Speaker 1: For you, the listeners of Curtain the podcast, audible dot
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Speaker 2: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 2: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 3: It was absolute shambles to show you the truth, just
Speaker 3: absolutely really.
Speaker 2: Honored blood on his clothing the day after the alleged
Speaker 2: A top.
Speaker 3: A shallow mud bank and it fits through a river.
Speaker 4: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 4: me are good people.
Speaker 1: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 1: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Kurtain, a podcast where we pull back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 2: Amy Maguire.
Speaker 1: And I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign
Speaker 1: Prisoner Suppult Service. Our producer is Paul Watts. Music by
Speaker 1: Clint Curtis and produced in collaboration with the Brisbane Indigenous
Speaker 1: Media Association and a warning. This series contains the names
Speaker 1: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 1: some listeners.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us for kurtin the podcast. If
Speaker 2: you've been following regularly, you would know that we've been
Speaker 2: airing this investigation for the past eight weeks. We've raised
Speaker 2: a great deal of doubt about the guilt of Kevin Henry,
Speaker 2: who has been in jail for a quarter of a
Speaker 2: century over the murder of an Aboriginal woman named Linda
Speaker 2: in September nine ninety one. Now, for the last few episodes,
Speaker 2: we've been giving you a few details about the forensic
Speaker 2: evidence in this case.
Speaker 1: That evidence is currently in the process of being reviewed
Speaker 1: by an international forensic expertly be very important and so
Speaker 1: as we told you last week, we can't rush these things.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime we want to tell you a
Speaker 1: little bit about the background to this case. If you're
Speaker 1: not from Australia, and even if you're not from Queensland,
Speaker 1: you may not have known what it was like for
Speaker 1: people living there in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: When we tell you the details of this case, particularly
Speaker 2: regarding the police. You need to know the context in
Speaker 2: which this happened. It's vital to your understanding of this case.
Speaker 2: We told you previously that Kevin Henry was picked up
Speaker 2: the day Linda was found for public drunkenness. He was
Speaker 2: then thrown in the watchhouse with two other men that day.
Speaker 2: Now many blackfellows in Australia would know this was not
Speaker 2: an unusual occurrence.
Speaker 1: We told you about how Linda died in the same
Speaker 1: year the Royal Commission into average or Deaths in Custody
Speaker 1: was handed down. Her brother was one of the most
Speaker 1: high profile cases investigated by the Commission at the time.
Speaker 1: The Commission came down heavily on the criminalization of public drunkenness,
Speaker 1: taking in mind the fact many of the men and
Speaker 1: women who had died in custody had been locked up
Speaker 1: for simply being intoxicated in public.
Speaker 2: We also told you about how people at Tanuba House
Speaker 2: would often use the place as a sanctuary to get
Speaker 2: away from police. Around the same time, the local morning
Speaker 2: Bulletin newspaper would report on several outrages involving over policing
Speaker 2: in the town, particularly when a twelve year old boy
Speaker 2: was locked up with adults and thrown in the watchhouse overnight.
Speaker 2: It seems fair to say that Aboriginal mob at the time,
Speaker 2: just like the current day, had a strange relationship with police,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't just Aboriginal people. This tragedy occurred only
Speaker 2: a few years after the Fitzgerald Inquiry was handed down,
Speaker 2: when public attention on police corruption in Queensland was at
Speaker 2: its highest point. But if you can imagine the wider
Speaker 2: public were concerned about police misconduct, imagine how Aboriginal people
Speaker 2: would have felt.
Speaker 1: The aboriginality of both the alleged perpetrators and the victim
Speaker 1: is vital to understanding this case. It is vital to
Speaker 1: understanding what we've told you so far. The police investigation
Speaker 1: into this case was deeply flawed. From the moment they
Speaker 1: entered the crime scene, it was left unsecured for hours,
Speaker 1: and from there the problems just continued to pile up.
Speaker 1: Many of the witnesses were interviewed either while intoxicated, without
Speaker 1: legal representation, or both. Quite a number of the witnesses
Speaker 1: were illiterate and were unable to read the statements they
Speaker 1: had allegedly given. They were also giving those statements under
Speaker 1: considerable duress. Many spoke about the pressures placed on them
Speaker 1: to provide multiple statements before the trial commenced. We also
Speaker 1: know that once the police had arrested Kevin Henry on
Speaker 1: the fifth of September, by their own admission, they ceased
Speaker 1: investigating the case any further. This is despite many issues
Speaker 1: coming up. The forensic evidence hadn't come back yet, a
Speaker 1: man allegedly confessed to his own solicitor who passed on
Speaker 1: this information, and many more questions that were raised over
Speaker 1: the coming months. There was also the deeply concerning issue
Speaker 1: that not only were the three women charged with murder
Speaker 1: on the same day, the fifth of September, as Kevin Henry,
Speaker 1: they were charged under different circumstances. And how could one
Speaker 1: murder take place in two different ways by two sets
Speaker 1: of people.
Speaker 2: But to understand why this might have occurred in the
Speaker 2: police investigation and why it's perhaps not even surprising for
Speaker 2: the time, you also have to understand Queensland at the time.
Speaker 2: Even a couple of years after the Fitzgerald and inquiry,
Speaker 2: which led to convictions for several police officers, as well
Speaker 2: as the charging of several Queensland politicians, these concerns still continued.
Speaker 1: Now, leading up to the Fitzgerald Inquiry, there were two
Speaker 1: journalists in particular whose work was vital in pushing for change.
Speaker 1: One of those journalists was the Four Corners reporter Chris Masters,
Speaker 1: and the other was The Career Male's Phil Dickie. Phil
Speaker 1: would go on to win the Gold Walkley, the highest
Speaker 1: honor in Australian journalism.
Speaker 2: Now Phil Dickie lives in Switzerland. Martin spoke to him
Speaker 2: earlier this week to give us a sense of what
Speaker 2: it was like to live in Queensland at this time
Speaker 2: and why police were the subject of so much mistrust.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me a little bit about the series
Speaker 4: of reports in the Career Male that helped spark the
Speaker 4: Fitzgerald inquiry.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course. I was asked to investigate the ownership
Speaker 3: of a sort of massage parlor at the top of
Speaker 3: the valley, and I took some liberties with that assignment
Speaker 3: and tried to find out who owned all of the
Speaker 3: massage parlors, tried to establish what actual business was going
Speaker 3: on there. It was clearly constitution which was clearly illegal.
Speaker 3: And then I detailed the people who enrold in a
Speaker 3: level of detail that hadn't been done before, and that
Speaker 3: sort of led to four and one thing led to another,
Speaker 3: and the detailing of the criminal figures and their links
Speaker 3: to particular police led to fairly clear inferences of corruption.
Speaker 3: Because of the legal system, we had to keep it
Speaker 3: at the level of inferences that were together with the
Speaker 3: outstanding ABC four Corners report, it took the government to
Speaker 3: a place where that they had to call him quote.
Speaker 4: And at the time when you were writing these articles,
Speaker 4: how widely known or suspected was it in the public
Speaker 4: that this level of corruption was going on.
Speaker 3: Probably only some impression in the public. I think amongst
Speaker 3: journalists it was fairly well believed that the police were
Speaker 3: quite corrupt, that despite numerous succession of stories over many
Speaker 3: years that had never been cracked before. And I think
Speaker 3: the difference was that before the media would get a
Speaker 3: statement from someone alleging corruption, they'd repeat the statement, the government,
Speaker 3: the police would deny it. The person who made the
Speaker 3: complaint would find themselves out of a job or posted
Speaker 3: to kindamother or something. That would be the end of it.
Speaker 3: They'd be token efforts to set up police complaints, Tropian
Speaker 3: aws and things like that, but these were, you know,
Speaker 3: these were operated in such a way that they never
Speaker 3: came to any result. I think the difference that I
Speaker 3: made was I took it from an investigative point of view,
Speaker 3: so it was actually Victoria Mail making the allegations, not
Speaker 3: some vulnerable, you know, pissed off police officer or something
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and clearly the work you did was so impactful
Speaker 4: that you won the Gold Walkley. I wonder what sort
Speaker 4: of pushback you had from the police and from political
Speaker 4: circles about what you're exposing.
Speaker 3: Quite quite a lot, from you know, lots of lots
Speaker 3: of violence to a bullet hole and a related window.
Speaker 3: That's probably not surprising my head later about efforts to
Speaker 3: defame me or just annoy me and sort of say, okay, Dick,
Speaker 3: he's obviously gay or something like that. That sort of
Speaker 3: thing fairly typical, I think you. I think basically you
Speaker 3: have to ignore it. Sometimes you have to sort of
Speaker 3: play to someone, hey are you sittening me? And that
Speaker 3: usually makes them back off a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And was that part of the culture, the political culture
Speaker 4: and police culture at the time in Queensland sort of widespread.
Speaker 3: I think you've got to get beyond the police source
Speaker 3: and look at Queensland overall, and I think probably the
Speaker 3: best term of describing how Queensland has run at the
Speaker 3: time was it a sort of a cony state. If
Speaker 3: you were in good with the governing powers and or
Speaker 3: the governing arrangements at all sorts of levels from the
Speaker 3: state to the council, then you know, then you would
Speaker 3: do well. And if you upset the apple cart, then
Speaker 3: you know steps would often be taken to marginalize you
Speaker 3: or get your decease and defess.
Speaker 4: And what links did you find? I guess that you
Speaker 4: could explain to the general public who may not be
Speaker 4: aware at all of the Fitzgerald inquiry between police and
Speaker 4: the absolute top level politicians and political circles in the state.
Speaker 3: I think, very very early on sort of myself and
Speaker 3: Chris Masters found ourselves operating not at the level of
Speaker 3: you know, constables and detective sergeants, that we're operating at
Speaker 3: the level of assistant commissioners and very senior police. And
Speaker 3: then you've got obvious questions of you know, these people
Speaker 3: have had question marks over their careers, who's been promoting
Speaker 3: them and so you've got a very direct link into
Speaker 3: the political circles there. But we also we're operating in
Speaker 3: a background of frequent allegations of strange dealings politically that
Speaker 3: we're close to verging on corruption. So you know, it's
Speaker 3: all part of the picture. I think in many ways,
Speaker 3: and I've done a bit of work outside Australian now,
Speaker 3: in many ways the police are the easy ones to
Speaker 3: catch a corruption because they deal with with criminals and
Speaker 3: criminals like the Big Note themselves, and you know, there's
Speaker 3: always cross upon the streets, and there's a fairly high
Speaker 3: level of interest in the media in the salacious aspects
Speaker 3: of police work. So police are often the first to
Speaker 3: get caught out in a system which is fairly corrupted through.
Speaker 4: And through, and I mean through all the investigation work
Speaker 4: you've done own, how would you say this culture of
Speaker 4: corruption from the top down started and was allowed to
Speaker 4: fester for so long.
Speaker 3: Well, I did go into the history of it in
Speaker 3: a lot of detail. I think you can go back
Speaker 3: to colonial times and find you know, with the treatment
Speaker 3: of aboriginals, the native police, the way temperate servements, gambling
Speaker 3: in early prostitution were governed, you can find respecting I
Speaker 3: think with the thread of corruption that was exposed in
Speaker 3: the Fitzgerald inquiries, you've got a very clear link between
Speaker 3: the sudden growth of an illegal economy in the Second
Speaker 3: World War and the sort of the continuous grace of
Speaker 3: corruption to the level of the joke and the political
Speaker 3: corruption that Fitzgerald outlined. There were efforts, there was one,
Speaker 3: never good effort to deal with it on the way through,
Speaker 3: but that failed, and in part it failed, I think
Speaker 3: because it concentrated on the monetary aspect of corruption and
Speaker 3: not in terms of the corruption of police process. You know,
Speaker 3: the constant verbaling to get quick convictions. Didn't wrote that.
Speaker 3: I think there's a you have to tackle corruption as
Speaker 3: endemic and serious you know when you find it, and
Speaker 3: even then it's a very hard thing to route us.
Speaker 3: And I'm not sure that Queen's Land succeeded. That had
Speaker 3: an excellent opportunity based for seriald but I don't think
Speaker 3: it's succerded on the throat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I mean based on all the work you've
Speaker 4: done and what you've seen take place since the inquiry,
Speaker 4: what would you say or who were the big victims
Speaker 4: in Queensland of the corruption? Was it the most vulnerable
Speaker 4: people in society?
Speaker 3: Look, I think we're all victims and you can clearly
Speaker 3: outline some people who are particularly victimized and identifize one
Speaker 3: of the most victimized groups was honest police. A lot
Speaker 3: of laws that are hard to enforce and a sort
Speaker 3: of more about enforcing morals than dealing with crime. You
Speaker 3: have this classic effects all over the world that the
Speaker 3: policing of those sorts of laws impacts on minorities or
Speaker 3: people who who are outside the general stereotypes. And you're
Speaker 3: saying that now, of course, with you know, migration law
Speaker 3: around the world dealing with refugees, you know who is
Speaker 3: impacted not the people who arrive on aeroplanes and other
Speaker 3: states visus that the people who try and you know,
Speaker 3: sort of swim or take leaky boats into across national borders.
Speaker 3: So it's the most the most vulnerable who always suffer.
Speaker 3: I think there was the same in Queensland that we
Speaker 3: managed to verify with research about cannabis law enforcement, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, the rich gets stoned and the poor get busted, right.
Speaker 3: And I think in Australia you see all of the
Speaker 3: numerous reports on indigenous enforcement, the way the way Indigenous
Speaker 3: people are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system and
Speaker 3: in the jail, in the courts, you know more than
Speaker 3: their more than their actual involvement in crime wise.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. I think for those who do know some of
Speaker 4: the Fitzgerald Inquiry and saw the full Horners report, they'd
Speaker 4: know a lot about what happened in Brisbane and on
Speaker 4: the Gold Coast. But what about regional areas? How much
Speaker 4: did it affect regional Queensland.
Speaker 3: Look, in some cases it was worse because you were
Speaker 3: dealing with smaller market. The police and criminal partnerships were
Speaker 3: more of a factor in.
Speaker 1: Society.
Speaker 3: They were closer links to local government. For instance, in
Speaker 3: places like Cans and the Gold Coast, the corrupting influence
Speaker 3: influences were much closer together and much clok sort of.
Speaker 3: It wasn't as remote as George Street. It was in
Speaker 3: a city hallum and the police station and the local
Speaker 3: clubs and nightclubs and the pubs, and so it could
Speaker 3: be more of a factor and you could help away
Speaker 3: from the scrutiny of the biggest city institution, the newspapers
Speaker 3: and journalists. You could get quite quite You could get
Speaker 3: arrangements where people were really living in fear of their
Speaker 3: lives and small communities because they had fallen outside the system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, but I did see.
Speaker 3: That myself a bit in places like Mariba for instance.
Speaker 4: Right, one thing we've discovered in our investigation of the
Speaker 4: time and speaking to particularly the Aboriginal community in rock Hampton,
Speaker 4: was a great level of fear of the police and
Speaker 4: the authority. I wonder if you discovered anything about rock
Speaker 4: Hampton in particular in your investigations.
Speaker 3: The only thing I remember there was an abortive a
Speaker 3: tea to buy one of the crime reps to set
Speaker 3: up a gambling casino in rock Hampton, So apart from that,
Speaker 3: I didn't go into too much detail there.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Another issue that the inquiry raised was the issue of
Speaker 4: the way Aboriginal prisoners in particular were interrogated and the
Speaker 4: issue of gratuitous concurrence where they would often just give
Speaker 4: an answer most likely to please the questioner, and there
Speaker 4: were a lot of issues raised around whether that led
Speaker 4: to convictions. Was that something that you'd touched on in
Speaker 4: your investigation?
Speaker 1: If I could go.
Speaker 3: A bit broader than that, You know, I've done a
Speaker 3: lot of work with Indigenous people around the world now
Speaker 3: and you will find that that's a common made of
Speaker 3: communication that that you know, there is this real desire
Speaker 3: to please and relate, so you will be told things
Speaker 3: that from a you know, from our perspective are quite
Speaker 3: clearly untrue or unlikely that they're not you know, they're
Speaker 3: not being said in that context, or if you ask
Speaker 3: the question, you'll get an answer that he's meant to
Speaker 3: please you, whether it actually resembles the actual state of
Speaker 3: of what happened or what you're inquiring about. So you
Speaker 3: know that happens now. It's a matter of cultural sensitivity.
Speaker 3: Now a will conducted, will run police force, which Greenslin
Speaker 3: did not have in those days, would have had specialists
Speaker 3: who would know some of these subtleties and who would
Speaker 3: you know, sort of allow and there'd be specific training.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I hope that sort of thing
Speaker 3: happens now, but it's it's I think it was commonplace.
Speaker 3: It was commonplace sometimes just because of this, you know,
Speaker 3: quick and easy attitude to getting getting a conviction s
Speaker 3: having someone through the court, and also because you know
Speaker 3: it could work, and because you know, junior police follow
Speaker 3: the example of more senior police. And if they're not
Speaker 3: specifically instructed but this is a particular issue with a
Speaker 3: particular population, then they don't take account of it court.
Speaker 3: You know, there's also a role for courts to question
Speaker 3: this too and to be aware of it. I think
Speaker 3: you've got you've got a general failure of caring frequently
Speaker 3: in Queensland.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and just finally before we came on air, we spoke.
Speaker 4: Now you've lived away from us for around a decade
Speaker 4: now and see seen the way other court systems operate.
Speaker 4: I was just wondering if you could explain to the
Speaker 4: listeners what you've observed, and mainly the positives and negatives
Speaker 4: of the two systems.
Speaker 3: I think you know, there is in theory a presumption
Speaker 3: of innocence in the British judicial system that most of
Speaker 3: the Anglo countries around the world have adopted. But there's
Speaker 3: also elements of old medieval trial by combat, a resolution of.
Speaker 1: The skips and.
Speaker 3: Getting it at guilty or innocence, and if you don't,
Speaker 3: you can't afford it, your marginalize then you don't get
Speaker 3: the champion in the court and you can suffer thereby.
Speaker 3: I think in the in the alternative tradition of European systems,
Speaker 3: the Code Napoleon system, you know, there's more of a
Speaker 3: structure where the judiciary is involved from the start in
Speaker 3: investigation and the obligation of parties before the court is
Speaker 3: to assist in getting at the truth of the matter. Now,
Speaker 3: both systems can be corrupted and you can get you
Speaker 3: can get outcomes that are incorrect and less than desirable
Speaker 3: in those systems, but you know they're they're the advantages
Speaker 3: and drawbacks. The urwing thing in priensent i guess is
Speaker 3: the Fitzgerald inquiry is and inquiries generally are thinks conducted
Speaker 3: under the under the European type system. You're trying to
Speaker 3: get a truth of the matter, and you uncover things
Speaker 3: that would never come out in courts of law. You know,
Speaker 3: there's there's more ways of ruling evidence and admissible and
Speaker 3: we're declining to take into account things it might seem
Speaker 3: extraneous but are actually vital to explanation.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for that explanation and for your
Speaker 4: expertise on this area.
Speaker 2: Okay, Martain, we just heard from Phil Dickey, who we
Speaker 2: told our listeners was the journalist to help spark the
Speaker 2: Fitzgerald inquiry. What do you take from that? Do you
Speaker 2: think it gives a good sense of what Queensland was
Speaker 2: like maybe when Kevin was first arrested.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it puts things in perspective. I think
Speaker 1: we have to always remember what Phil said as we
Speaker 1: talk about this case, and when we think about this case,
Speaker 1: that the way Queensland was run, both politically and the
Speaker 1: way police operated was not what most people are used
Speaker 1: to nor understand. There was a high level of corruption,
Speaker 1: there was no oversight, and there were huge issues with
Speaker 1: the way the place was run. And I think that
Speaker 1: for most people looking at the case won't really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And I think it's really important to keep it in mind.
Speaker 2: If it's Jerals Enquirer was handed down in the late eighties,
Speaker 2: so a few years before this happened. But do you
Speaker 2: get a sense that, particularly in regional Australia, it might
Speaker 2: have still been sort of the It hadn't really been
Speaker 2: resolved at that time, not it hadn't had enough time
Speaker 2: to change this sort of environment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly, I think we can take from what Phil
Speaker 1: said that he still has concerns that things haven't changed
Speaker 1: even to this day. So certainly just a few years later,
Speaker 1: in a regional town like Rockhampton, the same police was
Speaker 1: still working, the same lack of oversight still existed, and
Speaker 1: the same tactics of operating was still in existence, and
Speaker 1: I think that we have to question whether things have
Speaker 1: changed at all in this world. We still see the
Speaker 1: exact same problems that were raised in the Fitzgerald Inquiry
Speaker 1: occurring to this day. So while many of the political
Speaker 1: issues may have been resolved, I don't think the policing.
Speaker 2: Issues were particularly I guess it explains maybe a lot
Speaker 2: of the how if the wider Queensland viewed police that way,
Speaker 2: and in fact the whole nation viewed Queensland police that way,
Speaker 2: imagine how Aboriginal people and the Aboriginal community in Rockampden
Speaker 2: must have viewed police at that time. It was obvious
Speaker 2: that there must have been tension between the two groups,
Speaker 2: do you think.
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely, and I think there was also a great
Speaker 1: level of distrust and fear. I think that's clear from
Speaker 1: the report handed down that the way Queensland was run
Speaker 1: was a corrupt state. And any time a state is
Speaker 1: run and is corrupt from the very top as it was,
Speaker 1: that those who are most vulnerable are at the most risk.
Speaker 1: So I think for Aboriginal people in particular, and those
Speaker 1: in lower socioeconomic circumstances, that the fear that would have existed,
Speaker 1: The distrust that would have existed would have been enormous,
Speaker 1: and I think that reflects on why many people didn't
Speaker 1: report crimes that were committed against themselves, as well as
Speaker 1: the way people were policed.
Speaker 2: It's interesting you say that because I guess a lot
Speaker 2: of listeners would be thinking why didn't anyone call police
Speaker 2: when Linda was assaulted the first time? And maybe that
Speaker 2: distrust of police and that fear of police could have
Speaker 2: led into that reluctance to call.
Speaker 3: Thus do you think.
Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely right, and I think we have
Speaker 1: to remember that at the same time as this was occurring,
Speaker 1: we'd just seen the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in custody,
Speaker 1: where we still know twenty five years after that finished,
Speaker 1: we have nearly four hundred Aboriginal ontari Straight Islander people
Speaker 1: have died at the hands of police and corrective services.
Speaker 1: So at the time, we had both this level of
Speaker 1: corruption in police and at a political level, and violence
Speaker 1: by police and corrective services. So why would anyone in
Speaker 1: the Aboriginal community call the police for help when their
Speaker 1: most likely way of dying, being assaulted and injured, was
Speaker 1: at the very hands of people they were being asked
Speaker 1: to call. So I think the level of fear definitely
Speaker 1: played into that. I think the whole issue surrounding black
Speaker 1: deaths in custody, surrounding corrupt police behavior, violence by the police,
Speaker 1: intimidation threats. I mean, these are just not allegations. These
Speaker 1: are things that were raised and proven in both royal
Speaker 1: commissions and well one Law Commission and the in COURK
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald Inquiry. So I mean this was systemic in Queensland
Speaker 1: and right across Australia, and I think we need to
Speaker 1: consider that when we listen to what happened on that
Speaker 1: day at Tenuber House.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's very interesting you said that it was
Speaker 2: raised particularly in the Fitzgerald Inquiry, and it did have
Speaker 2: occasions it's brought it brought up the police handling of
Speaker 2: Aboriginal witnesses. So I think in the Fitzgerald Inquiry there
Speaker 2: was a section where it talked about gratuitous concurrence and
Speaker 2: how some police actually use that to an advantage. And
Speaker 2: it seems like the case in Kevin's confession. When you
Speaker 2: read comments like that from the Fitzgerald Inquiry, you sort
Speaker 2: of see it line up with what might have happened
Speaker 2: with Kevin's confession, which we've already discussed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I think we can see in the way
Speaker 1: Kevin's confession took place, the fact that it was done
Speaker 1: without legal representation, the way the questions were asked, and
Speaker 1: the yes or no answers that were given, This was
Speaker 1: exactly the sort of interview that the Fitzgerald Inquiry warned
Speaker 1: against and warned against because it had led to so
Speaker 1: many statements that were factually incorrect. Clearly, it led to
Speaker 1: the arrest and conviction of innocent people. Clearly, it led
Speaker 1: to statements that weren't at all based on the truth.
Speaker 1: It was just about pleasing the officers involved and getting
Speaker 1: the version of events they wanted and suited their story.
Speaker 1: So I think it's fair to say that the Fitzgerald
Speaker 1: Inquiry in that sense as well, had definitely not filtered
Speaker 1: down to Rockhampton at the time, and we have to
Speaker 1: have grave concerns about the way that that interview was
Speaker 1: conducted and the fact that the issues surrounding the way
Speaker 1: it was conducted had been raised at the highest levels
Speaker 1: in the state and yet just years later it was
Speaker 1: still going on. So Queensland Police had definitely not learned
Speaker 1: a lot from the Fitzgerald Inquiry VISAVI dealing with Aboriginal
Speaker 1: and terrestrate Islander people in an appropriate manner.
Speaker 2: So going forward in this podcast series, it's important to
Speaker 2: remember the words of Phil Dickie, the career mail reporter
Speaker 2: whose journalism helped spark the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Speaker 1: And we must also remember at the time the recently
Speaker 1: finished Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The inquiry,
Speaker 1: the Royal Commission and the corrupt nature of the way
Speaker 1: Queensland was run at the time, both at a political
Speaker 1: level and a police level, play a crucial role in
Speaker 1: the trial and conviction of Kevin Henry.
Speaker 2: That was episode eight of Curtain, a podcast delving into
Speaker 2: the nineteen ninety one murder of an Aboriginal woman named
Speaker 2: Linda on the banks of Tanuba or the Fitzroy River
Speaker 2: in Rockampton, Central Queensland. For now, you can catch up
Speaker 2: on iTunes by typing in Curtain the Podcast, or go
Speaker 2: to our website www dot Curtain Theepodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Also follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Curtain the Podcast.