Miscarriage of Justice Thread

[BFew]

The Scott Austic documents should appear at the following link tomorrow sometime.

Tabled Papers

Tabled papers such as government reports and regulations are presented during proceedings.

www.parliament.wa.gov.au

Here it is on the CCC website (all 106 pages of it).

https://www.ccc.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-05/Report%20to%20Attorney%20General%20on%20aspects%20arising%20out%20of%20the%20trial%20of%20Scott%20Austic.pdf

'Report to Attorney General on aspects arising out of the trial of Scott Austic 27 March 2023'

 

[BFew]

Susan Neill-Fraser to be freed after being granted parole, 13 years after murder of Bob Chappell​

Convicted murderer Susan Neill-Fraser granted parole after 13 years

Convicted murderer Susan Neill-Fraser is to be freed after a parole board granted her bid for release from prison.

www.abc.net.au

Neill-Fraser supporters cite Folbigg pardon in call for inquiry | Wrongful Convictions Report

'Neill-Fraser supporters cite Folbigg pardon in call for inquiry​

Posted on June 6, 2023 by andrew'

And in the Weekend Australian today.

 

[BFew]

Does anyone think that an independent Criminal Cases Review Commission will ever get off the ground in any State/Territory of Australia in the next 5 years?

Or will the business case for it likely get kaboshed everywhere due to the issue of reinvestigating cases (especially when it first gets going) will divert scarce resources away from where they are more needed, and only lead to further delays on other cases. Along with the additional personal/organisational reputational, trust in Justice/Police/Lawyers/ and $$$ liability risks that having a Commission like this will. Plus a possible decrease in the number of judges and juries prepared to go with guilty verdicts as a result of their being a more robust appeal/review system.

‘Not a rare case’: Kathleen Folbigg pardon sparks calls for new body to review possible wrongful convictions

Former high court judge Michael Kirby among experts calling for a criminal cases review commission in Australia

www.theguardian.com

'‘Not a rare case’: Kathleen Folbigg pardon sparks calls for new body to review possible wrongful convictions​

'...
Former high court judge Michael Kirby among experts calling for a criminal cases review commission in Australia
Mon 12 Jun 2023 10.00 AEST'

'“This isn’t a rare case,” said Michael Kirby, a former high court justice. “We seem to be having lots of these cases of unjust convictions coming forward.”'
...
Kirby said cases such as Folbigg’s required “very careful contemplation” and should not always be pushed through the usual criminal courts and appeals system.

“Very intelligent people looked closely at the Folbigg case, and on the basis of the evidence that was before the jury they came to the conclusion there had not been a miscarriage of justice,” he said.

Kirby is among academics and experts calling for the introduction of a body to review such cases, known in other countries as a criminal cases review commission.

“It’s preferable to have matters of this kind determined by an independent reviewer. It is a failsafe.”

While these commissions take different forms in different jurisdictions, the rough outline remains the same: an independent panel of experts review convictions and comb through old or fresh evidence.

Kirby pointed to similar systems established in comparable countries, including the UK, the US, New Zealand and Canada.

The UK Criminal Cases Review Commission, established in 1997, had already reviewed 27,514 cases, with 776 sent back to courts and 535 appeals allowed.

“What is so superior about the Australian criminal justice system that we don’t need it?” Kirby asked.
He is not alone. The Australian Law Council and the Sydney Institute of Criminology are also calling for the establishment of a review body, while a host of experts have voiced their support.

Daley said the circumstances of Folbigg’s case were “rare and exceptional” and reflected the “changing nature of scientific knowledge”.

He said he had requested advice from the Department of Communities and Justice on the system of post-appeal conviction reviews.

“I will consider this advice carefully, along with the report of the inquiry into Ms Folbigg’s convictions when that report is finalised.”

The current system makes it extremely difficult for anyone to have their convictions overturned once they have exhausted their appeal pathways. It relies on a prisoner having the network and patience to mount public campaigns to persuade the government to call an inquiry or allow an exceptional appeal.

A review body would have the power and resources to dive into claims of injustice and refer them back to the court of criminal appeal if they had any standing.

Prof Gary Edmond from the University of New South Wales said a review commission would enable the legal system to understand and address some of its “blindspots”.

“If we take innocence seriously in our system, we would have such a commission,” he said. “It would enable us to get a sense of some of the kinds of blind spots and limitations and consider the systemic problems with the performance of our trial and appellate processes.

“Because our system is so case based, it’s hard for it to kind of learn. And I think cases like Folbigg’s reinforce that.”

While Edmond said the treatment of forensic sciences in courts had historically been a “mixed bag”, he added that admissibility requirements for expert evidence as well as varying levels of resources available to defendants meant there were still gaps in the system.

“If the parties aren’t well enough resourced or aren’t sophisticated enough to actually appreciate problems and issues that need to be raised, then courts are never going to be presented with them,” he said.

“We have a lot of assumptions that are untested. And if you kind of poke them, they don’t necessarily hold water.”'

 

[BFew]

Over in the UK, the miscarriage of justice topic is hogging the limelight.

And with it being reported this week, that the UK Post Office paid out $$$ bonuses available to every one on the Post Office's internal security team for every conviction under the Post Office's Horizon System scandal, the miscarriage of Justice's related to this event will reverberate around the world for years to come.

Post Office paid out bonuses for every conviction under Horizon scandal

Cash incentive handed to investigators revealed as Rishi Sunak vows all victims will be exonerated

www.telegraph.co.uk

‘Innocent’ postmaster convicted of wife’s murder ‘using Horizon evidence’

Robin Garbutt, in jail for 12 years now, claims that without faulty Post Office info, the motive to kill is absent from case against him

www.telegraph.co.uk

'‘Innocent’ postmaster convicted of wife’s murder ‘using Horizon evidence’​

Robin Garbutt, in jail for 12 years now, claims that without faulty Post Office info, the motive to kill is absent from case against him

Robert Mendick, CHIEF REPORTER and Craig Simpson
12 January 2024 • 9:00pm

Robin Garbutt is either a cold-blooded murderer, rightly languishing in jail for battering his wife to death and then inventing a robbery at their Post Office to cover it up.

Or else he is the victim of the greatest miscarriage of justice yet perpetrated by the Post Office’s defective Horizon IT system.

Garbutt, 57, has spent the last 12 years in jail after being convicted in 2011 of the murder of his wife Diana, 40, at their home above the Post Office they ran together in the pretty village of Melsonby in North Yorkshire.

He protests his innocence and claims that the Post Office produced evidence against him – drawing on the Horizon IT system – to show that he was stealing money to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Without the Post Office’s analysis of the Horizon evidence, claim Garbutt’s supporters, then a huge chunk of the motive for the murder – and the manner in which it was staged – disappears too.

Garbutt has taken his case to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) three times in an attempt to force a retrial.

Three times they have kicked it into touch, most recently in November last year when the CCRC concluded that “figures from the Horizon system were not essential to his conviction for murder”
...
The Crown case (Sir Keir Starmer was director of public prosecutions at the time, while the village sits in Rishi Sunak’s constituency) was that Garbutt had killed his wife, who was the postmistress, in March 2010 over suspicions she was having an affair and fears that his theft of thousands of pounds of Post Office money was about to be discovered.

Post Office investigators, who it is understood had been involved in the unsafe convictions of sub-postmasters for fraud and theft, gave evidence against Garbutt.

Mr Justice Openshaw, in his summing up to the jury at the time, said: “It is the case for the prosecution that money was being stolen from the Post Office and that the theft was concealed by a series of false declarations as to the amount of money in the safe.”

Appeal documents, seen by The Telegraph, show that Horizon data was used to show a “pattern of fraud”.

Garbutt’s claim that he had been robbed at gunpoint and that his wife had been battered to death by a second assailant was rejected by a jury on a 10-2 majority.
...
For now, Garbutt remains in jail, still protesting his innocence. He was sentenced to life and ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years in jail. “He struck three savage blows, smashing her skull and causing her immediate death as clearly he intended,” said the trial judge, adding: “This was a brutal, planned, cold-blooded murder of his wife as she lay sleeping in bed.”'
...'

 

[BFew]

WTF was the British legal fraternity and all those legally qualified UK Politicians and Peers doing about all the Miscarriage of Justice risks for the last 20 or so years, with these UK Post Office crimes?

Was it as simple as kicking the can down the road for as long as possible, and to try and maintain overall trust in the Justice System, by just doing nothing much at all over the years to enable changes in the system that allowed this to happen?

I'd also like to know what the British Royals think about this too.
Aren't they ever briefed on Political and Justice ticking time bombs like this that bring the Countries reputation into such disrepute?

Not that with the scant publicity it is getting in the Australian media at the moment, that many people here would be aware of it.

Absolutely nothing I could see in the AFR about it.
And the SMH had absolutely nothing on it I could find apart from a promo video for the ITV channel promoting the dramatisation of it.

Other Australian media (without UK parents) have had the odd article on it this week.

 

[CD Xbow]

WTF was the British legal fraternity and all those legally qualified UK Politicians and Peers doing about all the Miscarriage of Justice risks for the last 20 or so years, with these UK Post Office crimes?

Was it as simple as kicking the can down the road for as long as possible, and to try and maintain overall trust in the Justice System, by just doing nothing much at all over the years to enable changes in the system that allowed this to happen?

I'd also like to know what the British Royals think about this too.
Aren't they ever briefed on Political and Justice ticking time bombs like this that bring the Countries reputation into such disrepute?

Not that with the scant publicity it is getting in the Australian media at the moment, that many people here would be aware of it.

Absolutely nothing I could see in the AFR about it.
And the SMH had absolutely nothing on it I could find apart from a promo video for the ITV channel promoting the dramatisation of it.

Other Australian media (without UK parents) have had the odd article on it this week.

It wasn't strictly the justice system. UK post had statutory powers to charge for certain crimes without involving the police, which is what they did. Some think that was part of the problem. Still, you are right, it beggars believe that this could continue for so long. It had been in the media a bit for nearly a decade and even had a slow moving inquiry started but it just couldn't get any traction.........until 9 milllion Britons watched it on ITV.

 

[BFew]

it beggars believe that this could continue for so long. It had been in the media a bit for nearly a decade and even had a slow moving inquiry started but it just couldn't get any traction.........until 9 milllion Britons watched it on ITV.

Not unless there was a conspiracy to time the ITV dramatisation and the incumbent Government announcing exonerations, for at least 6 months before the next UK General Election, to hang out the dirty washing early enough to minimise potential impact on the election itself, and to provide an opportunity for the incumbents to get some credit for the exonerations and compensation.

Get all the outrage out of the way now, and hope the issue has largely faded by the time election day comes around.

 

[BFew]

The UK's Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in the news this week.

Convictions quashed after persistent pro-active CCRC investigation - Criminal Cases Review Commission

The convictions of two men have been quashed thanks to a persistent pro-active investigation by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

ccrc.gov.uk

‘I just went bent’: how Britain’s most corrupt cop ruined countless lives

How many people did DS Derek Ridgewell fit up? The sheer scale of his depravity, and his targeting of men of colour, is only now becoming clear

www.theguardian.com