Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was actually shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: actually really.
Speaker 3: Heaving blood on his clothing the day after the alleged
Speaker 3: a top on.
Speaker 4: A shallow mud bank and it fits through a river.
Speaker 5: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 5: me are good people.
Speaker 4: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 4: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 3: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the
Speaker 3: blinds to shine a light on.
Speaker 1: The darkest parts of our justice system and ask who
Speaker 1: are the victims.
Speaker 6: I'm Amy Maguire and.
Speaker 4: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 4: Support Service. And a warning. This series contains the names
Speaker 4: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 4: some listeners.
Speaker 5: This week, BuzzFeed News published a special report. Its title
Speaker 5: was care Henry Forced to Confess. An Aboriginal man who
Speaker 5: has been locked up for a quarter of a century
Speaker 5: for a murder he says he did not commit. Says
Speaker 5: police held a gun to his head and threatened to
Speaker 5: dispose of him. Off the top of a mountain if
Speaker 5: he did not confess to the crime. The reporter for
Speaker 5: that piece was my co host Amy maguire. Amy, obviously,
Speaker 5: today is the biggest revelation in Kevin Henry's case and
Speaker 5: will come as a big revelation to all those who
Speaker 5: have been listening to the Curtain podcast and what's happened
Speaker 5: to Kevin Henry. Can you tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about how you first heard about this accusation that Kevin's made.
Speaker 2: Yes, but even.
Speaker 1: Before we began this potocast series and even before we
Speaker 1: began investigating it, we've been aware of his allegation.
Speaker 4: It came very early on.
Speaker 1: And Kevin Henry continually started this allegation and ever since
Speaker 1: he was first incarcerated.
Speaker 7: So you would have heard on this podcast a lot
Speaker 7: about the confession that Kevin allegedly gave to the police
Speaker 7: three days after Lyondo was man a lot of them
Speaker 7: of this droop, and he wouldn't have heard all of
Speaker 7: the analysis we've done and all of the information we've
Speaker 7: given you about why we're going to leave.
Speaker 3: That confession was a co worst.
Speaker 8: But the allegation that Kevin Harry has continually made was
Speaker 8: while he was being interrogated by the two investigating detectors
Speaker 8: in the watchhouse that day during one of the one
Speaker 8: of the three instances when the tape was turned off
Speaker 8: and afterwards Kevin Henry changed is his story. One of
Speaker 8: the police officers, actually, Paul had gone to his head
Speaker 8: and it turned it into the dispo disposed of him
Speaker 8: of mountsha And we've known about that allegation for a
Speaker 8: very long time, but.
Speaker 1: We've been we were able to report it until now.
Speaker 1: So mind you a little bit to our listeners about
Speaker 1: why we didn't bring you that allegation earlier on in
Speaker 1: our investigation.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, As people can understand, this is a huge
Speaker 5: revelation in Kevin's case and it has enormous implications for
Speaker 5: trying to get Kevin freedom and to prove his innocence.
Speaker 5: But we didn't want to just release this information on
Speaker 5: an allegation. We wanted to investigate this thoroughly and make
Speaker 5: sure when we finally did expose what happened, that we
Speaker 5: had all the documents and paperwork, the full pay per
Speaker 5: trayal dating back all the way to when Kevin Henry
Speaker 5: was arrested, his trial, and all the complaints that have
Speaker 5: been made by Kevin over the years about exactly what happened.
Speaker 5: So it would have been easy to simply make this
Speaker 5: claim early on, but then who would take us seriously?
Speaker 5: Making such a serious allegation requires evidence, And now that
Speaker 5: we have that, and we were satisfied we'd covered everything
Speaker 5: we could, now we were ready to reveal this allegation,
Speaker 5: and for long term listeners have curtain the podcast, I
Speaker 5: think instantly everything we've discussed previously will now make much
Speaker 5: more sense. Why did Kevin Henry confess to a crime
Speaker 5: he clearly did not commit? And now you.
Speaker 7: Know so I guess.
Speaker 8: Particularly I guess.
Speaker 1: This alliation that police to Kevin Henry's had and forced
Speaker 1: him to confess will be quite shocking, but not so
Speaker 1: for aberg of people who have dealt with in the
Speaker 1: past and even currently talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: context around this time and how police actually acted towards
Speaker 1: Aboriginal people.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have to say, knowing when this took place,
Speaker 5: of course, when I first heard this allegation, I knew
Speaker 5: it was big for the crime and for trying to
Speaker 5: assist Kevin, but I can't say I was at all shocked.
Speaker 5: And as we've spoken to community members, Aboriginal people right
Speaker 5: around Queensland and right around Australia. Both in our careers
Speaker 5: and through investigating this case, we've heard of many Aboriginal
Speaker 5: people who have experienced exactly the same thing. Now, it's
Speaker 5: important to remember that the crime that took Linda's life
Speaker 5: took place in nineteen ninety one. This was the year
Speaker 5: when the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption was wrapping up
Speaker 5: in Queensland. And you have to remember that the highest
Speaker 5: ranking officers in Queensland going to prison, not just for corruption,
Speaker 5: but things like police brutality were rampant right across the state. Now,
Speaker 5: of course, being the nineties, it might seem like it
Speaker 5: was a modern time for most people, but police brutality
Speaker 5: against Aboriginal people continues to this day. Since Kevin's been
Speaker 5: in prison, nearly four hundred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Speaker 5: people have died in custody. So is it really any
Speaker 5: shock that the police would pull a gun on someone?
Speaker 5: And as I say, this has been going on for
Speaker 5: a long time and there are many, many, many Aboriginal
Speaker 5: people with a story to tell just like this. So
Speaker 5: I think the thing we should say too is that
Speaker 5: as we've discussed these allegations with Aboriginal people. Many had
Speaker 5: their own stories to of precisely the same thing happening
Speaker 5: to them. We heard directly from one man who had
Speaker 5: the same thing happened to him at the same police
Speaker 5: station in Rockhampton, and he confessed and served six years
Speaker 5: for a crime he did not do. And he openly says,
Speaker 5: how could he say no? It was simply too dangerous.
Speaker 5: And anyone who questions whether it is too dangerous for
Speaker 5: an Aboriginal person to fight back has to remember that
Speaker 5: number four hundred people dead in custody in the last
Speaker 5: twenty five years, so that is part of the context.
Speaker 5: We know so many Aboriginal people have died and been
Speaker 5: brutalized at the hands of police and members of the
Speaker 5: corrective services. We know in this case with Kevin Henry,
Speaker 5: not only was Kevin threatened, but many of the other
Speaker 5: people involved spoke about on the witness stand the threats
Speaker 5: that they face, the intimidation by the police, the constant harassment.
Speaker 5: So this certainly didn't come out of left field. And
Speaker 5: while I think it's normal for people to believe this
Speaker 5: happens in America on a daily basis, it's time for
Speaker 5: Australia to wake up and realize this doesn't just happen
Speaker 5: in your own country. This happens in your own towns
Speaker 5: and cities and to people you may well know. And
Speaker 5: this is what's happened to Kevin Henry.
Speaker 3: So, taking those statistics in minds that Martin just said,
Speaker 3: you think that there'd be a lot more complaints made
Speaker 3: about police by Aboriginal people.
Speaker 1: And we did have aboriginal death cut in one the
Speaker 1: same year that Lenda was found. But we have a
Speaker 1: situation in a show where there's never been a conviction
Speaker 1: for an Aboriginal death in custry. So when Aboriginal people
Speaker 1: want to allege cases of police brutality, they're really facing
Speaker 1: an uphill battle. And that's what faced Kevin Henry when
Speaker 1: he was incarcerated. Not only had he been wrongfully convicted
Speaker 1: in a court by a jury, but he also had
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble making his voice heard, particularly these
Speaker 1: allegations that particularly the allegations where police had acted quite
Speaker 1: brutally towards him. So, Martin, when did Kevin begin to
Speaker 1: make these complaints and who did he complain to, what
Speaker 1: process did he go through?
Speaker 5: Well, Kevin made the allegations very early on, and while
Speaker 5: we haven't been able to confirm it, my belief is
Speaker 5: that Kevin Henry was telling people, and we know this
Speaker 5: from Kevin too, was telling people exactly what had happened
Speaker 5: straight away. But the process of making a complaint about
Speaker 5: such things is very different. And I'll just pose this
Speaker 5: to our listeners. If, for example, the police had threatened you,
Speaker 5: who would you complain to? We generally think that when
Speaker 5: a crime has been committed against us, the people we
Speaker 5: are going to complain to are the police. So when
Speaker 5: it is the police who have done it, when you've
Speaker 5: wrongfully been found guilty of a horrific crime that you
Speaker 5: know you didn't commit, when you're sitting inside a small
Speaker 5: cell having been found guilty of a murder that again
Speaker 5: you didn't commit. Being an aboriginal man from a small
Speaker 5: regional Queensland town, who do you complain to? Where do
Speaker 5: you go? And remember again that Kevin Henry. Part of
Speaker 5: the problem with this alleged confession all along was that
Speaker 5: it was a long written statement and yet Kevin is illiterate,
Speaker 5: so how was he going to complain? One thing I
Speaker 5: found very remarkable is that in my experience, both in Australia,
Speaker 5: in the United States and around the world, when people
Speaker 5: make complaints against the police, it often takes years and
Speaker 5: years for them to come out. Some people don't make
Speaker 5: those complaints until they're actually freed because they're too scared.
Speaker 5: But Kevin was so sure of what had happened, so
Speaker 5: honest about his innocence, and so keen to protest what
Speaker 5: had gone on that less than a year after being imprisoned,
Speaker 5: he filed a complaint with what was then called the CJC,
Speaker 5: the Criminal Justice Commission, and wrote first a six page
Speaker 5: letter that was distributed through the Criminal Justice Commission and
Speaker 5: then two months later a single page letter detailing the
Speaker 5: acts he alleged had taken place.
Speaker 6: Does the complaints process actually work?
Speaker 5: So Kevin lodged a number of written complaints and this
Speaker 5: was sent to various administrative bodies, one being the Criminal
Speaker 5: Justice Commission, one being the Crime and Misconduct Commission. And
Speaker 5: what will shock people is that the way these complaints
Speaker 5: are handled against police is that the Crime and Misconduct
Speaker 5: Commission forwards these on to the police for the police
Speaker 5: to investigate. Now, a complaint was also written for Kevin
Speaker 5: and on behalf of Kevin by then Queensland State Government MP,
Speaker 5: and this complaint too was referred through the CMC, the
Speaker 5: Crime and Misconduct Commission, to the Ethical Standards Command, who
Speaker 5: then refer it to the Queensland Police. And worst of
Speaker 5: remembering that what Kevin says happened to him, his trial
Speaker 5: where the murder of Linda took place was in Rockhampton.
Speaker 5: This referral of the complaint by Kevin Henry about the
Speaker 5: treatment he suffered at the hands of police was handed
Speaker 5: to the Rockhampton CIB branch to be investigated. And so
Speaker 5: it won't come as any surprise that the Rockampton Police
Speaker 5: who were being investigated were being investigated by their own
Speaker 5: colleagues at the Rockhampton CIB cleared themselves of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 5: Now what that leaves us with is the complaint Kevin
Speaker 5: has made repeatedly over the years has never been properly investigated.
Speaker 5: No one outside of the Rockhampton CIB has ever examined
Speaker 5: what took place police investigating police, and we were not
Speaker 5: the first people to have problems with what happened. Remember
Speaker 5: what the judge said at the start of Kevin's trial
Speaker 5: before any witnesses were called, before the prosecutor or the
Speaker 5: defense started making their cases. The very first thing the
Speaker 5: judge raised was this supposed confession, this statement Kevin made
Speaker 5: and remembering now you know this is when Kevin says,
Speaker 5: during this process, a gun was pulled on him. And
Speaker 5: this is what the judge says. Clearly, the record of
Speaker 5: interview from the middle of page nineteen onwards at the
Speaker 5: CI branch is tainted and cannot be received as a
Speaker 5: voluntary statement. That is one sentence, that's the same CI
Speaker 5: branch that investigated the police who did this to Kevin.
Speaker 5: The judge says that it is tainted and cannot be
Speaker 5: received voluntarily. The judge did not know at that time,
Speaker 5: and we don't believe was ever informed of Kevin's allegation
Speaker 5: of a gun being pulled on him. But here you
Speaker 5: have a judge clearly knowing by just reading the statement
Speaker 5: that something was wrong. And the judge continues to go
Speaker 5: on and explain that Kevin had repeatedly said he had
Speaker 5: nothing further to say, and that these police officers continued
Speaker 5: to press Kevin, and he details how they did that
Speaker 5: on page twenty one and page twenty three and earlier
Speaker 5: on page nineteen and for hours after on video and
Speaker 5: on tape they pressed him and the judge makes mention
Speaker 5: that this happened at the Rockhampton c I branch. And
Speaker 5: years later, when Kevin's allegation was finally investigated, it was
Speaker 5: this same CI branch at Rockhampton who investigated the allegations.
Speaker 5: Is it any wonder the police cleared themselves of wrongdoing?
Speaker 2: So Mardin.
Speaker 6: After this occurred back in two thousand and two, when
Speaker 6: the police basically cleared themselves, what could the CCC, which
Speaker 6: is then the CMC, the Chrome Misconduct Commission, what could
Speaker 6: they have actually done? Considering that they've just passed us
Speaker 6: off to the police to investigate.
Speaker 5: Well, I think given that they have their own ethical
Speaker 5: standard command, they could have done an internal investigation as
Speaker 5: to firstly, how did the police carry out an investigation
Speaker 5: of their own? Did they do it properly and buy
Speaker 5: the book? Was it thorough, was everyone interviewed? Was evidence collected?
Speaker 5: And what did the report actually say? Because all the
Speaker 5: paperwork that we've obtained and we have all that is
Speaker 5: believed to be available, simply states that the officers in
Speaker 5: question are cleared and that the complaint was not substantiated.
Speaker 5: But there's no detail of what was actually done to
Speaker 5: ascertain that. The only thing we know is a single
Speaker 5: claim by the investigating officer looking into Kevin's allegation that
Speaker 5: they reviewed some CCTV footage. Now that CCTV footage is
Speaker 5: no longer available and it wasn't looked at by this
Speaker 5: investigating officer for years after Kevin made the complaint. You
Speaker 5: have to remember that this is pre the digital age.
Speaker 5: These things were not stored on large files on computers,
Speaker 5: as the police them said say. These were recorded on
Speaker 5: Achi video tapes, which, to explain to our listeners, are
Speaker 5: either three hours in standard play or six hours in
Speaker 5: long play. For the police to still have a copy
Speaker 5: of the video from when Kevin Henry alleges would mean
Speaker 5: just in the time between when the incident took place
Speaker 5: and when the investigation into whether it took place happened.
Speaker 5: The police at just the Rockampton Police station would have
Speaker 5: had to have maintained up to ten thousand video tapes.
Speaker 5: So I would suggest that it stretches all kinds of
Speaker 5: credibility to believe that that occurred. And so while we
Speaker 5: don't know, I find it very hard to believe any
Speaker 5: video tape was ever examined. So clearly the should have
Speaker 5: looked at this matter themselves. What could be more serious
Speaker 5: than police misusing a firearm and using it to threaten
Speaker 5: an individual to confess to a murder they say they
Speaker 5: did not commit a murder, where all the other evidence
Speaker 5: suggests this person is innocent. There is no forensic evidence
Speaker 5: against this person, no DNA evidence against this person. There's
Speaker 5: eyewitnesses who point the finger not at this person, Kevin Henry,
Speaker 5: but at other people. The sole piece of evidence is
Speaker 5: a confession, and here you have an allegation that it
Speaker 5: was obtained under severe duress, and no one sought to
Speaker 5: look at the fact that the police were investigating the
Speaker 5: police and to this day, as you've mentioned, we don't
Speaker 5: see any follow up to that matter. So I would
Speaker 5: suggest this is when the politicians have a job to do,
Speaker 5: that they demand that this is looked into. Further, that
Speaker 5: if we are to be sure that everybody in prison
Speaker 5: in the state of Queensland and for that matter, Australia,
Speaker 5: is there because they are guilty, that we need to
Speaker 5: know how much of this behavior has been going on
Speaker 5: and if it's been stamped out. And I also want
Speaker 5: to mention one other thing. Remember on an earlier episode
Speaker 5: of this podcast, when we interviewed Patrick McGinnis, the public
Speaker 5: defender from Florida who was able to prove that a
Speaker 5: young African American man did not commit a murder the
Speaker 5: police alleged he did. He too, supposedly confessed, he too
Speaker 5: made complaints about police roughing him up and punching him.
Speaker 5: But the police investigated themselves in that matter and they
Speaker 5: too cleared themselves. But what we know about that case
Speaker 5: is that Patrick McGinnis, this public defender who was documented
Speaker 5: in the Academy Award winning movie A Murder on a
Speaker 5: Sunday morning, he decided to investigate it himself, and not
Speaker 5: only did he prove that the police had roughed up
Speaker 5: this young black man who did not commit the murder,
Speaker 5: he found the real murderer. This is the job that
Speaker 5: organizations like the Crime and Misconduct Commission and the Ethical
Speaker 5: Standards Command inside both the Queensland Government and Queensland Police
Speaker 5: should be doing, because if Kevin Henry is innocent, then
Speaker 5: we know not only has he been denied justice, but
Speaker 5: Linda has been denied justice too, because the people really
Speaker 5: responsible have never faced accountability for what they did and
Speaker 5: the sole read and that is true is because Kevin
Speaker 5: was forced to confess to a crime he did not
Speaker 5: commit by police who were acting unethically, immorally, and I
Speaker 5: would suggest criminally.
Speaker 2: Now includes a copy of Kevin Leonard alting that the
Speaker 2: gun who had on the day he alone can.
Speaker 1: Pay for website.
Speaker 7: Dot com that was
Speaker 6: Of a Curdi