WEBVTT - Why The Two Trials? 0:00:02.600 --> 0:00:06.000 Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returns guilty 0:00:06.080 --> 0:00:10.000 verdicts against all three defendants. It was absolute shambles, to 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:12.000 tell you the truth, just absolutely really. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.560 Comorant blood on his clothing the day after the alleged 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.440 detemp on a shallow mud bank and the fitz Roy River. Basically, 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.160 I think most of the people are used to me. 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:20.520 There are good people. 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:23.200 I think a really important question we need to ask 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.279 is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent. 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:29.800 This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.360 blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:35.320 our justice system and ask who are the victims. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.000 I'm Amy Maguire. 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.160 And I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:46.440 Prisoner Support Service. Our producer is Paul Watts. Music by 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.920 Clint Curtis and produced in collaboration with the Brisbane Indigenous 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.960 Media Association. And a warning, this series contains the names 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.280 of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might sid 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:01.440 some listeners. 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:03.840 We are now up to episode five in this podcast 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.240 series and by now you might be forming your own 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.560 opinion about the innocence of Kernin which is Kevin Henry's 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:12.800 nickname Kevin Henry has been in jail for a quarter 0:01:12.840 --> 0:01:15.440 of a century over the murder of an Aboriginal woman 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.480 named Linda, found on the banks of the Fitzroy River 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.800 in September nine ninety one. We've told you a little 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:25.160 bit about how we came to doubt Kevin's guilt. Those 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.880 were based on historic title records which showed it was 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.880 very unlikely that Kevin had placed Linda in the water 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.520 where police alleged he did, which was on the south 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:38.240 side of the river, the Tanuba House side. 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:40.880 We found she was most likely placed in on the 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.720 opposite side, on the racecourse side. If you've never been 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.280 to rock Hampton in central Queensland, that would require about 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:51.360 a five to ten minute drive over one of rock 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.000 Hampton's two bridges. We also told you about how the 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.560 police failed in following up other leads despite the need 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.720 to go down every avenue of inquiry. Who told you 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.440 a little bit about Linda's last day of how she 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:07.880 most likely came into contact with the three women who 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.720 brutally assaulted her that night the night before she was found, 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:14.720 because she was found having sex with one of the men, 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.440 Duckhart Duckhart. 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.240 Was the man who later found Linda's clothes at Tanuba 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.680 the next morning, before he would have known that she 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:25.480 had been found on the banks of the river. For 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.840 the past two weeks, we've also been telling you about 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:31.200 Kevin's confession, the only thing that really ties him to 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.760 Linda's death. There was never any DNA evidence tying Kevin 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.560 to Linda. The only thing that stuck to him was 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.440 that confession. And we brought you an expert in forced confessions, 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.680 Pat McGuinness, whose legal work was the subject of the 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.040 Academy Award winning documentary Murder on a Sunday morning. 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.560 We raised a lot of concerns about Kevin's confession and 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:57.239 particularly the police tactics used to extract information. Now we'll 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.440 take you back again to the day that Kevin was 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:05.600 picked up, because this day is important. It was September five, 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.680 four days after Linda's body was found. Now, we told 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.600 you that in the afternoon Kevin was picked up by 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.560 police while walking on the street and taken to Rockhampton 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:17.280 Police station. 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.680 But earlier that morning, around six am, in fact, the 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.760 woman who led the assault on Linda, Susan Aubrey, was 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.600 also arrested by police. Her arrest was followed by the 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.800 arrest of two other women that day, Margaret Bob and 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.760 Amy Saunders. All three of the women were described in 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.400 several witness statements and later admitted leading the assault on 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.040 Linda that night. We've also told you that the assault 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.960 was brutal, sustained and had the potential to be lethal. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:50.440 We're going to tell you a little bit more about 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.320 that assault later in the series. But on this day, 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.960 the police picked up Susan, Margaret, and Amy and charged 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:03.360 them with murder. The man who recommended the three women 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.920 be charged with murder was the highest ranked police officer 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:14.440 in Rockhampton, Detective Inspector Kel Weeks. Remember that that's important now. 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:17.800 Even though the police had already charged three women with murder, 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.680 for some reason, the two arresting officers, Senior Constable Leslie 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.440 Girk and Senior Constable Robert Hunt, picked up Kevin. 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:30.239 They took him back to the Rock Campden police station 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.080 that afternoon. So that day, those few hours on September fifth, 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.040 before he was picked up, was the last time Kevin 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:41.960 Henry was free in a quarter of a century. Because 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.800 after that confession, he was charged with murder. Now, think 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:49.680 about that four people charged with murder on the same day, 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:52.480 two separate sets of circumstances. 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:54.120 We'll talk about that later. 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.760 Now, for the last two weeks, we've gone through Kevin's 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:02.520 confession in detail. Remember, so how it ended. Here's Elijah Player, 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.760 a young Aboriginal radio announcer from rock Hampton's radio station 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.560 four US, playing the role of twenty two year old 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:11.520 Kevin Henry. 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.240 See that's it, man, I just told you everything. 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:15.440 That's all the evidence. 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.160 I've got nothing to say. No more. Now you can't 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.040 ask me anymore because I've got nothing else to say. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.680 Kevin ended that interview and was very clear he had 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:30.760 nothing more to say. Remember, he had no legal representation, 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.360 he'd only been to year nine in school, and he 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.560 was likely very confused about what was happening. But that 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:40.000 interview didn't end there. 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:45.040 Now, after Kevin refused to say anything else, Senior Constable 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:49.039 Girk and Senior Constable Hunt took Kevin for a ride 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:52.400 in the police car. They taped the conversation with him 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.880 on that short trip. Now, they took Kevin down to 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:00.000 Chanuba House and they videotaped him walking through the scene 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.960 of the crime. Now, why didn't we include that fact 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:05.280 in the last two episodes. 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.440 Well because of this, this is the judge at Kevin 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:15.680 Henry's trial. So after the initial formalities, the judge was 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.920 quick to raise the issue of the confession. Now, let 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.080 me read from the transcript. The judges remarks, this is 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.719 what he said, mister Wright. The prosecutor has recognized that 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.159 it cannot be said that the interview that continues after 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:37.320 the accused statement on page nineteen is admissible as a 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:42.680 voluntary statement. Clearly enough, the accused is exercising his right 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:47.360 to decline to answer further questions. The exercise of this 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:52.000 right is ignored by the investigating police, and the accused 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.320 is put in the position where he is effectively told 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.359 he has no such rights. He makes some two or 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.440 three further attempts to assert that he wishes to say 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:07.520 nothing further, and these are ignored. Clearly, the record of 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.600 interview from the middle of page nineteen onward at the 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:16.640 CI Branch Rockhampton is tainted and cannot be received as 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:22.440 a voluntary statement. The judge then goes on to say, 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.480 the accused has quite clearly at page nineteen exercised the 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.200 right that is the right of every citizen that right 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.920 must be respected in its entirety, both by the court 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:38.240 and by the investigating officers. So I rule that the 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:42.720 subsequent interview of the record at the CI branch subsequent 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.920 to page nineteen is not admissible, as indeed is agreed, 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.080 and that the video and the audio recording of the 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.480 trip down to Tanuba and the return to the CI 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.840 branch is also not receivable because it is not voluntary 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.840 in the sense that the law uses that word. 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.520 So Martin, in the judge's statement, just then he imagined 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:10.120 something about a page nineteen. 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:11.640 What was in that page nineteen. 0:08:12.120 --> 0:08:15.400 Well, that's a part of the interview where Kevin really 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.440 asserts both his rights not to need to speak anymore, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.640 and he really states what he wants to say, and 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:30.160 he ends by saying, nobody killed her. See that's it, man, 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:33.680 I just told you everything. That's all the evidence. I 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:37.080 got nothing to say. No more. Now you can't ask 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:41.240 me anymore because I got nothing else to say. And 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.640 that's a clear exercise of his right not to further 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:49.800 continue with that interview. And yet he was continued to 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.680 be pressed and pressed and pressed. And we know now 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:56.560 that that interview went on for at least an hour further, 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.760 and he was taken to Tanuba House, he was put 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.960 in a police car. He was interviewed in the police 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:07.400 car both during the ride down and back from Towas 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:12.960 And so the judges ruled that all of that was involuntary. 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.000 And we know Kevin earlier in his interview, had already 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:22.760 asked for earlier quite forcefully. He also declined to comment 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.400 on multiple times. So when the judge says that Kevin 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:31.720 proclaimed I got nothing else to say, that was not 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.960 the first time Kevin had exercised his right not to 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:39.560 continue with the interview. The judge clearly identifies two or 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.880 three other times he feels Kevin tried to end the 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.760 interview and should have been allowed not to speak any further. 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.480 And there's also a great deal of concern about the 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:54.640 fact that Kevin didn't have legal representation, despite what you've 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.520 already heard him requesting it multiple times. 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:03.160 So, I mean, the police officers heard him say this 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.199 very adamantly. They knew he didn't have legal representation because 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:10.040 at the first time he'd asked for it, they still 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:11.960 took him in a police car and took him down 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.120 to Tanuba. I mean, I know, we can't really establish 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.760 what their actual motives were. But it just seems like 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.640 he said it over and over again. Why do they 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:22.520 need to take him down to Tanuba. 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.560 Well, clearly they're trying to get him to say something 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:30.520 they want to hear. If they were satisfied that he'd said, 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.920 or he knew, or they could get out of him, 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:39.720 they would have stopped. But that despite knowing the law. Surely, 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.440 as men who'd conducted many of these sort of interviews 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.920 which they say they had on the stand, they continued 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:53.480 to press on despite everything they're taught. And the judge 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:58.000 was pretty ruthless in ruling a lot of this confession out. 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.520 He was very clear didn't need to take his time 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.200 on it. It was a very clear matter of law, 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.600 and he was fairly scathing of the police and the 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:08.719 police practice. 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:10.360 And then what does it say that he ruled such 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.440 a big chunk of the confession out so that it 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:15.000 was involuntary. What does it say about the other parts 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:16.960 of the confession and the ones we've already read out 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.880 on air. Doesn't mean that potentially they were made involuntary too, 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:22.079 like what we think. 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:22.679 Might have happened. 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.839 Well, the judge does say that even at the part 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.640 he ends the interview where the judge doesn't allow any 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:34.240 more of that interview to be placed into evidence that 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:39.480 he was concerned on multiple occasions Kevin had already tried 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.960 to terminate that interview. So even the judge feels the 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.560 sense that Kevin was under duress and that he was 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:51.800 not voluntarily responding to the questions he was being asked 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.960 and the way he was being probed, And in fact, 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.560 he even says that the police ignored the rights that 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:03.439 Kevin has all citizens have. So I think it definitely 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.840 raises a great deal of concern about the police behavior 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:12.120 that day. And we've heard last week from Pat McGinnis, 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.040 an expert in this area, and we've heard from other 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:20.040 experts that false confessions are very common, and now we 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.040 know that Kevin was pushed even when he didn't want 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:23.800 to say anymore. 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.280 It's very interesting that this came up right at the 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.480 start of the trial. Isn't it that this confession played 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:32.120 such a big part at the start of the trial. 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:36.439 Yeah, definitely, And I think that's for two reasons. One, 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.800 the prosecutor had clearly already accepted that there was a 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.560 great likelihood a huge amount of the confession was going 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.440 to be ruled inadmissible, and he didn't protest that at all. 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.719 So even the prosecutor was accepting that the majority of 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.280 Kevin's statement wasn't voluntary. And I think the other reason 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:01.600 we can assume that this came up so early is 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:06.520 because there really wasn't any other evidence against Kevin. So 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.199 for the bulk of the trial, all that's been relied 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:16.160 on is this one confession, and if most of that 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.600 is already struck off, well that's how they had to 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.240 start the trial. So they knew what they were working with. 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:23.240 And they weren't working was a lot. 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.920 Obviously, no, they weren't working with much at all. So 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.000 the judge made it very clear that in removing such 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:36.200 a large portion of Kevin's statement, that what was going 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:40.720 to be allowed into evidence was considerably reduced compared to 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:46.320 what the prosecutor had previously believed. So it certainly changed 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:49.280 the shape of the trial, and it lets us know 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:53.320 a lot about what the judge was thinking, and in 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.880 an extent, even what the prosecutor was thinking, because he 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.080 didn't contest. Once that judge is ruling. 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:06.360 Now there was something else, very very strange about this case. 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.840 We told you that On that same day, September fifth, 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.360 the last day Kevin Henry was a free man. Three women, 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:21.160 Susan Aubrey, Amy Saunders and Margaret Bob, the women who 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.720 led the brutal assault on Winder, were arrested as well 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.120 in the morning. They were charged with murder. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:29.560 But how could that be? 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.920 How could four people be charged with murder for two 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:41.360 separate sets of circumstances. How could Linda have been murdered twice? Mardin, 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:43.720 We've sort of been operating under the assumption that the 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.920 women it was Kevin who was charged with murder, the 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:51.160 women had gotten the charges for Grover's bodily harm. But 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:53.720 we later found out that wasn't the case, did we 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:55.320 How did we find that out? 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.120 Well? I received a package in the mail and I 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.280 was assuming that going to be a transcript or further 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:07.200 pages to the transcript of Kevin's trial, but in fact 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.480 what it was was a transcript of proceedings in the 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:16.320 magistrates court in Rockhampton where the three women were formally 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.200 presented in front of a judge charged with murder. And 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.840 this was the first time we'd heard about it, and 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:28.200 so I'm not sure how much that Kevin's later lawyers 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.760 knew about this and how much that had been analyzed 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:34.880 even during his initial trial. 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.960 It's interesting, So how long had all four people been 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:40.760 charged with murder over Linda's death? 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.040 So all four were charged on the fifth of September, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.040 and the murder charges against the three women were not 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.920 dropped until the twenty seventh of February the next year. 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.040 So that's a good five month period where we have 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:00.520 Kevin and then a set of three women charged with 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:06.320 murdering the same woman, Linda, but in separate circumstances. And 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.560 that's a very odd state of affairs, and it's something 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:14.040 I've discussed with a number of lawyers, both in Australia 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:18.240 and overseas, and it just seems a highly unusual fact 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:23.320 that you could have two groups charged with the murder 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:27.440 of the same person, but based on totally separate evidence 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:33.960 and different version of events. One can't be true. In fact, 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:38.400 maybe both aren't true. But we find out that those 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:42.320 charges against the three women are subsequently dropped. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.600 The thing I find very confusing about it is that 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.600 the three women of charges murder early on in the morning, 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.400 and yet later on Kevin has picked up so deliberately 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:55.640 targeted it sounds like because they knew who he was, 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.480 and then he's gone through this big process of almost 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.760 being like, I think, being her worst to confess that 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.360 they'd already had three women charge with murder already, they'd 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.280 already charged people, so got the people they thought were 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.080 responsible for this death. Why would they need to go 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.639 pick up Kevin and charge someone else's murder. 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.840 That was a question I had as well, But the 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:20.840 answer became very clear once I received this further information 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.920 in the mail. And what that shows is that Susan 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:29.159 Aubrey was arrested at six point fifty am that morning, 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.800 on the fifth of September. Now, she'd already given a 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:36.879 statement to police the day after Linda's body had been found, 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.960 and in it she doesn't say anything about Kevin's involvement. 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.920 But once she'd been charged with murder, she started taking 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.680 a completely different line to her first statement, and that's 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:54.240 when Kevin's name was raised. Now people have to remember 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:59.439 that everyone would have been talking about Linda's death, the circumstances, 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.639 and there'd been a lot of witnesses to the vicious 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.879 assault the three women committed against Linda. But somehow in 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:11.600 that second interview, Susan Aubrey starts pointing the finger at Kevin, 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.920 and the police, for whatever reason, start to take that seriously. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:16.640 So at this. 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.919 Point, were there any suspects for the murder of Linda 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:21.840 other than these women, Well, we. 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:26.680 Can tell immediately from their statements that there certainly were. 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.600 They were mentioning a lot of names by now. But 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:35.440 we also know something else. A local lawyer approached one 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.240 of the police officers that day and made a statement. 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.240 Now it wasn't officially recorded, but it is acknowledged to 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:46.960 have taken place, and that is that a client of 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:52.080 this lawyer had confessed that he'd committed the murder, and 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.040 that client was not Kevin Henry. 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:55.840 Did the police look into it? 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.879 Was there any suggestion that they had considered this other suspect. 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.080 We don't believe they ever looked at it. In fact, 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.560 we know once Kevin was picked up on the fifth 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:11.040 of September and the interview conducted with him, most of 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.160 which is later struck out as involuntary, the police didn't 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.400 investigate anyone else. They never followed up on this individual 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.960 who had supposedly confessed to a lawyer. They never followed 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.520 up on the other individuals named in the statements of 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.800 the three women who'd committed the violent assault and who 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.280 were then charged with murder. So the police should have 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.840 been looking for their co assailants if they believed, and 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.679 clearly they did, that those three women had committed murder. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.080 But even the fact of a lawyer coming to them 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.400 and stating that someone had confessed to them didn't seem 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:54.400 to change the way they conducted their investigation. And once 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:58.520 they'd taken their statement from Kevin, even though it's clearly 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.760 tainted and the judge ruled that, they just stopped investigating 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:03.399 point blank. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.720 So who actually charged the three women? Was it the 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:07.680 same police officers? 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.240 So the charges laid against the three women that was 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.439 handled by the most senior police officer in Rockhampton at 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:19.720 the time, Detective Inspector Kel Weeks. But we know from 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.960 the trial transcripts that Senior comes to a Wesley Girk 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:26.960 and Senior comes to a Robert Hunt. Were the ones 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:31.480 that pressed forward with interviewing Kevin, with taking him to 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.840 Tanuba and then we're charging him with murder? And it 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:39.120 wasn't the detective inspector who would charge Kevin, even though 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.080 the detective inspector was most senior officer and had already 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.880 charged three individuals in relation to Linda's death. The two 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.959 senior constables took it upon themselves to charge Kevin. 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.320 I mean, that's very interesting because obviously, at that point, 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.639 the highest ranked police officer in Rocky had decided that 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.800 there was enough to charge women, and yet lower ranked 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:04.400 police officers have gone ahead and decided to look into 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:05.000 someone else. 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.960 It's quite unusual, especially in a country town. It's not 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.000 as if we're in a large city in the United 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:17.800 States where multiple murders are happening on one day. This 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:22.159 was clearly the most serious and horrific event that had 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:25.920 happened in Rockhampton for some time. So you would assume 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.520 that the police were trying to get everything done to 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:34.560 the book accurately and investigate it fully. And we know 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.040 that the most senior officer in the town was watching 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:42.399 over the investigation and he'd decided to charge the three women. 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:49.320 Now why two lower ranked officers and much lower ranked 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.080 officers would go out of their way on that same 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:58.600 day to charge Kevin without consulting with their superior officer, 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.679 having conduct did an interview with Kevin and seemingly trying 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:08.680 to get confessions based on just the implication of one 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.639 of the accused murderers seems to be very bizarre. 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:15.960 So I guess, bringing it back to how we I 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:21.119 guess started. In February, the women and Kevin, their case 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:23.480 comes up in court the Magistrate's court. 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.159 Are all four still charged with murder. 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.560 In the first court hearing, all four are charged with murder, 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:33.919 but it's only the three women who appear. Kevin's not 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:37.960 scheduled to appear for another couple of months. And it's 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.800 quite unusual what occurs. And I'll read from the court 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:47.600 transcripts so everyone can understand very clearly what happened. So 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.560 the judge reads the charges and these are against the 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:55.920 three women, and he states that on the thirty first 0:22:55.960 --> 0:22:59.760 of August nineteen ninety one, at Rockhampton in the state 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:06.160 of Queensland, you murdered one winder and for cultural reasons, 0:23:06.280 --> 0:23:09.800 we won't say her last name. He goes on to say, 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.640 there is a further charge on the same day, each 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:17.640 of you unlawfully did grievous bodily harm to one winder. 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.560 At this point the prosecutor interrupts, and this is where 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:26.240 things get a little strange. The prosecutor says, there are 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:30.520 preliminary matters. First, I would seek to substitute charges in 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:34.800 relation to all three defendants in relation to those murder charges. 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:41.679 Now that's not the strange part. What happens next is 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:46.359 what's unusual. The judge asks one of the lawyers for 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:51.240 the women, does he agree to these murder charges being dropped? 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:56.439 And he states yes, I was informed of that only 0:23:56.480 --> 0:24:00.760 this morning, your worship. So at that point, the judge 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:05.000 strikes the three murder charges against the women. But what 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:09.480 we now know is that for five months, the women's 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:13.600 lawyers had no idea that the charge of murder was 0:24:13.640 --> 0:24:16.840 going to be dropped against them. We don't know when 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:20.760 that decision was made. We do know that the lawyers 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:25.439 for the women didn't know until that day that it 0:24:25.560 --> 0:24:29.280 was going to take place that those murder charges against 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:32.199 the three women would be dropped. What we don't know 0:24:32.720 --> 0:24:36.400 is when the police or the prosecutor made the decision 0:24:36.480 --> 0:24:41.280 themselves to drop that charge. So it appears that for 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:45.640 five months, four people were charged with murder with two 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:47.000 separate circumstances. 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:49.000 So then what happened next. 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:52.680 Well, then we have quite a lengthy period of argument 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:59.000 between the prosecutor and the defenders for the three women. 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:04.080 Once that murder charge had been struck out, the prosecutor 0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:08.960