injuries at all.

"So the primary site is where he was hit by a car, the secondary where he either fell on the ground or rolled over the car, and the third where he hit the ground."

She said there were internal injuries to both sides of Mr Walsham's body not

possible from a fall from seven metres.

Dr Schieveld said that for Mr Walsham to receive his injuries from a fall, he would need to have fallen from 2030 metres.

She said a person hit by a car was projected up and forward, like a billiard ball hit by another ball.

Two witnesses have told of seeing a man lying on the road uninjured, about 11 metres in front of where he was found fatally injured minutes later (POST, 24/6).

Mr Walsham was known for lying down on footpaths outside nightclubs after a late night out.

She said she was really surprised that it was not clear from the autopsy report whether muscles had been dissected to be absolutely sure there had not been a vehicle impact.

"You have to dissect to see if there is bleeding there," she said.

Dr Schieveld said there was also a medical discrepancy in the fall scenario as described by witness Clare Pigliardo, then aged 19, who was in a car 92 metres away (POST, 18/3).

Miss Pigliardo gave evidence that she saw a body "backflip" off the footbridge, hit the road, then bounce up to a metre into the air.

But bodies dropped vertically didn't bounce, Dr Schieveld said.

"Bodies, human bodies, are not rubber balls," she said. "Once they're down, they're down.

"What could have happened, and that's just a suggestion, is that he could have been hit by a car and thrown into the air, then go down again; that's what happens."

Dr Margolius told the murder trial Mr Walsham's hands, head, and both sides of his body were severely injured when he bounced off the road after he fell from the bridge.

Dr Schieveld said she was in Australia on holiday during the trial but was not called by the defence to give evidence.

The case officer for the murder inquiry, Inspector Scott Higgins, has publicly questioned why Dr Schieveld was not called to give evidence at the trial.

Dr Schieveld said that during the trial she had the opportunity for only a preliminary look at the forensic material and had submitted a draft report.

"I didn't have very much time to go into it and do extensive research," she said. "So I had to be very careful with my statement.

"That's why I wrote that there was slightly more support for the hypothesis that he was hit by a car."She said that when she returned to Holland, studied the literature, spoke to pathologists and put more time into it "the more convinced I became it was a car accident than a fall from a bridge".

Had photographs existed of the fresh scene, blood pattern analysis could also have shown for certain whether the incident was a fall or a car impact.

But a Division 79 police officer, who took photos of the body in situ, found there was no film in the camera used.

"The fact there hasn't been a blood pattern analysis in the first instance means there is no clear evidence of what happened," Dr Schieveld said. "And then you cannot hold it against the suspects.

"In this case there is no technical evidence to substantiate the accusations against these boys. So in my opinion this is a miscarriage of justice."

Dr Schieveld agreed with Dr Margolius that a superficial wound below Mr Walsham's left shoulder was at least six hours old at the time of his death too old to have been inflicted with a tyre lever by the accused men, as the prosecution alleged.

"There is an inflammatory reaction that will take at least six hours," Dr Schieveld said.

"So it looks like it's not from the same time the other injuries were inflicted."

She said the so called C shaped wound was not Cshaped.

"It is aspecific," she said. "You can't say anything about the object or weapon that caused it.

"There has been no good pathology done on it. There's no histology done on the injuries.

"So you can't even connect it properly to the time the other injuries were inflicted.

"There's no good photography. So basically we can't say anything about it.

"The fact that it played such a crucial role in the conviction is, in my opinion, incredible. It shouldn't play any role at all."

"If you write a forensic report, you should do it in such a way that any other scientist is able to form a good second opinion.

"

It should be transparent, so they can conduct their own examination.

"What was submitted as evidence does not support the accusations."

TV got it wrong: police

 5/8/2006

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj20.pdf

Police have defended their investigation that led to the conviction of three men for the murder of Phillip Walsham, saying an ABC Australian Story series on the murders was inaccurate and lacked objectivity.

Police Commissioner Karl O'Callaghan slammed the programme as "advocacy". The case officer for Mr Walsham's death, Inspector Scott Higgins, twice said on radio this week that errors in the programme included allegations that records of time­trials had gone missing. Inspector Higgins also attacked criticism of the Walsham case from Dutch doctor Selma Schieveld.

 He said: "It's just an opinion, not based on investigation. I've been told that she has not done one postmortem." He said he preferred the opinion of Dr Karen Margolius, a WA pathologist who had done more than 9000 post­mortems.

Dr Schieveld said: "I believe that this is a miscarriage of justice." She said photographs of injuries to Mr Walsham were much more likely to be the result of being hit by a car than falling from a bridge. She said the evidence of the case did not support the conclusion that Mr Walsham had been pushed or thrown from a bridge. Inspector Higgins said there were factual errors in The Australian Story report.

He said time­trials with stop­watches had not been conducted to see whether the convicted men had time to get back to the death scene in time. He said: "The fingernail clippings didn't go missing; time­trial notes didn't go missing. "There were no stop­watches, no time­trials.

They simply didn't happen." Evidence of stop­watches and time­trials was given by the accused, not the police, Inspector Higgins said. Transcripts of the first trial in 2005 show that Detective Senior Sergeant Allan Adams and a Constable Cubbage both gave evidence that on April 2 they drove in a police car with the accused men over routes the men said they had taken on the night of Mr Walsham's death. Both police officers told the court that times taken for various legs of the journey were written down and put to the accused men at later interviews.

Detective Adams made reference to "stop­watch time". That first trial ended with a hung jury. Police Inspector Jon Tuttle said this week that Detective Adams made notes of the times the men had said they were at specific locations, but not of his own journey times.

He said those notes had gone missing. He said time­trials were conducted in 2005 by Detective Adams and other officers to see whether the men had the opportunity to return to the railway station, the scene of Mr Walsham's death. This was just before their first trial, more than a year after the men were arrested and kept in custody. At the second trial, a video of a 1998 news clip was shown to the jury featuring Detective Sergeant Adams. He said in the interview that the three convicted men had been excluded from any involvement in Mr Walsham's death.

 Three defence subpoenas failed to turn up fingernail clippings. "Our advice from Forensic Biology is that the fingernail clippings did not go missing," Inspector Tuttle said. "WA police did not have custody of these items and similarly the X­rays are the property of the Health Department. "Evidence was given at the first trial that they were received but not tested."

Defence sources said this week that attempts to subpoena the X­rays from the Health Department were met with indications that they could not be located. Inspector Higgins said the jury had the benefit of hearing all the evidence during a 10­week trial and they had reached a verdict of guilty.

He said: "My opinion isn't relevant ­ it's the jury's opinion that counts."

 He said the scene had not been sealed off until days later because police initially thought they were dealing with a fall from the bridge, not a murder. He said there were a couple of minor errors in the investigation, but not flaws. He said it was regrettable that there had been no film in a camera used by a police officer to photograph the scene.

Inspector Higgins said on radio (ABC 720) that the original investigators had kept at the job and had investigated the possibility that a car could have hit Mr Walsham.

DPP has win in withholding documents

20/12/2006

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj30.pdf

 

The "open book" policy of the Director of Public Prosecutions took a knock this week when one of his prosecutors successfully fought in the Supreme Court to withhold hundreds of pages of documents from the defence.

Lawyers for Sam Fazzari applied to be given access to running sheets of the police investigation into the death of Phillip Walsham at Stirling railway station in 1998.

Malcolm McCusker QC, for Mr Fazzari, told Chief Justice Wayne Martin that the defence had been given typewritten extracts from the running sheets.

These related to the years 2000 to 2004.

But during the second trial of the three men in March this year, the prosecution began referring to handwritten running sheets.

These covered the early part of the investigation, from 1998.

Mr McCusker said that eight years after the death, his clients were at a disadvantage in defending charges of wilful murder and were now mounting an appeal against the conviction.

During the trial, the handwritten notes were made available to the accused men, but they were not allowed to see them for this appeal.

DPP prosecutor Bruno Fiannaca said an application in an appeal must relate to a ground for appeal.

Otherwise, the request for documents should be treated as a fishing expedition.

He said no application had been made for an adjournment during the 10 week 2006 trial to give the accused men more time to study the running sheets.

Chief Justice Martin said that parliament apparently intended that appeal applications be linked to a ground for appeal.

He also refused an application for a list of 12 to 20 other suspects referred to in an interview by Detective Inspector Scott Higgins on the ABC's Australian Story program.

He said the television interview could not be regarded as evidence.

Another application for copies of train videos was also refused.

It was also revealed that test results on samples scraped from underneath Mr Walsham's fingernails became available only after the trial had ended.

These revealed no DNA from fending off a possible attacker, or fibres, but DNA "consistent with Mr Walsham".

Chief Justice Martin refused a request from the defence to independently test the fingernail samples.

 

Walsham witness knocked back

December 2, 2006

By Bret Christian

https://postnewspapers.com.au/crimeandjustice/cnj29.pdf

A man who defence lawyers say has vital evidence about the death of Phillip Walsham has been refused npermission to appear before the Court of Appeal.

Albert Magistro, then aged 17, was the controversial fourth man in a car with three men convicted this year of murdering Mr Walsham.

On six occasions, Mr Magistro has said the four men had not returned to Stirling station, where Mr Walsham was found dying on the road in February 1998.

 

But he did not give evidence at the trial in March this year of the three men, Jose Martinez, Sam Fazzari and Carlos Perieras, all teenagers at the time Mr Walsham died.

The prosecution's case was that two of the men had kicked Mr Walsham, all left the scene in a car but returned 15 minutes later and threw him off a 7m high footbridge.

The new Chief Justice, Wayne Martin, ruled at a preappeal hearing last week that he would not hear Mr Magistro's evidence.

But Mr Magistro may yet get his day in court.

Mr Martin said he would leave it open for Mr Fazzari's lawyers to apply to the three judges of the Appeal Court to hear Mr Magistro's evidence when the full appeal is heard next May.

He said it had been a tactical decision by the convicted men's lawyers and Mr Fazzari not to call Mr Magistro as a witness at the trial in March this year.

Mr Magistro is Mr Fazzari's cousin. He was also charged with wilful murder but acquitted by the direction of the judge in the middle of the first trial of the four in 2005.

Chief Justice Martin said the law was clear that accused people must live with tactical decisions.

He said he could not set a precedent that would encourage accused people to hold back a piece of evidence in the hope that if convicted, they could later use the "hidden" evidence as a lever to reopen the case in the Court of Appeal.

There was provision to override this in the interests of justice but "the new evidence must be strong enough to show the applicant (the convicted person) is innocent", Mr Martin said.

Lawyers for Mr Fazzari had been unable to speak directly with Mr Magistro before the second trial in March this year, said Malcolm McCusker QC, for Mr Fazzari.

He applied for Mr Magistro to be brought before the Appeal Court to be questioned about his reasons for not wanting to give evidence.

"Every effort should be made to get him before the court," Mr McCusker said.

He said that in two social conversations with Mr Fazzari before the 2006 trial, Mr Magistro said he could no longer remember the events of eight years ago.

Mr Magistro's lawyer also told Mr Fazzari's solicitor Michael Bowden that Mr Magistro had difficulty remembering the events.

"He gave a very clear impression he (Mr Magistro) was going to be a difficult witness," Mr McCusker said.

"It would be unwise to call him (as a witness) unless he could clearly remember the events of the evening."

Yet in a tape recorded interview with the Sunday Times newspaper after the 2006 trial, Mr Magistro had repeated his much earlier statements that the four men did not return to the area of Stirling Station on the night Mr Walsham died.

In October this year, Mr Magistro had agreed to look at a draft affidavit, but since then would not answer phone calls about signing it.

There were indications that he was afraid of the police, Mr McCusker said.

Chief Justice Martin said there was no evidence of this before his court.

He said Mr Magistro had consistently maintained the same position about the non return to Stirling Station on five occasions, in signed statements to police, in a police video interview and in sworn evidence to the Coroner.

The transcript of his interview with the Sunday Times showed he was clear and emphatic in repeating his earlier statements, Mr Martin said.

Four of the statements were made in 1998, shortly after Mr Walsham was found dying on the road almost under the footbridge over the Mitchell Freeway at Stirling station.

The fifth was under oath before the Coroner's Court in 2003.

Chief Justice Martin said Mr Magistro could have been summonsed as a witness at the trial this March and questioned on the statements he had made previously.

Failure to do so was a "tactical forensic decision" by Mr Fazzari and his advisers, he said.

There are 18 grounds of appeal to be heard at the May appeal, expected to last two weeks.

(The POST's coverage of the Walsham case and related items can be read by clicking on the link at the top of postnewspapers.com.au.)