Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants. It was absolutely shambles, to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth, just absolutely really. Heamous blood on
Speaker 1: his clothing the day after the alleged attap.
Speaker 2: A show a mud bank and it fits through a river.
Speaker 3: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 3: me are good people.
Speaker 2: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 2: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 1: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 1: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 1: Amy Maguire and.
Speaker 2: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 2: Support Service. And a warning. This series contains the names
Speaker 2: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 2: some listeners.
Speaker 1: Last week I've heard in the podcast we told you
Speaker 1: that we've received a host of new documents. It includes
Speaker 1: witness statements that we hadn't had before, and a lot
Speaker 1: more information that attests to Kevin's innocence. It also includes
Speaker 1: an explosive revelation. Now, over the next few weeks, including
Speaker 1: this week, we're going to detail a few of those revelations. Now,
Speaker 1: most of your experience has been looking at post conviction,
Speaker 1: looking at bad investigations. Can you tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of the new evidence that we've uncovered
Speaker 1: and what it is about Ken's case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, frighteningly, this is, as I've said before,
Speaker 3: one of the worst police investigations I've seen. We've previously
Speaker 3: detailed the flaws that occurred very early on in terms
Speaker 3: of the way the crime scene was handled that it
Speaker 3: took almost a full day up to twenty four hours
Speaker 3: for it to be secured for evidence to be collected.
Speaker 3: Last week we detailed some of the further problems with
Speaker 3: the forensics and the washing down off the body after
Speaker 3: it had been discovered. But something that jumps out immediately
Speaker 3: is the first expert witness that the police spoke to. Now,
Speaker 3: you have to remember that Linda was placed in the
Speaker 3: river on the Saturday night. The Sunday, the police start
Speaker 3: rounding everybody who had been at t Nuba house up,
Speaker 3: But it wasn't really until that night and into the
Speaker 3: Monday that they started alleging that almost everyone there had
Speaker 3: somehow been involved. But immediately there's a problem and the
Speaker 3: police make a crucial mistake in their investigation. And the
Speaker 3: first expert that they speak to is someone from boating
Speaker 3: and Fisheries who knows the river very well. And what
Speaker 3: they were looking for this person to do is to
Speaker 3: give them information on how the body would have got
Speaker 3: to where it had been found in the river. You
Speaker 3: would think therefore they were trying to trace backwards to
Speaker 3: where the body had been placed in the river, but
Speaker 3: rather than asking open ended questions, they simply put it
Speaker 3: to this expert that the body had to have been
Speaker 3: placed in the river at Tanuba House and for this
Speaker 3: expert to tell them how that would take place. And
Speaker 3: so the expert gives a statement as to how the
Speaker 3: body would possibly get from this south side to Nuba
Speaker 3: House all the way across to the north side and
Speaker 3: then further downstream and just around the corner, despite there
Speaker 3: being a drag mark parallel to the north side, and
Speaker 3: as we've spoken about in the podcast, all the evidence
Speaker 3: suggests the body was placed in the river on the
Speaker 3: north side, but the police wanted an expert witness to
Speaker 3: tell them how it would have been placed on the
Speaker 3: south side because that would link the people at Tanuba House,
Speaker 3: including Kevin, to the crime. But this is not how
Speaker 3: you conduct an investigation. You don't ask people a leading question,
Speaker 3: especially not an expert, and make assumptions you don't know
Speaker 3: to be fact, they didn't know the body had been
Speaker 3: placed in on the south side. They either simply assumed
Speaker 3: it had because everyone had been at Tanuba House, or
Speaker 3: they wanted it to because they knew for Kevin to
Speaker 3: be charged it had to be placed on Tanuba House.
Speaker 3: So the expert comes up with quite a crazy theory,
Speaker 3: including the movement of Eddi's the tides having to be
Speaker 3: a particular way, whirlpool effects the outflow of the Gaviel Creek,
Speaker 3: all combining with a clockwise whirlpool effect on the surface
Speaker 3: of the water, and goes on and on about these things.
Speaker 3: Now the expert gives this statement and it's quite detailed,
Speaker 3: and again what they're trying to do is assist the
Speaker 3: police because they've been told clearly the body must have
Speaker 3: been placed in the south side. But what the expert
Speaker 3: does at the very end before they're cutoff, is they
Speaker 3: say this the other suggestion which could attribute to the
Speaker 3: position to where the body was found would be that
Speaker 3: the body had simply followed the northern bank prior to
Speaker 3: going around the corner of the river. So here on
Speaker 3: the Monday, less than forty eight hours after the events
Speaker 3: had taken place, the expert who was giving them information
Speaker 3: as to how the body would have got to that
Speaker 3: northern side says, you've told me it's gone in on
Speaker 3: the south side, and they've given their best possible explanation
Speaker 3: of how that could happen, and it's pretty far fetched.
Speaker 3: They decide to end their statement by saying, quite simply,
Speaker 3: it could have just gone in on the north side.
Speaker 3: The police simply ignored that part of the evidence. We
Speaker 3: know for a fact, and by their own admission, they
Speaker 3: never looked at anyone else. They never looked at who
Speaker 3: could have placed the body on the other side of
Speaker 3: the river. So immediately we know that the investigation was
Speaker 3: skewed to catching someone who was at Tanuba House that night,
Speaker 3: because that's where the police had decided, without any information,
Speaker 3: without any of the forensics coming back, without an autopsy,
Speaker 3: without a cause of death, that that's where the body
Speaker 3: had been placed in the river, And so they began
Speaker 3: their whole investigation on a foul assumption.
Speaker 1: Martin. It just seems amazing that the police would simply
Speaker 1: accept such a a strange occurrence to how the body
Speaker 1: would have land up on the north side of the
Speaker 1: bank from the south side. I mean, why didn't police
Speaker 1: just take the assertion that it probably just traveled up
Speaker 1: the north side of the bank.
Speaker 3: Well, they were asked about this in court, and really
Speaker 3: they gave very straightforward answers, which is, once they grabbed Kevin,
Speaker 3: he was their man. And we've spoken about this in
Speaker 3: the podcast before that they really didn't seek to properly
Speaker 3: investigate anyone other than those who had been at tan
Speaker 3: uber House and more specifically Kevin. So even testimony an
Speaker 3: a statement less than forty eight hours after Linda's death
Speaker 3: and her body had been found from an expert, they
Speaker 3: simply ignored that information and that evidence because it didn't
Speaker 3: fit with the person they were going after, and that
Speaker 3: being Kevin Henry. And that clearly bleeds in to the
Speaker 3: rest of their investigation because we know that, as we've
Speaker 3: spoken about in the past, that Duckhart didn't have an alibi,
Speaker 3: and yet the police, when asked on the stand, did
Speaker 3: they bother to check his alibi? They said no, they
Speaker 3: simply took his word for it, despite other witnesses on
Speaker 3: the stand saying his alibi not only didn't stack up,
Speaker 3: but that he was there that night. Now, again, we
Speaker 3: are not at all saying that Duckhart was involved in
Speaker 3: the murder of Linda. What we are saying is that's
Speaker 3: another person who gave evidence that because it didn't fit
Speaker 3: with trying to convict Kevin Henry, it was simply dismissed.
Speaker 1: The other thing I got from the fisheries expert was
Speaker 1: the fact just how much more likely it was that
Speaker 1: the events we now know probably occurred would have happened
Speaker 1: rather than just her body being put in on the
Speaker 1: south side of bank. I mean, it seems very a
Speaker 1: lot more likely again that her body was put in
Speaker 1: on the north side and that it travels other than
Speaker 1: north side. So I mean, it's just another example of
Speaker 1: evidence that could be used for Kevin's innocence.
Speaker 3: That's right. And I think one thing I should point
Speaker 3: out that I think is very critical is that this
Speaker 3: new statement that we have we've only received in the
Speaker 3: last week now. We used historic title records, forensic techniques,
Speaker 3: and other information to determine as part of our investigation
Speaker 3: that the body had been placed in on the north side. Then,
Speaker 3: months after our investigation had determined that, we had witness
Speaker 3: X's statement again something we'd only gotten at that time,
Speaker 3: and it was an eyewitness testimony again that the body
Speaker 3: had been placed on the north side. Now in the
Speaker 3: last ten days we get an expert saying that, yeah,
Speaker 3: it could have been placed on the south side, and
Speaker 3: here are all these things that would have to align
Speaker 3: for that to take place. But in one sentence they
Speaker 3: ended by saying, really, it's more likely that it was
Speaker 3: just simply put in on the north side, and that's
Speaker 3: why it followed the northern bank. So I think you've
Speaker 3: got three things here, which is that an impartial investigation
Speaker 3: that uses science, as we did with the assistance of
Speaker 3: overseas experts, shows the body was placed on the Norise side.
Speaker 3: An eyewitness whose testimony we'd never seen before and those
Speaker 3: assisting us had never seen before, says they saw it
Speaker 3: being placed on the north side, and the police's own
Speaker 3: expert offered that up as the more likely scenario. And
Speaker 3: yet this was totally ignored and never investigated. The police
Speaker 3: did not go to the north side of the river
Speaker 3: and scan the river bank there for evidence, and who
Speaker 3: knows what they could have found had they done so so.
Speaker 1: Martin, it seems that the police's own questioning of their
Speaker 1: fisheries expert shows exactly where they were going with this investigation,
Speaker 1: that they wanted to convict Kevin Henry and they didn't
Speaker 1: work anywhere else for any other suspects. Looking at the
Speaker 1: information we've just uncovered in the past week or so,
Speaker 1: was there any other witness statements that attest to that
Speaker 1: as well?
Speaker 3: There certainly is, And one thing that we've spoken about
Speaker 3: before is the sheer number of statements that were taken
Speaker 3: from single individuals, so that multiple statements. We know Wayne
Speaker 3: Saunders was forced to give up to five statements over
Speaker 3: months and months because quite clearly the police had this
Speaker 3: forensic piece of information that didn't link Kevin Henry to
Speaker 3: the crime. And after this fisheries experts evidence came back,
Speaker 3: there was more evidence that wouldn't link Kevin to the crime.
Speaker 3: The cause of death and the autopsy and the forensic
Speaker 3: work done showed there was no forensic evidence that linked
Speaker 3: Kevin to the crime. No blood his clothes, no mud,
Speaker 3: none of the water stains, all the things we've spoken
Speaker 3: about in the past. So all the forensic evidence pointing
Speaker 3: away from Kevin Henry. And this is where I want
Speaker 3: to bring in another case I've worked on, and a
Speaker 3: case that people who follow perhaps the death penalty, American
Speaker 3: politics and these sort of poor investigations may be familiar with,
Speaker 3: and that is Cameron Todd Willingham. He was a Texan
Speaker 3: man who was executed for burning down his own house
Speaker 3: and that resulted in the death of his children. Now, immediately,
Speaker 3: in that case, the forensic evidence did not point to
Speaker 3: mister Willingham, and some of the evidence was so far
Speaker 3: fetched and so absurd that mister Willingham couldn't be arrested
Speaker 3: straight away. So instead, with all the forensic evidence pointing
Speaker 3: away from the person the police wanted, they turned to
Speaker 3: witnesses who were in prison, and this is what we
Speaker 3: call Jarle House informants. And in that case, there was
Speaker 3: a person by the name of Johnny Webb who testified
Speaker 3: that once Willingham had finally been arrested and was in prison,
Speaker 3: that he'd confessed to this crime that had killed his
Speaker 3: own children, and that he'd told him how he'd done it,
Speaker 3: and he'd told him some of the things that occurred
Speaker 3: now this evidence that this jail house informant gave did
Speaker 3: not match the forensics either, and so in that case,
Speaker 3: the police went back to the forensic experts, some of
Speaker 3: whom would later be imprisoned for giving false testimony, to
Speaker 3: make them change or ask them to change their statements.
Speaker 3: And so if we go to Kevin's case and the
Speaker 3: list of witnesses, almost all the witnesses were interviewed in
Speaker 3: the first week, and that's the first week of September
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one. But many of those witnesses would be
Speaker 3: asked to come back to the police station and give
Speaker 3: more statements, and many were pursued to prison where they
Speaker 3: were being held for some for minor crimes, others for
Speaker 3: outstanding warrants, where they were asked to clarify the comments
Speaker 3: they'd previously made. And many of these new statements were
Speaker 3: given months later. So there's a list in November of
Speaker 3: six more people who gave statements, and these were follow
Speaker 3: up statements. They were asked very specific questions, again only
Speaker 3: relating to Kevin Henry that would help the police circumvent
Speaker 3: the forensic evidence. Now it's quite clear why you don't
Speaker 3: take evidence from what we know as jail house informants
Speaker 3: a there's someone who's in prison, they have nothing to
Speaker 3: gain other than their own freedom, which is often what
Speaker 3: is being bargained for. Now, in the case of Cameron
Speaker 3: Todd Willingham, this witness, who by his own admission, would
Speaker 3: later state that he did perjure himself and that he
Speaker 3: lied about everything Cameron Todd Willingham told him, was assisted
Speaker 3: by the prosecutor of Cameron Todd Willingham to get a
Speaker 3: reduced sentence and an early release on another crime. Now
Speaker 3: we don't know exactly if this has happened in Kevin
Speaker 3: Henry's case, but what we can say is despite many
Speaker 3: of the people who were there that night having extensive
Speaker 3: criminal records, only Kevin Henry went to prison for an
Speaker 3: extended period of time, and that alone is troubling. But
Speaker 3: also what is really troubling is every single one of
Speaker 3: these addendum statements, some that were given just a week
Speaker 3: before Kevin's trial began in April the following year, completely
Speaker 3: contradicted the evidence these people had given just forty eight
Speaker 3: hours after the events had taken place. So what the
Speaker 3: police are asking us to believe is that the statements
Speaker 3: these people gave which were very lengthy and many were
Speaker 3: probably true, weren't accurate because they didn't mention Kevin and
Speaker 3: they didn't point to Kevin. But suddenly, when they're interviewed
Speaker 3: again for the fourth or fifth time, months and months
Speaker 3: after the events, some just a week before Kevin was
Speaker 3: to go on trial, these people were able to give
Speaker 3: information that, while it wouldn't implicate Kevin directly because there
Speaker 3: was no evidence to do so, it would at least
Speaker 3: help not remove the forensic evidence from the record. It
Speaker 3: would try and back it up. And each one of
Speaker 3: these witnesses who had done this, for the most part,
Speaker 3: admitted their lives on the stand and that they had
Speaker 3: given false statements. I'm not going to name the individuals.
Speaker 3: Some are still alive and have been traumatized by these events,
Speaker 3: and we don't know the pressure that was placed on
Speaker 3: them by the police, especially given they had been there
Speaker 3: that night. They may have had nothing whatsoever to do
Speaker 3: with Linda's death. But remember, the police had accused at
Speaker 3: least five people and charged them with various events. Four
Speaker 3: had been charged with murder. Others, like Wayne Saunders, had
Speaker 3: been accused on multiple occasions, even though he had nothing
Speaker 3: to do with the crime. And so these were all
Speaker 3: people under extreme stress, and suddenly, just a week or
Speaker 3: so before the trial, they're changing their statements. So, to
Speaker 3: give an example from Kevin's trial, one of the witnesses
Speaker 3: who gave multiple statements and who changed their statement each time,
Speaker 3: added two particular things. Now they gave these statements well
Speaker 3: after the initial statement and after Kevin had been charged
Speaker 3: with murder, and their final statement was the one that
Speaker 3: was given just a week before Kevin went to trial.
Speaker 3: Two of the things they added, and they were just
Speaker 3: very short addendums to some of their original statements, seemed
Speaker 3: to be to help the police convict Kevin because they're
Speaker 3: directly related to Kevin and directly related to two very
Speaker 3: crucial things that were going to occur at the trial. One,
Speaker 3: of course, is the confession, because that's the only piece
Speaker 3: of evidence that the police had. Now remembering that most
Speaker 3: of this confession was ruled inadmissible by the judge. Now,
Speaker 3: this witness, who was in prison at the time, said
Speaker 3: that they'd heard this confession and stated things that they
Speaker 3: said they'd heard. Now, not only were these things not
Speaker 3: in the confession, the things that this person, this witness,
Speaker 3: this jail house informants say are completely impossible based on
Speaker 3: the evidence, the forensic evidence, so those parts wouldn't even be,
Speaker 3: for the most part, presented in trial other than they'd
Speaker 3: heard this supposed confession. But for the sake of Linda's family,
Speaker 3: I won't say what their particular claim was, but needless
Speaker 3: to say, it could not be substantiated in any way
Speaker 3: by any of the forensic information from the prosecution's own
Speaker 3: forensic witnesses, and it was patently absurd what was said.
Speaker 3: The second thing they added also related to the confession,
Speaker 3: and this was that this witness said, this jailhouse informant
Speaker 3: said that somehow they knew that Kevin was being videotaped
Speaker 3: when he gave his confession. Now, first, there's a problem
Speaker 3: here because because this person can't testify as to what
Speaker 3: Kevin did or didn't know. But more broadly, it didn't
Speaker 3: actually again match up with the facts of the case.
Speaker 3: But again, this was a person trying to assist police
Speaker 3: in inverted commas to point the finger at Kevin Henry.
Speaker 3: And again it was part of this dodgy statement that
Speaker 3: helped a large part of this supposed confession of Kevin
Speaker 3: Henry's be thrown out because again it was just absurd.
Speaker 3: So we have two statements where from the same witness
Speaker 3: so we know was in prison, who we know had
Speaker 3: something to gain, who was released after they gave evidence
Speaker 3: at the trial. So this is a witness who gives
Speaker 3: a statement just forty eight hours after the crime, nothing
Speaker 3: really relating to Kevin or anything that would be helpful,
Speaker 3: and then we're just a week to go before Kevin's trial,
Speaker 3: six months after the events that occurred. Is suddenly trying
Speaker 3: to assist the police. But unfortunately for the police, in
Speaker 3: this attempt, the witness was not capable of coming up
Speaker 3: with anything remotely close to the truth. And not only
Speaker 3: did they contradict their earlier statements, they said things that
Speaker 3: just everyone knew couldn't possibly be true. And this is
Speaker 3: one of the clear flaws of trying to pressure witnesses
Speaker 3: to elicit statements from jailhouse informants. Often what they say
Speaker 3: is just clearly fanciful. But this person did give evidence
Speaker 3: at the trial and was released from prison shortly after.
Speaker 3: Clearly this is a flawed investigation.
Speaker 1: Martin. I know that you said that there was a
Speaker 1: number of witnesses who changed their statement, but do we
Speaker 1: know what sort of motivations would have been behind that,
Speaker 1: why they would have lied in these statements.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think in some cases we do know for sure
Speaker 3: why that they told a lie in those statements, and
Speaker 3: that's because on the stand they say why. So with
Speaker 3: someone like Wayne Saunders in this case, he was being
Speaker 3: threatened by the police. He was in prison at the
Speaker 3: time for a very minor issue, and the police continued
Speaker 3: and continued to harass him. We also know that some
Speaker 3: of the others were facing some minor criminal charges, very
Speaker 3: minor things, and as we know at the time Aboriginal
Speaker 3: people were frequently denied bail, So these were people who
Speaker 3: had committed very, very minor crimes that would normally see
Speaker 3: non Indigenous people out on the street and simply given
Speaker 3: a court notice. But we know that at the time
Speaker 3: the Rockhampton Watchhouse, where people awaiting their own trial, people
Speaker 3: who were on remand were being held, was severely overcrowded,
Speaker 3: so much so that female prisoners were being held with
Speaker 3: male prisoners. This is hugely unacceptable, and that this was
Speaker 3: largely people who had no business being in prison in
Speaker 3: the first place, and that included people who were there
Speaker 3: that night at Tanuba House. They were being held for
Speaker 3: things they either didn't do or didn't need to be
Speaker 3: held on Remand for now, this is such a big
Speaker 3: issue that this is not just something that defense lawyers raise.
Speaker 3: The FBI has its own unit that looks into this
Speaker 3: and has released multiple manuals as to why jailhouse informants
Speaker 3: and people who give multiple statements shouldn't be used or
Speaker 3: should not be taken credibly. And I'll read from the FBI. Remember,
Speaker 3: these are people trying to catch criminals. This are not
Speaker 3: people trying to defend them. Why they say the motivations
Speaker 3: for these statements could be dubious, and why the information
Speaker 3: in them often is They include things like financial reward,
Speaker 3: promise of pre trial, release from custody, withdrawal or dismissal
Speaker 3: of other criminal charges, reductions of sentences, elimination of other
Speaker 3: people that they don't like, revenge. And remember we have
Speaker 3: heard an eyewitness talk about an individual in this case who,
Speaker 3: by their own admission, hated Kevin Henry. Then there's also
Speaker 3: reasons for self preservation, and I think these are quite
Speaker 3: likely to have occurred in this particular case given the
Speaker 3: discrimination Aboriginal people face. And these are fear or harm,
Speaker 3: threat of arrest or charges, threat of incarceration, or people
Speaker 3: who have a desire to enter into the witness protection
Speaker 3: program and need that assistance. The other issue, of course,
Speaker 3: too is that people can have a genuine desire to
Speaker 3: assist law enforcement and they want to help, but as
Speaker 3: the FBI warns, these people who want to help are
Speaker 3: often fared inaccurate information by the police so that their
Speaker 3: statement will match with the police's version of events and
Speaker 3: not the facts and not the forensics. And I think
Speaker 3: it's safe to say we know that that to be
Speaker 3: true from this case, and clearly we're talking about a
Speaker 3: largely vulnerable group who this occurred to, of Aboriginal people.
Speaker 3: Do not forget that the very first witness whose evidence
Speaker 3: was contaminated in this way was the fisheries officer. So
Speaker 3: you have to remember that while people sitting at home
Speaker 3: might think they'd always tell the truth, people often are
Speaker 3: telling what they believe to be the truth, or they
Speaker 3: are trying to assist the police, but the information the
Speaker 3: police provide them often results in them telling a version
Speaker 3: of events that is simply not true.
Speaker 1: Am I just to clarify when we look all up
Speaker 1: at all of the witness statements given, were they any
Speaker 1: given that were first statements original statements that actually incorinated given?
Speaker 3: No. And I think that's one of the most damning
Speaker 3: things about all of this is that no one pointed
Speaker 3: the finger at Kevin early on, particularly in that first week,
Speaker 3: where you would expect those who were eyewitnesses to have,
Speaker 3: if they wanted to assist police, said Kevin Henry did
Speaker 3: it and here's how he did it, and here's why.
Speaker 3: But nobody offered that. And even later on, with all
Speaker 3: these other statements that change, nobody, not a single witness
Speaker 3: was willing to say they saw Kevin Henry commit the crime.
Speaker 3: They would give other statements that might try and assist
Speaker 3: the police, and again we've explained why that might occur,
Speaker 3: but not a single one could bring themselves. Even under
Speaker 3: the possible juress or inducement they were facing, not one
Speaker 3: said they saw Kevin commit the crime. Now, I just
Speaker 3: want to ram home this point again because a new
Speaker 3: documentary highlights this, and it's called Out of Thin Air
Speaker 3: and it's a documentary about a famous double murder case
Speaker 3: in Iceland. So these were skin and an Avian people
Speaker 3: in a very low crime country in the seventies and
Speaker 3: two people went missing, and it was perfectly possible that
Speaker 3: these people were simply missing people and who had died
Speaker 3: in the winter conditions, as something that was quite a
Speaker 3: common occurrence. People would walk out into the snow, sometimes intoxicated.
Speaker 3: But the police honed in on a group of young people,
Speaker 3: just like in this case, they honed in on the
Speaker 3: people from Tanuba House and eventually, under police interrogation, with
Speaker 3: no forensic evidence pointing towards them, Just like no forensic
Speaker 3: evidence pointed to Kevin Henry, these people from Iceland, all
Speaker 3: well educated, confessed not to one but both crimes. The
Speaker 3: evidence would show some forty years later that they did
Speaker 3: not commit those crimes, that they didn't have anything to
Speaker 3: do with them whatsoever, that they weren't even there when
Speaker 3: they occurred. So I really want to ensure that people
Speaker 3: understand that these issues of gratuitous concurrence that we've spoken
Speaker 3: about throughout the podcast that particularly impact on Aboriginal Andora
Speaker 3: Strait Islander people, that these issues of threats and intimidation
Speaker 3: that people face from the police can occur and do
Speaker 3: occur right around the world. And I think if it
Speaker 3: can happen in somewhere like Iceland, where corruption was very low,
Speaker 3: where it happened to people who again were not in
Speaker 3: any way involved, Where it happened to people with a
Speaker 3: high education and no reason where they could be threatened
Speaker 3: for other crimes because they hadn't committed them. And again
Speaker 3: I want to stress this is not a rare occurrence
Speaker 3: in America. Just a few years ago, an African American
Speaker 3: man who spent forty three years in prison was released
Speaker 3: after forty three years and eleven months, primarily because the
Speaker 3: evidence that was used against him were these sort of
Speaker 3: statements where there was no forensics. It was multiple statements,
Speaker 3: some given by jailhouse informants, some just like Kevin's, given
Speaker 3: just before he went to trial, and finally he has
Speaker 3: been released. So this is something that happens around the world,
Speaker 3: and Australians need to wake up to the fact that
Speaker 3: it could and probably has happened right under their noses.
Speaker 3: What we're claiming is not controversial. In fact, it happened
Speaker 3: so often that the FBI, the largest law enforcement agent
Speaker 3: in the world, has drawn up a manual explaining why
Speaker 3: it happens and why police themselves should ensure it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: So it seems Kevin's case is not an isolated one.
Speaker 1: It seems there are a lot of similarities with overseas
Speaker 1: instances of these sorts of abuses of witness statements. Beyond
Speaker 1: what you've outlined already in this week's episode. Is it
Speaker 1: possible that there was any more of those instances in
Speaker 1: Kennan's case.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, As we've seen in America with the Innocence Project,
Speaker 3: hundreds of people have been exonerated, some just hours before
Speaker 3: they were executed. In the case of Kevin Henry, not
Speaker 3: only is there these issues that we've raised today, there
Speaker 3: are some that we've uncovered that will shock this investigation
Speaker 3: to its core.
Speaker 1: She tuned for next week's episode of Curtain, the podcast