Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: absolutely really pallant.
Speaker 1: Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged attemp.
Speaker 2: A Shelley mud bank and it fits through a river.
Speaker 1: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 1: 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 3: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the
Speaker 3: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 3: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 3: 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: Today, I'm pleased to announce that my government is going
Speaker 1: to inject two hundred million dollars into this region for
Speaker 1: the expansion of the Capricornia Correctional Center. What this means
Speaker 1: is jobs, jobs, and more jobs. They'll be over one
Speaker 1: hundred jobs a year for the next five years in
Speaker 1: the construction and seventy ongoing operational jobs. This capital injection
Speaker 1: is important. We could have chosen to expand a correctional
Speaker 1: facility in the southeast of our state, but we know
Speaker 1: the regions need the jobs and they need these construction
Speaker 1: jobs now. I have asked the Minister for Corrective Services,
Speaker 1: Mark Ryan, to bring forward construction on this project to
Speaker 1: start this year. He is going to pull out all
Speaker 1: stops to ensure that we can hit the ground running
Speaker 1: when it comes to this project.
Speaker 3: That was Queensland Premier Anastasia Palaschet who was in Rackampton
Speaker 3: earlier this week and announced it two hundred million dollar
Speaker 3: expansion of the Capricorni a correctional facility here in Rockampden,
Speaker 3: now Martin. This is actually the jail that Kevin Henry
Speaker 3: has spent the majority of a sentence, isn't it.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: You spent a little bit of time down in southern Queensland,
Speaker 4: but for the most part for more than twenty five years,
Speaker 4: this is the prison where he's been incarcerated and to
Speaker 4: see their attention turn to it this week is quite disturbing,
Speaker 4: to be honest, when we see that there's no real
Speaker 4: effort in any of what's been announced to talk about rehabilitation,
Speaker 4: why the prison numbers may be growing, any of those
Speaker 4: sort of issues. It's just all the talk is build
Speaker 4: a bigger prison, and it.
Speaker 3: Seems to be framed around selling it to the local
Speaker 3: population because of job creation. So, I mean, it seems
Speaker 3: even worse than that in the way that they're using
Speaker 3: this narrative to frame it just around jobs rather than
Speaker 3: rehabilitation or the facts that we need to fundamentally look
Speaker 3: at our imprisonment rates.
Speaker 4: Well, that's exactly right, and I think the biggest irony
Speaker 4: in all of this is the selling point is that
Speaker 4: it will create one hundred and seventy jobs, but it
Speaker 4: will also create one hundred and sixty four new cells.
Speaker 4: So we've basically got a one to one ratio. For
Speaker 4: every new job they're creating, they're going to be locking
Speaker 4: up one more person. And I think that's a pretty
Speaker 4: appalling state of affairs when a government is looking to
Speaker 4: sell a job's package to a regional community, but the
Speaker 4: end result is that the exact same number of people
Speaker 4: will end up in prison. Now, the prison is slightly
Speaker 4: over capacity at the moment, but we know there's people
Speaker 4: like Kevin Henry, who simply don't belong in that prison.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure there's others who either have not had
Speaker 4: their parole granted when they should have, who are perhaps
Speaker 4: on remand when they shouldn't be. So we've had no
Speaker 4: look at why the prison is overpopulated at present. Instead,
Speaker 4: they're just going to add on new cells. And when
Speaker 4: you add one hundred and sixty four new cells, you
Speaker 4: better believe the aim will be to fill them. And
Speaker 4: I think that is deeply problematic. That jails don't sit empty.
Speaker 4: They're generally always overcrowded if they're new, and so the
Speaker 4: concern is will judges in the area start sending people
Speaker 4: to prison who have no place in the prison system.
Speaker 3: It's also very interesting when you consider that a lot
Speaker 3: of what we're talking about on the current podcast actually
Speaker 3: revolves around what was happening in rock Hampden in the nineties,
Speaker 3: and around that time there was a lot of bad
Speaker 3: things happening at Rockampton Jail. It was often in the media,
Speaker 3: but it shows that nothing much has changed over the
Speaker 3: twenty five years that Kevin Henry has been imprisoned, and
Speaker 3: that seems to be very scary. Would you agree Mardin Absolutely.
Speaker 4: I think that those issues were raised. As you say,
Speaker 4: at the time, it was well known of the many
Speaker 4: problems that were going on. We had people spending a
Speaker 4: long time in the watchhouse. We know of one particular
Speaker 4: woman at the time who spent five months in the
Speaker 4: watchhouse because there was no room in a prison and
Speaker 4: she was in with males, no access really to separate
Speaker 4: showering facilities at the prison itself. We had a lot
Speaker 4: of issues and there's been no attempt to address that
Speaker 4: a quarter of a century ago, and so rather than
Speaker 4: address the underlying problems, we're just going back to an
Speaker 4: issue of expanding the prisons. And I think we only
Speaker 4: need to look America as to what happens when you
Speaker 4: build bigger prisons, you end up with the biggest prison
Speaker 4: population on Earth.
Speaker 3: I was just going to compare it to your work
Speaker 3: in America, because obviously there's a real problem around the
Speaker 3: prison industrial complex over there is things like this, Announcements
Speaker 3: like this show that it's very much the same in
Speaker 3: Queensland and around the country, that we're becoming more and
Speaker 3: more like America.
Speaker 4: I think that's absolutely right, and I think the way
Speaker 4: it was framed in the selling of it to the public,
Speaker 4: that this was a major job announcement. That was the
Speaker 4: headline on the press release. That it says nothing about corrections, rehabilitation,
Speaker 4: reducing crime rates, assisting victims. It's purely about creating jobs
Speaker 4: to lock people up. And that is that prison industrial complex,
Speaker 4: is that this is the creation of money on the
Speaker 4: back of jailing people, many of whom don't belong in prison.
Speaker 4: One thing we know for sure comparing Australia and America
Speaker 4: is that minorities, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and are disadvantaged.
Speaker 4: And in Australia that is absolutely Aboriginal people will always
Speaker 4: be overrepresented in the prison population. So it's fair to
Speaker 4: say that with one hundred and sixty four new cells
Speaker 4: being created, at least eighty of those people will be
Speaker 4: Aboriginal people. And right now we have to remember that
Speaker 4: these are people who have not yet committed a crime.
Speaker 4: So if they're to commit a crime, it's maybe a
Speaker 4: very small offense. The pressure will beyond judges to fill
Speaker 4: these cells. Now people will say, well, no, judges will
Speaker 4: do the right thing, and we heard the premiere announce
Speaker 4: that it'll be up to the judges as to where
Speaker 4: they send people, but we know that's just not how
Speaker 4: it works. And we see in America where judges across
Speaker 4: the country were under quite severe pressure to fill the
Speaker 4: jails as fast as possible because those jobs, those one
Speaker 4: hundred and seventy jobs that are supposedly being created, they
Speaker 4: don't exist unless there's people too secure. A prison is
Speaker 4: much like a hotel, but it's got one hundred percent occupancy,
Speaker 4: and those jobs exist because there's people inside who need
Speaker 4: cooking for, cleaning for, and predominantly guarding. So I think
Speaker 4: this is a very worrying development. And again, as you
Speaker 4: opened with, it goes back to the issue that twenty
Speaker 4: five years later, no attempt is being made to rectify
Speaker 4: any of the problems that exist. In fact, they've all
Speaker 4: been ignored to make some money and sell what is
Speaker 4: obviously an election pitch to the people of Rockhampton, which
Speaker 4: is one hundred and seventy jobs, without a single mention
Speaker 4: of the damage it'll do to the area.
Speaker 3: So you did mention the issue of parole, and a
Speaker 3: lot of people probably still in prison in rock Hampden
Speaker 3: who've had their par knocked that, particularly original people we've
Speaker 3: mentioned before on this podcast that we're currently waiting for
Speaker 3: the outcome of Kevin's own parole date. Can you talk
Speaker 3: a little bit about that what we're waiting on.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: So we're waiting on a decision from the parole board
Speaker 4: as to whether Kevin will be granted parole, and that
Speaker 4: depends on an application that was filed about three weeks ago.
Speaker 4: The decision will either come back in favor of parole
Speaker 4: that we'll see Kevin moved into the community with a
Speaker 4: transition period, or there'll be a knockback, and that will
Speaker 4: mean that Kevin will spend further time in prison. And
Speaker 4: I think connecting it back to the issue of what's
Speaker 4: happening at Rockhampton Prison is that one of the reasons
Speaker 4: there is overcrowding is there's people who are not getting
Speaker 4: parole who have served their full sentence. And Kevin Henry
Speaker 4: is one of those people that he has served his
Speaker 4: entire sentence. And remember that's despite the fact I'll personally
Speaker 4: say that I don't believe he committed the crime, and
Speaker 4: he maintains his innocence twenty five years later, and yet
Speaker 4: he could face the prospect of spending even further than
Speaker 4: what the judge sentenced him to a longer period, and
Speaker 4: I think this is just unacceptable. But we'll wait and
Speaker 4: see and hear what that decision is.
Speaker 2: Money.
Speaker 3: You just mentioned that Kevin Henry has pretty much served
Speaker 3: as time, and yet we are facing the prospects that
Speaker 3: he could go over and then he could have his
Speaker 3: parole knocked back. I mean, how is that possible if
Speaker 3: he has already served his time for a crime even
Speaker 3: though he says he didn't.
Speaker 4: Commit Well, I think the understanding in the general community
Speaker 4: is that you do the crime, you do the time.
Speaker 4: Now in this case, obviously we're suggesting that there's a
Speaker 4: lot of evidence to suggest Kevin Henry did not commit
Speaker 4: the crime and that he is maintaining his innocence. But
Speaker 4: he has already served beyond the sentence that the judge
Speaker 4: handed down, but to be released, it's up to the
Speaker 4: parole boat to grant that release. So Kevin's life is
Speaker 4: effectively in the hands of the parole board and until
Speaker 4: they give the green light that he is to be released,
Speaker 4: then he can continue to serve time that far exceeds
Speaker 4: what the judge initially handed down at the trial. I
Speaker 4: think that should be concerning to everyone in the community,
Speaker 4: a that there is a misunderstanding that once you've done
Speaker 4: the crime, you're released, but also that parole is dependent
Speaker 4: on a board of people who we don't know a
Speaker 4: lot about, where the ability for someone to challenge any
Speaker 4: decision is quite limited and often depends on the resources
Speaker 4: available to that person. And if you've been in prison
Speaker 4: for twenty five years, the reality is you have access
Speaker 4: to virtually no resources and more than likely nothing, and
Speaker 4: so you're at the whim of those who would assist
Speaker 4: you in trying to get parrale. Now, if you're from
Speaker 4: a more well off family or from a higher level
Speaker 4: of society, then that becomes much easier, But particularly for
Speaker 4: the Aboriginal community, I think we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 4: Indigenous prisoners serve longer than they should, whether they did
Speaker 4: or didn't do the crime, purely because their ability to
Speaker 4: file applications for parole and challenge any negative decisions is very,
Speaker 4: very limited, and I don't think there's any justice in that.
Speaker 3: Now, as we continue to wait for the outcome of
Speaker 3: Kemmen's parole hearing what we've been getting quite a lot
Speaker 3: of feedback from you the audience about this case. Martin,
Speaker 3: what would you say, are the common questions that are
Speaker 3: coming back to you.
Speaker 4: I think there's, obviously, given what we've laid out, a
Speaker 4: great deal of concern as to whether Kevin is guilty
Speaker 4: or not. And I have to say that everybody who's
Speaker 4: contacted me personally, and that's been through all levels of
Speaker 4: social media, to people in the legal fraternity, I think
Speaker 4: most people believe that a Kevin didn't get a fair
Speaker 4: trial and that there's no way he should have been
Speaker 4: found guilty based on the evidence presented. And I think
Speaker 4: that's pretty obvious given that no forensic evidence was presented
Speaker 4: against Kevin that links him to the crime. So I
Speaker 4: guess that leads us to the big question that a
Speaker 4: lot of people are asking, which is that if Kevin
Speaker 4: didn't do the crime, who did.
Speaker 3: We brought our listeners a number of names that had
Speaker 3: come up during the trial, a lot of evidence and
Speaker 3: leads that the police had simply failed to investigate. But
Speaker 3: there was one name that can tinually popped up, the
Speaker 3: name of Willy West. And yet there didn't seem to
Speaker 3: be any follow through from that. Did they mardin? How
Speaker 3: did the name Willy West keep popping up?
Speaker 4: Well? I think the name Willy West comes up in
Speaker 4: a number of ways. Firstly, his name was raised in
Speaker 4: statements by those who were present on the day. Now
Speaker 4: we can't tell for sure whether a statement was taken
Speaker 4: from Willy West on the stand. Officer Girk says that
Speaker 4: he didn't take a statement. It's possible another officer did,
Speaker 4: but that it's also possible that an officer didn't take
Speaker 4: a statement from this individual, Willy West. But I think
Speaker 4: what's most important about his name is that the four
Speaker 4: defense attorneys were very clear to honing on him in
Speaker 4: particular and other names, but to raise the name of
Speaker 4: Willy West as to why police hadn't investigated him. Further,
Speaker 4: we know that all the other people who were down
Speaker 4: at Tanuba that night gave statements, almost all of them
Speaker 4: gave multiple statements. Many of them were called and testified
Speaker 4: in Kevin's trial. But this name Willy West continued to
Speaker 4: come up, and I think the answers the police gave
Speaker 4: as well lead to a lot of concern as to
Speaker 4: why he wasn't spoken to. He was drinking with duck
Speaker 4: Hart that day. It's believed he was there later on
Speaker 4: in the evening, So this was someone coming and going
Speaker 4: from Tanuba, and unlike everyone else, there doesn't seem to
Speaker 4: be any accounting for his movements that day, and there
Speaker 4: seems to be no effort on the police's behalf to
Speaker 4: trace his movements, even if it was simply to rule
Speaker 4: him out. I think that's one thing that I'm personally
Speaker 4: very critical of the police in this matter, for is
Speaker 4: you have thirty or so people who were at Tanuba,
Speaker 4: you had a number of people coming and going, and
Speaker 4: you had the people at the camp further up. Now,
Speaker 4: those names were all known to police, and a proper
Speaker 4: investigation would go through those names one by one and
Speaker 4: rule them out, whether that person have an hour by
Speaker 4: whether there was any evidence linking them to the crime,
Speaker 4: whether their name had come up in other statements as
Speaker 4: to what people saw. But despite the fact that Willie
Speaker 4: West's name came up, and it came up quite forcefully
Speaker 4: at the trial, with the defense lawyers pushing his name,
Speaker 4: police had made no effort at all to ascertain who
Speaker 4: he was, what he was up to that day, and
Speaker 4: if he was involved. And if they had done that,
Speaker 4: they certainly weren't mentioning it at trial. So either they didn't,
Speaker 4: and that would be negligent or they did look into
Speaker 4: Willy West and for whatever reason, chose not to give
Speaker 4: those answers a trial.
Speaker 3: What do we know about Willy West? Do we know
Speaker 3: if he was actually a witness to the assault on
Speaker 3: Linda that night?
Speaker 4: We can't be one hundred percent certain. And one of
Speaker 4: the reasons we can't be is that the witness statements
Speaker 4: changed quite a bit. And as we heard from Wayne
Speaker 4: Saunders on the stand that the police chased him up
Speaker 4: until he'd given around five statements. Now, there's only one
Speaker 4: reason you do that, and that is because the police
Speaker 4: are hoping he would say things that would further implicate Kevin,
Speaker 4: because Kevin was the person he was they were going after.
Speaker 4: But Wayne was quite clear in that he just wasn't
Speaker 4: going to change his statement. But we don't know if
Speaker 4: others did. So many of the witness statements. In the
Speaker 4: initial statements individuals gave. Many of those people didn't even
Speaker 4: mention Kevin, and if they did, it was just to
Speaker 4: say he was there. Now, when they gave their second statements,
Speaker 4: third and fourth and fifth statements after Kevin had been charged,
Speaker 4: suddenly a number of them, only a couple, particularly the
Speaker 4: co accused, launched into the fact that somehow even may
Speaker 4: have been involved or mentioning Kevin's name, at least more
Speaker 4: than they had previously. So what we'll never know is
Speaker 4: what did these people say about Willie West in their
Speaker 4: initial statements? In fact, what did they say about other people?
Speaker 4: Because there's a number of other people who didn't have
Speaker 4: alibis who were raised as potential suspects. We know of
Speaker 4: an individual who a lawyer went to police saying that
Speaker 4: their client had confessed, and these individuals just weren't followed
Speaker 4: up on. But again, we just don't know what was
Speaker 4: in those early statements given by witnesses because the police
Speaker 4: were very keen to focus in what they knew and
Speaker 4: saw about Kevin Henry and nothing else.
Speaker 3: The thing that keeps coming up for me why did
Speaker 3: they choose Kevin to target? Because if they were able
Speaker 3: to sort of look around a bit further, surely they
Speaker 3: would have found those other suspects and could have easily
Speaker 3: found people who had a lot more you know, incriminating
Speaker 3: evidence against them, because it seemed to be a lot
Speaker 3: more suspects that you know, we're a lot more evidence
Speaker 3: against them than Kevin. So why do you think they
Speaker 3: would have targeted Kevin and not full up a lot
Speaker 3: of these leads. It just seems very strange.
Speaker 4: Well, I think the simple and obvious answer is bad
Speaker 4: police work. I just don't think there's any way the
Speaker 4: police can argue they did a decent and start a
Speaker 4: job in this matter. I think the other problem that
Speaker 4: Kevin had clearly that his first statement was taken when
Speaker 4: he was intoxicated, and so he doesn't really know what
Speaker 4: he said, and we don't really know what he said.
Speaker 4: But he made the statement about calling you any ambulance
Speaker 4: and that turned out not to be correct. But for
Speaker 4: whatever reason, the police, by their own admission in court
Speaker 4: under oath, state that from the day they arrested and
Speaker 4: charged Kevin on the fifth of September, before an official
Speaker 4: cause of death had been returned from the forensic scientists,
Speaker 4: they focused on Kevin and no one else. And I
Speaker 4: think whatever their motive was for picking Kevin out, everything
Speaker 4: from that from then on in their investigation is tainted
Speaker 4: by the fact their eyes were closed. They were purely
Speaker 4: searching for information that would link Kevin to the crime
Speaker 4: and nothing else, which means missing all the evidence that
Speaker 4: could have potentially pointed to other people. And what we
Speaker 4: know they uncovered about Kevin is absolutely nothing. And part
Speaker 4: of that is because they charged him before the cause
Speaker 4: of death came back, so not a single shred of
Speaker 4: forensic evidence points to Kevin Henry. And when you've got
Speaker 4: your blinkers on as investigating officers and you've chosen one
Speaker 4: person to focus on, not only do you get it
Speaker 4: wrong because you're missing everything else that's going on around you.
Speaker 4: The very person you've targeted, if they are innocent. The
Speaker 4: result will be that you do not find anything, which
Speaker 4: is exactly what happened with Kevin. And that meant that
Speaker 4: much of the information that related to other individuals who
Speaker 4: should have been or worse suspects early on was completely missed,
Speaker 4: was never followed up on, and it gave time for
Speaker 4: people to get their story straight, to leave town under
Speaker 4: the blanket of protection provided by the police who'd failed
Speaker 4: in their duty to investigate this thoroughly. And I think
Speaker 4: not only was an injustice committed against Kevin Henry, but
Speaker 4: that Linda had every right to justice. As an Aboriginal woman,
Speaker 4: she was the most vulnerable person in society at the time.
Speaker 4: An Aboriginal women remained the most vulnerable people in our
Speaker 4: society today, and yet the police made no effort to
Speaker 4: investigate thoroughly. All they did was pick one individual out
Speaker 4: and leave out any of these other people. So all
Speaker 4: these names that our listeners are asking us about. When
Speaker 4: our listeners say, if Kevin didn't do it, who, I
Speaker 4: think we have to start with the question of why
Speaker 4: did Linda not get justice? And that's because the police
Speaker 4: didn't do their job. And who are these other people?
Speaker 4: And why don't we know more? And again that is
Speaker 4: because the police didn't investigate properly, and that's why we
Speaker 4: don't know more about them. But we can say that
Speaker 4: we've been looking as who these people are and we'll
Speaker 4: be able to reveal more in the future. But I
Speaker 4: hope that begins to answer for our listeners as to
Speaker 4: why there is some confusion, and that it's actually okay
Speaker 4: to be confused by these names because the clarity should
Speaker 4: have been provided by the police. And if you are
Speaker 4: confused about all these names that have been raised, then
Speaker 4: your disgruntlement should be with those investigating officers who could
Speaker 4: ruled these people in or out but didn't do their job.
Speaker 3: Does it go beyond bad police work and just basically
Speaker 3: you know failing to follow up certain leads, because I
Speaker 3: can imagine some of our audience are wondering if there
Speaker 3: was perhaps something deliberate in the way the police acted,
Speaker 3: whether they were trying to cover certain things up. And
Speaker 3: I think that's probably based on other people's experiences with
Speaker 3: police and law in other parts of Australia.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's definitely right. I think from the
Speaker 4: Aboriginal community in particular, in the twenty five years Kevin's
Speaker 4: been in prison, four hundred Aboriginal and Terrestrada Island, the
Speaker 4: people have died at the hands of police and corrective services.
Speaker 4: So I think that alone raises a great deal of
Speaker 4: suspicion about the motives and actions of police. We also
Speaker 4: know that it's not an Aboriginal person in Australia who
Speaker 4: hasn't had either bad dealings personally with the police themselves
Speaker 4: or someone in their family or circle of friends, and
Speaker 4: that further creates that ill trust. And we know for
Speaker 4: a fact, and it came out twenty five odd years
Speaker 4: ago from the Royal Commission into Black Debts in custody.
Speaker 4: It's come out subsequently in media investigations that there is
Speaker 4: a very good reason why Aboriginal people have this deep
Speaker 4: mistrust of the police, is that in so many cases,
Speaker 4: the wrong people have been imprisoned, people have been killed
Speaker 4: at the hands of police, and no one's ever been
Speaker 4: held accountable, and that people have been questioned in more
Speaker 4: than an inappropriate fashion by police. I think it's no
Speaker 4: stretch to say there's been a lot of plaints and
Speaker 4: also just a lot of discussion around the fact that
Speaker 4: people are often roughed up, people are often accused of
Speaker 4: committing crimes they simply didn't do. People are taken the
Speaker 4: long way back to the police station, threatened, and all
Speaker 4: sorts of things that is really not what the majority
Speaker 4: of the community face from the police. I think if
Speaker 4: you've ever been pulled over for a speeding ticket or
Speaker 4: something similar and felt like you've been given a hard time,
Speaker 4: multiply that by a minion and you start to get
Speaker 4: an idea of what the Indigenous community goes through. So
Speaker 4: I think a lot of our Indigenous listeners around the
Speaker 4: country will be not just disappointed and skeptical of the
Speaker 4: fact that the police did a poor job, but also
Speaker 4: wondering if there was more to it than that. And
Speaker 4: I think that's been the feedback as well from the
Speaker 4: legal fraternity is that names were presented to the officers investigating,
Speaker 4: and by their own admission, they chose not to follow
Speaker 4: them up. Now I'll mention the name duck Hart again,
Speaker 4: and it's not a name I want to stress too
Speaker 4: much other than the fact it's very revealing to the
Speaker 4: police investigation, which is that when Officer Gurk was presented
Speaker 4: with the fact that Duckhart's alibi simply didn't check out,
Speaker 4: the way he investigated that fact was simply to ask
Speaker 4: duck about his alibia. Now that's not investigative work. You
Speaker 4: don't simply ask someone to confirm if their alibi is
Speaker 4: or isen true when holes have been punched in it.
Speaker 4: Now duck confirmed his alibim which other state were not true,
Speaker 4: and in the words of the officer, that was good enough.
Speaker 4: So I think people have a right to be suspicious
Speaker 4: as to whether police were doing their job. We also
Speaker 4: know that it wasn't just the people of Tanuba who
Speaker 4: were raising concerns. The local legal fraternity were. In fact,
Speaker 4: as we've mentioned a number of times, a local lawyer
Speaker 4: went to police and set a client of his confess
Speaker 4: to the crime. That individual was never interviewed, was never
Speaker 4: looked into, and was never examined in any way. Now,
Speaker 4: that might just be sloppy police work, but I think
Speaker 4: you could certainly forgive people for raising serious concerns and
Speaker 4: questioning whether something darker was going on at the time
Speaker 4: that here you had a murder of a woman whose
Speaker 4: body was put into a river. A lawyer comes to
Speaker 4: the investigating officers and says, my client says he did
Speaker 4: the crime, and that person is never spoken to. Now,
Speaker 4: that's some of the worst police work you'll ever hear of,
Speaker 4: or something worse is going on, and I can certainly
Speaker 4: understand why so many of our listeners are coming to
Speaker 4: that conclusion. And the police only have themselves to blame
Speaker 4: if they feel that their names are being sullied. They
Speaker 4: simply should have done their job and they didn't.
Speaker 3: We're still currently investigating what we've told you today, and
Speaker 3: we hope to provide more clarity in the future. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: because the police did such a bad job in this case,
Speaker 3: we've been forced to go back and do what the
Speaker 3: police failed to do. But for now, we've had more feedback,
Speaker 3: particularly amongst the Aboriginal community around the country, in relation
Speaker 3: to Kevin Henry's case, Mardin. What has actually been the feedback,
Speaker 3: particularly from the Aboriginal community just recently, Well, I think.
Speaker 4: We've just gone through the Invasion Day and the big
Speaker 4: protests that were a huge success around the country, and
Speaker 4: I think on the broader issue of Invasion Day, we
Speaker 4: saw huge numbers turn out around the country. But relating
Speaker 4: to Curtin the podcast and Kevin Henry front and center
Speaker 4: at the Brisbane march on Invasion Day was a huge
Speaker 4: banner for Kevin Henry and we have to thank Gwen
Speaker 4: Stanley and her partner for what they've done and all
Speaker 4: those who assisted in that. We also had statements read
Speaker 4: in Brisbane and at other protests around the country in
Speaker 4: support of Kevin Henry and the community using this day
Speaker 4: of protest and using this day that highlights the injustice
Speaker 4: more than two hundred years of genocide, mass incarceration, theft
Speaker 4: of land, children being removed from their families, stripped away
Speaker 4: from their families, that the community on their own back
Speaker 4: chose to highlight the case of Kevin Henry. And I
Speaker 4: think Kevin's case, like a number of others like Dylan Volors,
Speaker 4: I think highlights the general concern and it's a real
Speaker 4: concern that a huge number of Indigenous people are in
Speaker 4: prison who are innocent, who shouldn't be there, and the
Speaker 4: community is clearly rallying behind Kevin, and we saw that
Speaker 4: with the speeches that were made on Kevin's Behalf, the
Speaker 4: banners that were flown, and the curtain the podcast banner
Speaker 4: that was raised on the day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was amazing seeing a lot of
Speaker 3: those images and seeing a lot of media covering it,
Speaker 3: particularly on social media. I guess we're seeing all the
Speaker 3: photos and in the middle of that big mass of
Speaker 3: people walking across the bridge in Brisbane was that big
Speaker 3: Justice for Kevin Henry sign. I think it was really important.
Speaker 3: And if our listeners want to see those photos up
Speaker 3: on our Facebook page and you'll be able to see
Speaker 3: what a lot of Aboriginal more particularly in Queensland, are
Speaker 3: starting to rise up in support of Kevin Henry because
Speaker 3: they feel that a grave injustice has happened up here
Speaker 3: and they want to get behind it and support him.
Speaker 3: So I think it was really really good to see
Speaker 3: that happening.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I think for Kevin to know that that's going on,
Speaker 4: I think he's a great link to the outside community,
Speaker 4: and I think one of the reasons the community is
Speaker 4: rallying around Kevin is that it's not just what this
Speaker 4: podcast has highlighted about the real fact there's no evidence
Speaker 4: linking Kevin to the crime. It's that all Indigenous people
Speaker 4: have had this experience and have had to battle the
Speaker 4: legal system and with a deep and traumatic understanding of
Speaker 4: being the most imprisoned people on the face of the earth.
Speaker 4: And so I think to see that commitment, that passion,
Speaker 4: it was a beautiful thing to see. There was far
Speaker 4: more Aboriginal people and Torres Straight Island to people out
Speaker 4: on that day than there was anyone celebrating Australia Day.
Speaker 4: And I think we saw a real changing, I hope,
Speaker 4: in the history of that day, where it really was
Speaker 4: a day that highlighted the injustices that have gone on
Speaker 4: and as Kevin's case highlights an injustice that continues. And
Speaker 4: I think once again we can only be really proud
Speaker 4: of all the mob that marched that day and what
Speaker 4: they did and said.
Speaker 3: So support continues to grow all around the country and
Speaker 3: even internationally for Kevin Henry or Curtin. Now we'll continue
Speaker 3: to bring you updates over the next few weeks and
Speaker 3: we'll continue to investigate this case, but right now we're
Speaker 3: waiting on the outcome of Kevin's parole hearing, and we'll
Speaker 3: bring that to you as soon as possible. For now,
Speaker 3: you can go back on www. Dot Curtain thepodcast dot
Speaker 3: com and listen to earlier episodes, and follow us on
Speaker 3: Facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 4: And keep sending us your questions, keep sending us your feedback.
Speaker 4: We really appreciate listeners taking the time to look at
Speaker 4: the case themselves, and make no mistake, we're investigating this
Speaker 4: case every day and there is a lot more that
Speaker 4: we will reveal in episodes. Tune in next week for
Speaker 4: Curtain to hear more