Backgrounder: why Australia needs a CCRC

Australia needs a Criminal Cases Review Commission system. Proven over 25 years in Britain, a CCRC can correct wrongful convictions like those of the Guildford 4 and the Birmingham 6 (Photo: two of those victims, with Australian wrongful conviction guru Estelle Blackburn). With an Australian CCRC system, the cases of Sue Neill-Fraser and Derek Bromley – now before the High Court – would have evaluated for their possible erroneous forensics earlier than 13 and 37 years ago, respectively.

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SNF appeals to the High Court for justice

Sue Neill-Fraser has lodged a request for a full appeal hearing to the High Court of Australia…for the second time. The High Court summarily dismissed her request a decade ago, but there is much more reason to believe she deserves to be heard this time, after one of three Tasmanian Criminal Appeal Court judges recently ruled her conviction should be quashed.

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Bromley may get record $10m for wrongful conviction

Derek Bromley refuses to leave prison because he is innocent. He has served 38 years. He was eligible for parole 14 years ago. But to be paroled, he  ‘must express remorse for his crime’. Bromley maintains he did not commit a crime, and so is unable to express genuine remorse. His case will soon be before the High Court, with the state of South Australia having a lot to answer for.

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CLA VP calls for safeguarding personal images

Police Minister’s so-called ‘ring of steel’ is actually giant privacy-invading mechanism, with no public, police or political-legislative safeguards, CLA VP Rajan Venkataraman says. It’s typical of a repressive approach to governing in a state which has no human rights charter to provide a modest baseline against which to measure surveillance intrusion into citizens’ lives.

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Jailing up, crime down: system is ‘Unjust by Design’

Crime in on a 20-year decline, but the number of prisoners in Australia has been growing dramatically over the same period (except for during Covid-19 lockdowns). Why are taxpayers being forced to pay about $330 a day – the price of a top notch hotel stay – for each prisoner each day across Australia? Our justice system generally is no longer fit for purpose, and Productivity Commissions, both national and in Queensland, have recently tried to come to grips with the prison end of Australia’s ‘justice’ system, which CLA says is Unjust By Design.

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Why SNF conviction needs overturning

Wrongful convictions expert Prof Dr Bob Moles has written to Members of the Tasmanian Parliament explaining why they should intervene to ensure justice for Sue Neill-Fraser, the woman convicted – in error, CLA and many liberties, rights and legal experts believe – for killing her husband Bob Chappell, on Australia Day 2009 on board a yacht moored in Sandy Bay, Hobart. The Yacht-No-Body case has riven Tasmania in two, with the state’s Establishment figures and systems fiercely resisting to acknowledge massive errors in the original trial which saw her jailed more than 12 years ago. Read What the Court Got Wrong, and How To Fix the Mess, by Dr Moles and his wife and co-author, Prof Bibi Sangha.

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Calls for Tas Attorney-General to re-open SNF appeal

[caption id="attachment_41933" align="alignleft" width="300"] How The Mercury reported MLC Mike Gaffney’s Upper House revelations.[/caption]

A Member of Tasmania’s Upper House, Michael Gaffney, has used the Parliament on 31 Aug 2021 to expose massive, newly-discovered flaws in the the original (2010) and subsequent appeal cases presented by the Crown against Sue Neill-Fraser. She is in her 12th year of a 23-year sentence for allegedly murdering her husband, Bob Chappell. CLA and most independent observers believe the woman was wrongly convicted and should be freed, immediately, and acquitted. A formal criminal appeal is under way, awaiting the verdict of three judges.

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Legal, police experts want SNF appeal re-opened

Two experts, Hugh Selby and Barbara Etter, have formally asked Tasmanian Attorney-General Elise Archer to re-open the ‘in limbo’ appeal by Sue Neill-Fraser into her 2010 conviction for murdering her husband, Bob Chappell, aboard a yacht moored in Sandy Bay, Hobart, in 2009. The appeal has been heard, but a decision is awaited. The experts say police incompetence, or worse, has never been examined in the SNF case: if it was, she may well be acquitted.
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Another police shooting, just as the dingo was declared innocent

Forty years ago, there was a police shooting in the NT. With Constable Zachary Rolfe facing a murder charge in 2021, its interesting to look back on what happened in the case of the shooting death of the Anmatyerre man (with the skin name of Jabanardi) and Constable Clifford. Here’s Russell Goldflam’s account.
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